At the beginning of Mary H.K. Choi’s wildly entertaining presentation for her new novel “Pool House’” at Skylight Books, she reveals she won’t be reading.
“Readings are boring,” she says, tapping her Prada loafers. “It’s like you’re watching someone else play video games.”
Instead, she and Yasi Salek, host of the hit podcast “Bandsplain,” spend the evening riffing on literature, coolness, autism diagnoses and a literary perennial: unrelenting pain.
“How is your mother wound?” Salek asks in her signature vocal fry most often heard ad-libbing about the band Weezer. Salek reveals she is in Jungian therapy, adding, “What Carl says, goes.”
Throughout the discussion, Choi describes her novel as a challenging read — calling it a “gross, decaying meat soup.” She jokes that her career as an author feels like a “Make-A-Wish Foundation wish,” bewildered by any attention her work has garnered. Yet dozens of eager readers have packed into the independent bookstore, spilling into the aisles with copies of the novel balanced on their laps.
“Publishing is so slow, it’s like giving birth to a lawn chair,” Choi remarks. Later, she professes tedium with the resurgence of an alt-lit scene.
“Don’t you find that everyone has to be cool right now? Why is everyone so cool?” Choi asks Salek.
Let’s be clear: Salek and Choi are very cool. Salek sits cross-legged, dressed in all black, with a heart tattoo on her forearm that reads “books.” Before “Pool House,” Choi authored three New York Times bestselling novels. Salek recounts dropping out of her MFA program at Bennington College in 2020 to start what would become a cult-classic podcast.
Book-themed sugar cookies sold at a past Little Literary Fair at Hauser & Wirth.
(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
“I love that you started a podcast instead of getting an MFA,” Choi replies.
Like Skylight Books, independent bookstores across Los Angeles have become gathering places for readers and writers alike. Authors ranging from household names to debut novelists regularly draw enthusiastic crowds. Increasingly, bookstores are functioning not only as retail spaces but as community hubs.
A few blocks from Echo Park Lake, local favorite A Good Used Book has transformed Sunday mornings into one of the neighborhood’s liveliest recurring gatherings. Visitors browse used books while enjoying charcoal portraits, handmade jewelry and Hawaiian shaved ice. Buy a book and you might even end up on the store’s coveted Instagram Story — the hottest plug in town.
“It feels like in a city as big as Los Angeles, books are still underrepresented. So there’s a lot of room to grow, and that’s exciting,” says Chris Capizzi, who founded the bookstore in 2017.
Earlier this month, the Los Angeles Review of Books hosted its annual Little Literary Fair at SCI-Arc, drawing hundreds to literary panels and workshops on zine-making, publishing and finding an agent. Vendors from across California filled the space, representing independent presses, bookstores and literary magazines.
“I find writers based [in the L.A. area] to be socially incisive in equal measure as being experimental, innovative and just fun,” says Emily VanKoughnett, the events director at the Los Angeles Review of Books. “I love the L.A. lit scene because it invites people to explore pockets of the city and connect over writing.”
This summer, literary events across Los Angeles are continuing to draw readers into bookstores, community spaces and alternative venues alike. The city’s literary scene remains as weird, profane and sentimental as ever.