From all of us at the Los Angeles Public Library, at the Central Library, and the 72 branches, we are pleased to announce the best books of 2023 as selected by our staff, who volunteered their…
Over the centuries, various forms of expression have been banned or destroyed, and their creators have been censored, imprisoned, tortured, killed, exiled. At the present time, all types of libraries…
From all of us at the Los Angeles Public Library, at the Central Library, and the 72 branches, we are pleased to announce the best books of 2022 as selected by our staff, who volunteered their…
From all of us at the Los Angeles Public Library, at the Central Library, and the 72 branches, we are pleased to announce the best books of 2021 as selected by our staff, who volunteered their…
The novels and poetry of Charles Bukowski continue to have devoted, admiring fans, who can never get enough of his books. We have those books in hard copy, and there is a good representation in…
It is a good thing that the lives of children’s authors are not always reflected in the books they wrote. Some of the most enduring and well-loved of these books were written by people whose lives…
Other than indigenous peoples, we are a nation of immigrants, those who came by choice and those who came by force. As our country keeps growing and changing with new people arriving all the time…
As Women’s History Month ends, we would like to offer you a few e-books and e-audiobooks about intrepid, adventurous women who traveled for the sheer joy of doing something different, to escape from…
The TV serialization of two novels, Sharp Objects and Big Little Lies, has brought attention to a new crop of novels. They are edgy, psychological, thriller, suspense stories with distinct…
In retrospect, it is ironic that the fire took place when it did: April 29, 1986. On that day, progress was quietly continuing with plans for a renovation of the original Central Library and a new…
Martha Teichner is a tough-minded, thoughtful journalist who has seen a great deal of the world while reporting on some of its hotspots (Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudia Arabia). Covering the Gulf War in 1990-1991 she was among a small, select group of women journalists who were embedded with U.S...
When I was in graduate school working on my MLIS, I skipped a class to attend Push Comes to Shove, a dance work choreographed by Twyla Tharp, specifically for Mikhail Baryshnikov, a classically trained ballet dancer, who at the time had recently defected to the West. This would be a...
Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein were originals, as individual people and as a couple. They did not strive to be different or unique, they just were. As a couple they even debunk what might be perceived as their traditional roles in a relationship with Gertrude Stein, the writer, poet...
In size and length, this relatively small book encompasses a major historical event, Juneteenth. Annette Gordon-Reed (historian, lawyer, law professor, multi-award-winning writer and native-born Texan) has written a collection of essays based on personal remembrances and history. No reader should be misled to think that this book will provide a...
When the children's novel Harriet the Spy was published it received positive and negative criticism, and there was some alarm, even by librarians, about the main character, a cantakorous child, who is a spy. Harriet is an eleven-year-old who keeps a notebook, really a diary, with her observations about classmates...
It is one woman’s story of growth and achievement, comprised of innumerable personal and professional extremes, of opposing and contradictory experiences that took her to places, jobs and professions that she never ever could have imagined. Her life is like a complex Venn diagram or a mandala, with multiple overlapping...
Walk into any supermarket, peruse the soup aisle, and you will find the ubiquitous paper cups of ramen lining numerous shelves. The variety is terrifc. These instant cups have helped many of us get through a hectic day at work or home because they are convenient, inexpensive, have a relatively...
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is one of the most frequently visited public memorials under the maintenance and jurisdiction of the United States National Park Service. The memorial is a remembrance of those who gave their lives, and provides solace to those who are still alive--family, friends and veterans. What came...
In this collection by Lynne Thompson the poems are about love and longing that combine the ethereal, the earthy, with unexpected modern incantations to people, places, flora and fauna. These modern lyrical poems are not predictable. Poems of substance require at least a second reading, and these poems require more...
Poetry is the most intense and concentrated form of writing, using words, metre, rhyme and format to express thoughts, feelings and ideas that can be fact or fiction. It gets at the marrow of truth and truth-telling using words to create an image, not a picture, of an idea. In...
