Author events this week in L.A.: Sharks, Jets and Batman signings ... oh my!

 

As the Dark Knight descends on movie theaters this week, a new tell-all book on Christian Bale arrives. Tickets sold out at all the Batman screenings? Head on over to Barnes and Noble in Manhattan Beach on Friday, when Bale's former publicist and assistant, Harrison Cheung, will be signing copies of "Christian Bale: The Inside Story of the Darkest Batman." Cheung, who touts himself as the real life Alfred, lived and worked with Christian and his father for 10 years: He shares firsthand accounts of family dysfunction and the actor's extreme dedication to his craft.

Looking for something a little more abstract? Check out wordsmith Laurel Airica in action as she dissectes the English language for wordplay and inspiration in our daily lives with her live presentation "WordMagic Global: Using the Word for the World's ReCreation," from 7-10 p.m. at The Great Spirits Ranch in Malibu.

As always, check with bookstores for event/venue changes or cancellations.

7/17, 8 p.m.: Chuck Palahniuk presents "Invisible Monsters Remix" a radically refashioned "director's cut" of the author's 1999 novel. Skirball Cultural Center

7/18, 7 p.m.: Jess Walter discusses and signs "Beautiful Ruins: A Novel". Book Soup

7/18, 7 p.m.: Carlos Ruiz Zafon presents and signs "The Prisoner of Heaven: A Novel". All Saints Church, Pasadena

7/20, 11 a.m.: Harrison Cheung will sign copies of his book "Christian Bale: The Inside Story of the Darkest Batman". Barnes & Noble Manhattan Beach

7/20, 7:30 p.m.: The traveling Slake show continues with a group reading from "Slake LA Issue 4: Dirt."  Vroman's

7/20, 7:30 p.m.: Paula Priamos and Dana Johnson read and sign their books "The Shyster's Daughter," and "Elsewhere, California." Skylight Books

7/21, 7-10 p.m.: Santa Monica-based linguist and author Laurel Airica presents "WordMagic Global: Using the Word for the World's ReCreation." Great Spirits Ranch Malibu

7/ 22, 1 p.m.: Cast members from "West Side Story" will be on hand to share behind-the-scenes stories about the making of the classic film detailed in their book, "Our Story: Jets and Sharks Then and Now." Barnes & Noble Calabasas

-- Liesl Bradner

Photo: Christian Bale as Batman in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures "The Dark Knight Rises." Credit: Ron Phillips / Warner Bros.

Amazon deal makes librarian Nancy Pearl less beloved

Nancy Pearl, the author of "Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment and Reason" and cheery NPR commentator, may be the nation's most beloved librarian. So beloved, in fact, that there is an action figure of her. Two, actually, the standard and deluxe edition, pictured above, which is librarian complete with library. She may be the most famous librarian in the U.S.

That kind of profile can lead to some interesting projects, and for Pearl, a lifelong book recommender, a book imprint of her own was a logical step. That imprint is titled Book Lust Rediscoveries, and it brings books Pearl loves back into print.

The only catch is that it's with Amazon.

The Washington Post talks to a number of local booksellers, both independents and a Barnes & Noble branch, that have declined to stock the books. To them, the math just doesn't make sense.

Any brick-and-mortar bookstore can buy the books from wholesalers in much the same way it would buy titles from any other publisher, according to Amazon. The problem is that the list price of the books could be as much as twice what it is on Amazon.

The controversy over stocking her books "just made me very sad," Pearl tells the Washington Post. It's interesting that booksellers would balk at Pearl, who cuts such a likable figure and whose "Book Lust" was a bestseller.

It's parent company Amazon that's the problem. "I don’t want to stock a book and have Amazon get the money,” Mark LaFramboise, chief buyer at the well-known Politics and Prose bookstore, told the Washington Post. Amazon, he says, wants "nothing other than our total annihilation."

But in a way, this helps Amazon, because those who want the books from Pearl's Book Lust Rediscoveries will have to buy them from the online bookseller. So far, her imprint has published four books: "A Gay and Melancholy Sound" by Merle Miller, first published in 1962; "After Life" by Rihann Ellis, first published in 2000; "Fool" by Frederick G. Dillen, first published in 1999; and, initially published in 1973, Elizabeth Savage's "The Last Night at the Ritz."

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-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Nancy Pearl with her deluxe action figure in 2005. Credit: The Seattle Times

It's Taschen's bargain warehouse sale

Art book publisher Taschen launched its semi-regular warehouse sale today, marking books down by 50% to 75%. The online sale continues through June 24; its stores, like the one in Beverly Hills, will also be offering bargains.

The warehouse sale includes discontinued titles, books that are "slightly dented" and "retired review copies." That means they're in limited supply, and this might be the last chance to get a book you've been keeping in your sights. One of the first to sell out is the "Big Penis Book 3D" -- but maybe that's for the best. Who knows who'd put their hands on it?

Taschen's warehouse is full of photo books, books that showcase art, even books about type -- "Bondoni" is a reprint of the 1818 typeface masterwork by the offical printer for the Duke of Parma, Giambattista Bodoni. There are many books about classic art and contemporary design. There are more than a few sexy books. There are books with photos of exotic locations, wild animals, movies, living spaces abroad, robots and Marilyn Monroe.

Taschen is the company of Benedikt Taschen, whose eclectic tastes govern its offerings. "He will stand behind every book that he publishes, no matter what," the Wall Street Journal wrote in 2011, "a directional choice that has not only defined the Cologne-born publisher as a seminal maverick in the world of books, but also as a rebellious risk-taker."

"Most books look so ... dispassionately done; they are disposable from the beginning," Taschen told the Journal. "Their books are not designed to become significant objects, so most books have no identity, no soul. I'm not saying all, but the vast majority [of publishing houses], with a few exceptions, have lost their profile and personality. It doesn't look like they have spent a lot of care and love."

Taschen publishes about 100 books a year; about 125 titles are part of the warehouse sale.

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-- Carolyn Kellogg

Protesters disrupt Amazon shareholders meeting

Amazon's traditionally quiet shareholders meeting in Seattle was disrupted by protesters Thursday who questioned the company's support of a conservative group, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and its treatment of workers, the Seattle Times reports.

Responding to criticism of poor working conditions in its warehouses, Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos showed an aerial photograph of an air conditioning unit. "It's not easy to retrofit an existing fulfillment center with air conditioning," he said. "We're really leading the way here."

Outside, a rally of more than 100 protesters called attention to Amazon's association with ALEC and its warehouse working conditions. The protest was organized by a worker advocacy group, Working Washington, which also called upon Amazon to pay more of its share in taxes. While Bezos explained the company's efforts to provide air conditioning in its warehouses, and Amazon has agreed to stop supporting ALEC, the tax issue remained less clearly addressed.

One critic blogging about the meeting wrote, "During the presentation, Amazon CEO Bezos said that in the last two years the company has paid $1.3 billion in taxes, including withholding and property taxes. Withholding means money collected from employees that includes Social Security and personal income taxes. Called on this later, a company spokesman hedged and obfuscated, without providing information on just how much the company pays in actual corporate taxes."

Preliminary voting results of two issues before the shareholders were announced; although the numbers were not final, it was clear that neither proposal would succeed. The first asked the company to sign on to the Carbon Discosure Project, an international nonprofit that works with companies and municipalities to track and manage carbon emissions and water use; the second asked the company to be transparent about its political contributions.

At the end of the hourlong meeting, protesters stood and began chanting; they were escorted out by police. After the noise died down, Jeff Bezos thanked the shareholders in the room for attending.

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-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: At an Amazon warehouse in 2004. Credit: Scott Sady / Associated Press

Waterstones makes deal to sell the Amazon Kindle, dismaying many

British bookstore chain Waterstones announced Monday that it would soon sell Amazon's Kindles in its stores. The news was met with dismay from almost all quarters of the publishing industry.

That's partly because Waterstones' chief executive, James Daunt, had been a vocal critic of Amazon and its tactics. In December, Daunt called the company "a ruthless, money-making devil." In the announcement, he said, "It is a truly exciting prospect to harness also the respective strengths of Waterstones and Amazon to provide a dramatically better digital reading experience for our customers. The best digital readers, the Kindle family, will be married to the singular pleasures of browsing a curated bookshop." That's quite a turnaround.

Reactions were swift and strong. At the Guardian, Richard Lea wrote that what Daunt had done was "welcome a ravening tiger into his living room." "[T]his shot at the e-book market seems to be aimed directly at Waterstone's own foot," wrote Martha Gill at the New Statesman. The Bookseller's Philip Downer pointed out that "the opportunity to create an independent online business, benefitting from HMV firepower and leading one day to an ebook solution, was lost." The headline at the English Gizmodo site read, "Waterstones Surrenders to the Amazon Ebook Behemoth and Agrees to Stock Kindles."

Many American observers, including GigaOm's Laura Hazard Owen, recalled a hauntingly similar deal between Amazon and Borders. Back in 2001, when Borders was a major brick-and-mortar bookseller on par with Barnes & Noble (remember that?), it cut a deal with Amazon, letting Jeff Bezos' company handle Borders' online book sales. That six-year deal left Borders tragically behind when it came to the Internet, and was part of the bookseller's decline and eventual bankruptcy.

Although most see Waterstone's choice to sell Amazon's Kindle as a bad idea, a few think it may have some merit. "Some commentators have likened the deal to Neville Chamberlain's infamous pact with Nazi Germany," writes Philip Jones at Futurebook, "but it feels more like Dunkirk. A strategic retreat: allowing the business to refocus its efforts on those fronts where it can continue to fight on."

At the Verge, Tim Carmody takes a moment to look at the deal from Amazon's point of view: "For Amazon, the long-term strategy is much clearer. This is about eliminating real and potential e-book competitors by sucking out all the oxygen in the room." And that, for those who would like Amazon to have a little e-book competition, is the rub.

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Photo: An American shopper tries out a Kindle at Best Buy. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho/Los Angeles Times.

Authors in L.A. this week: Joe Brainard readings and more

This post has been corrected. See the note below for details.

The New York Times obituary of Joe Brainard, who died of AIDS-related pneumonia in 1994 at 52, is rather spare in for a person who has had such a lasting influence. It runs to seven paragraphs and describes him as “an artist, writer, set designer and frequent collaborator with the New York School poets.” In describing his work, the obituary says he "brought wit, a light touch and an intimate scale to collage, painting, watercolor and assemblage, once exhibiting 2,500 tiny pieces in a single exhibition.”

In describing Brainard's writing, the obit also says he “worked in a declarative prose-poem mode” and that his best-known work is the memoir “I Remember,” which — and this is not in the New York Times — author Paul Auster has described as “one of the few totally original books I have ever read.”

Original it is. Generally one or two sentences per paragraph, and here is a taste of what he had to say:

I remember when polio was the worst thing in the world.

I remember my first erection. I thought I had some terrible disease or something.

I remember the only time I ever saw my mother cry. I was eating apricot pie.

Definitely not your standard memoir.

Auster's words are part of his introduction to “The Collected Writings of Joe Brainard,” which was released in late March by the Library of America. On Wednesday night at Skylight Books, an all-star group including Bernard Cooper, Lisa Pearson and Michael Silverblatt, will be reading from this collection of Brainard’s works.

Looking for something more celebrity-oriented?  Ryan O’Neal discusses his tumultuous relationship with Farrah Fawcett on Monday night at Barnes & Noble at the Grove and Sissy Spacek discusses her memoir at the same venue on Thursday.

As always, we recommend you call the venues to check for cancellations or shifting start times. Great book events are plentiful this week. Enjoy.

Monday, 7 p.m. Ron Rash discusses and signs his latest novel “The Cove.” Vroman’s

Monday, 7 p.m. Ryan O’Neal discusses his book “Both of Us: My Life With Farrah.” Barnes & Noble at the Grove

Tuesday, 3 p.m. Neil Sedaka discusses and signs his children’s book “Dinosaur Pet.” Book Soup

Tuesday, 7 p.m. Walter Mosley discusses and signs “The Gift of Fire/On The Head of a Pin: Two Short Novels From Crosstown to Oblivion.” Book Soup

Wednesday, 7 p.m. Alice Kessler-Harris discusses and signs “A Difficult Woman: The Challenging Life and Times of Lillian Hellman." Book Soup

Wednesday, 7 p.m. Ann Patchett discusses and signs her latest novel “State of Wonder.” Vroman’s

Wednesday, 7 p.m. Terry Tempest Williams, author of “When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice,” in conversation with Louise Steinman, curator, ALOUD series at L.A. Central Library

Wednesday, 7:30 p.m. Bernard Cooper, Aram Saroyan and Michael Silverblatt are among an all-star group reading from the collected writings of Joe Brainard. Skylight Books

Wednesday, 8 p.m. Literary Death Match pits Taylor Negron, Ramona Ausubel, Graham Moore and  Carolyn Cohagan in seven-minutes-or-less readings. Judges include musician Moby, comedian Rory Scovel and Times staff writer and Jacket Copy blogger Carolyn Kellogg. Tickets are $10. Busby East

Watch worldwide book sales, live

The Book Depository is a British-based online bookseller that ships to countries around the world, for free. To bring that point home, it has built a map that shows who bought what, where, just now. The window of the map moves to reach the most recent purchase, zooming back and forth from Germany to Singapore to the United States to Australia to Norway. In each location, the title pops up. It's hypnotic.

That's partly because it's a simple, elegant interface. But it's also because it shows what books other people are purchasing, and that's inherently interesting to people who like books. As novelist Antoine Wilson wrote on Twitter, the titles reveal "A never-ending catalogue of desire, desperation, and hope." It's true, there are a lot of self-help books in the mix.

The Book Depository is England's largest online bookseller. It offers mostly English-language books and ships them, free of charge, to more than 100 countries around the globe. The list includes Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands — and the U.S.

In July 2011, Amazon announced its acquisition of the Book Depository. Booksellers and publishers in the U.K. protested that the purchase would mean a de facto monopoly in online bookselling, but the deal was officially given the go-ahead in October, in part because the Book Depository's international (map-demonstrated) growth.

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Image: Screenshot of the Book Depository's live map of book sales.

Tonight in LA: James Ellroy and Helen Knode

Tonight, James Ellroy, the self-proclaimed "demon dog of American crime fiction," will turn his attention to writer Helen Knode. The occasion? The publication of her new novel, "Wildcat Play." The twist? The two were once married. To each other.

Knode and Ellroy have been splitsville for a while, but are apparently on speaking terms. He'll be asking her questions about the book, a mystery among oil rigs in the San Joaquin Valley, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Knode was a longtime writer at the L.A. Weekly, where she did stints as a movie critic and columnist; she now lives in Austin, Texas. Ellroy is known for, among others, his books "L.A. Confidential" and "My Dark Places"; recently, he penned the screenplay for "Rampart," the film about dirty cops starring Woody Harrelson.

The two will talk books and, maybe, crime and murder, at Skylight Books in an evening the bookstore is dubbing "apocalypse noir." Admission is free; things get started at 7:30 p.m.

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-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photos: Helen Knode, left, and James Ellroy, right, at the book release party for her 2003 novel "The Ticket Out." Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times

 

Skylight Books joins Occupy actions for May Day

Skylight Books, the Los Feliz bookstore, is recognizing May Day as a rallying place -- and also by going on strike (but in a nice, everyone-is-in-on-it way).

Long known as International Workers Day, May 1 has become a day for rallies nationwide in support of the Occupy movement, which has been lying low since protests last year. One is taking place in downtown Los Angeles.

The bookstore will be closed from 2 to 5 p.m. in support of the Occupy movement.

On its website, the bookstore writes:

Gather! Strike! Sing!...

Skylight is your labor hall for the day. Need a place to rest? Bring a lunch and a friend and stop by to check out our displays on labor history. We’ll also have a full roster of events that are happening throughout the city, so come find out how you can participate.

The store reopens at 5 p.m. At 7:30 p.m., singer Ross Altman -- he's a "labor troubador" -- will teach those assembled  songs from decades of labor movements, going back to the strikes of 1912.

Generally, bookstores maintain a neutral political stance, but Skylight is loudly declaring a strong, leftist ideology. But it is still a bookseller: If you want Newt Gingrich's latest book, they'll be sure to get it for you.

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-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: A full house at Skylight Books for Slake in 2010; Mark Z. Danielewski reads. Credit: Carolyn Kellogg / Los Angeles Times

Barnes & Noble spins off Nook e-reader with $300M from Microsoft

Microsoft will provide $300 million to a new Nook-led unit of Barnes & Noble, the companies announced Monday. Microsoft will get a 17.6 share in the new subsidiary, which has the temporary placeholder name of Newco.

Part of the announcement -- spinning the Nook off into a subsidiary -- did not come as a complete surprise. In January, Barnes & Noble Chief Executive William Lynch hinted that it was in the works, saying, "We see substantial value in what we've built with our Nook business in only two years, and we believe it's the right time to investigate our options to unlock that value." 

Microsoft's investment was, at least by most in publishing, unexpected. Last we heard, Microsoft was suing Barnes & Noble over alleged patent infringements related to the Nook, which could have blocked importation to the U.S. after its offshore manufacture. As part of the new Nook deal, Microsoft and Barnes & Noble announced settlement of the patent suit.

Another part of the deal: The new subsidiary will include Barnes & Noble's college textbook business.

Until now, Microsoft has stayed out of the e-reader wars, allowing Amazon and Apple to lead the device evolution. Amazon brought e-readers into the mainstream when it debuted its Kindle in 2007; Apple's iPad changed the landscape when it introduced its tablet in 2010.

For its part, Barnes & Noble's e-reader had a bumpy start: When it launched in late 2009, it didn't reach some customers, as promised, for the holidays. Since then, it's pulled on track and up to speed, launching its own tablet. Its competitively affordable Nook line gets consistently good reviews, and sales during the 2011 holidays were up 70%.

In Monday's announcement, Barnes & Noble's Lynch said, "Microsoft's investment in Newco, and our exciting collaboration to bring world-class digital reading technologies and content to the Windows platform and its hundreds of millions of users, will allow us to significantly expand the business."

Microsoft President Andy Lees agreed. "Our complementary assets will accelerate e-reading innovation across a broad range of Windows devices, enabling people to not just read stories, but to be part of them," he said. "We’re on the cusp of a revolution in reading."

The cusp? That sounds strangely out of date -- aren't we well into a revolution in reading? Or does Microsoft have something entirely new in store for its Newco Nook?

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-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh / Los Angeles Times