Your favorite L.A. book runoff: Last chance to vote

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It seemed so easy: Ask what your favorite L.A. book was on Twitter and compile the responses for a simple online vote. But when the answers came in, there were 88 titles in all. So we’re having a runoff. Have you voted yet?

We divided the list into three online polls. They’ll close today, Monday, at noon:

Round One: Authors John Fante, James Ellroy, Michael Connelly and more, with multiple books in the running. Pick one from each writer.

Round Two: Nonfiction, in which ‘City of Quartz’ faces off against ‘Helter Skelter’

Round Three: Strange fiction fellows: Nathanael West, Ross Macdonald and Octavia Butler

That would be noon Pacific time -- we’re talking Los Angeles, after all. Then the biggest vote-getters will go into a final poll to face off against each other, and you can vote for your favorite of favorites. Currently Joan Didion and Nathanael West are battling it out against powerful lobbies for Dawn Schiller, Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez and Terril Lee Lankford.

-- Carolyn Kellogg