JUST shy of five years ago, I went to visit a sharp new bookstore in downtown Los Angeles. It arrived at a time when downtown, and particularly the Old Bank district, seemed to be sparking: Pete's had opened recently, and a video store and (if memory serves) good new Vietnamese place were a few steps away.The sudden appearance of Metropolis Books startled so many locals that some thought it was a … [Read more...]
Jo Nesbo and Nordic Noir
FOR years now we've been hearing about a charismatic Norwegian crime writer whose novels were plotted with verve and driven by a weirdly compelling alcoholic detective. With the success of Stieg Larsson's Girl trilogy, the time may be ripe for Jo Nesbo, whose sometimes horrifying new novel, The Snowman, kicks ass.I spoke to Nesbo from his home in Oslo recently for a profile in this Sunday's Los … [Read more...]
The Misread City at Festival of Books
THIS weekend your humble blogger will be around the LA Times Festival of Books at USC... That is, if I don't accidentally end up at UCLA.I'll be there both days, and on Sunday at 3 p.m. will moderate a panel on authors with backgrounds in music. The panel -- I don't name these things, folks, is called "A New Chord: From Stage to Page."My three panelist:Nathan Larson was lead guitarist for Shudder … [Read more...]
USC Historian Discovers Witches (and Vampires)
WHEN I heard that a USC professor had written a bestselling vampire novel I thought, This sounds like what the English call a train-jumper -- someone who latches onto a trend, half-heartedly and after the fact. Boy was I wrong. Deborah Harkness is the real thing, and her novel, A Discovery of Witches, comes out of her scholarship on the shift from the supernatural medieval period to the … [Read more...]
Eric Puchner and the California Dream
HERE at The Misread City, we try to capture what makes Los Angeles and the West Coast distinct, and aim to look at the way the existing clichés – sun, vapidity, bottomless riches -- both inform and distort our lives here. I can’t think of a better example of this kind of thing than the new essay by Eric Puchner, an Angeleno short story writer and novelis. His new piece in the March GQ, “Schemes of … [Read more...]
Trouble in Portlandia
ONE of our favorite places, here at The Misread City, is Portland, Ore., and as much as we love the walkable neighborhoods, the groovy coffee shops, and the excellent local cuisine and Oregon Pinots, we find ourselves trapped helplessly in Powell’s bookstore every time we’re up there. (You may also have heard about the show Portlandia starring a member of one or favorite bands.)So the troubles at … [Read more...]
Steve Erickson Novel Coming
LONGTIME Los Angeles writer Steve Erickson will have a new novel next year, These Dreams of You, his publisher, Europa Editions, just announced. Erickson is the writer I point to first when I'm arguing about a difference in East Coast and West Coast literary sensibility. He grew up in a Granada Hills neighborhood wiped out for the freeway, and that sense of spatial dislocation and a disappearing … [Read more...]
New Novel by Robert Crais
LOS Angeles thriller/detective novelist Robert Crais will probably always be known for his detective hero Elvis Cole, a rock n roll fan with a taste for loud shirts. His latest novel is the third to focus on Cole's sidekick Joe Pike, a laconic, unknowable badass: I've only just started The Sentry, which kicks off in New Orleans before moving to LA, but the damn thing takes off like a rocket. (The … [Read more...]
"James Ellroy’s LA: City of Demons"
CRIME novelist James Ellroy is hosting a new television show that goes up Wednesday night. He's both perfect for this -- who's written about crime in the Southland better than Ellroy? (All due respect to Ross Macdonald, Robert Crais, and a few others.) But his manic intensity also makes him a strange fit for television -- he can be a bit too much onscreen.The show looks at both classic LA murders … [Read more...]
Great New Novel
THIS week the first novel by a former indie rock guitarist comes out on Crown. The novel, The Metropolis Case, has a lot to do with opera, though you don't have to be an opera fan to enjoy the book. If you dig Tristan und Isolde -- or have every been transported by music -- the novel will have special meaning and depth.HERE is my review from today's New York Times.I pick up a lot of novels, old … [Read more...]