Valet Reader

LA, it had been too long. Then again my quick trip to your town was all too quick. After flying in Saturday midday and flying out again Sunday in late afternoon I didn’t get up to much. Although I did get to have dinner with my family and surprise my sister to celebrate her engagement. Oh, I also had the pleasure of going to Best Fish Tacos in Ensenada (which is obviously not in Ensenada), The Grove/Farmers Market, Larkin’s and the 8oz. Burger Bar. I had never been to any of these places and was very pleasantly surprised. Lets see, fish tacos for 1.50 speak for themselves, the Farmers Market cause it reminded me of  Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, Larkin’s for their great southern food and amazing deserts and finally 8oz. for their burgers and awesome bloody mary’s (yes, mine involved bacon and no I’m not a vegetarian).

Another very quick very brief observation I made while there was that there are a lot people in LA who probably call themselves hipsters. I would like to see them have a battle royale with the people in SF who call themselves hipsters. After which the winner of that battle can go on to battle the Brooklyn people who call themselves hipsters. Wow, crazy idea developing… this could lead to a new a website.

More than anything though it was nice to just get away from SF. Oh and I finally got to meet my sister’s new puppy, Birdie. She and her cousin, my brother’s dog Charlie, have yet to become the incredible friends they should, everyone is fairly confident it will come with time. They did both endure a grueling hike (for them) in Griffith Park that was really nice.

Ok, none of that was book related at all, and guess what, I don’t care. Here’s what you really came for (although that’s entirely arguable):

Monday, February 1st
@ 7pm
- Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl, authors, will talk about and sign copies of their book Beautiful Creatures at Vroman’s. I don’t know much about the book, but from what little I read it sounds like it could be pretty interesting. Something about nightmares coming true, secrets and the like. Who knows. Someone go check this one out for me.

Tuesday, February 2nd
@ 7pm
- Ozzy Osbourne, musician, reality tv weirdo and apparent author, will be signing and hopefully singing (ok, not really hoping for it) his book I Am Ozzy at Book Soup. I’m up in the air on this one, would it be worth going to, will they have a translator? If you’re fan, you should be there, who knows maybe his messed up children or his wife Sharrrrrrrron will be there. Oh, and don’t even thinking about bringing anything other than a copy of the book bought from Book Soup to the signing, cause they aren’t having it!

Wednesday, February 3rd
@ 7pm
- Garth Stein, author, will be signing copies of his incredibly good book The Art of Racing in the Rain at Diesel, the bookstore, not the metro mans clothing shop, in Brentwood. I truly enjoyed this book and would really like to hear Mr. Stein speak about the book in person. I’d really like to know where the inspiration and the idea of writing the book from the perspective which he did came from. Go to this one for me please, thank you.

Thursday, February 4th
@ 730pm
- Joshua Ferris, author, will be reading from and signing copies of his latest work, The Unnamed, at Skylight Books. Prior to today (Sunday) I actually had no idea that Mr. Ferris had written another book, his first being Then We Came to the End, which is a hilarious book. At the airport today I was actually scouring the various book sellers to find a copy of the The Unnamed because I’m pretty anxious and desperate to read it, but wasn’t able to find it. I don’t expect Unnamed to be anything like his first novel, I’m still clearly excited about this one.

Thursday, February 4th
@ 7pm
- Walter Kirn, author, will be signing copies of his book Up in the Air at Book Soup. You, like me, probably had no idea this book existed prior to the George Clooney o fest movie that was just released. I haven’t seen it and frankly I’m not sure I will. Not that I don’t want to. Anyways, I think this could be a pretty interesting discussion. You know maybe hear about the book to movie process. I could just be saying that though, maybe the royalties from the movie didn’t really pay off and he’s gone on tour to milk some more money out of the post movie popularity. Hey, can’t blame the guy if that’s the case.

Saturday, February 6th
@ 1pm
- Anne Rice, author and possible vampire, will be signing copies of her book Angel Time: The Songs of the Seraphim which is the first book in her latest romantic book series at Vroman’s. I’m not going to lie, this book would not draw me to this signing. The fact that she wrote Interview With a Vampire alone would make the trip to Vroman’s worth my time. Although the whole romance series thing does kind of scare me. I wonder what sort of people go to that kind of signing, hmm. And Anne Rice looks like such a nice lady, who knew she could come up with all these gnarly but rad stories, excluding the romantic stuff.

Damn, looks like I should have stayed in LA this week you all got a lot going on. Check it out, cause I can’t.