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AMERICANS planning to travel for Christmas and New Year’s are cautioned to book flights now to avoid higher prices as the holidays approach.

New data has revealed the best days and times for customers to buy tickets, so they can take advantage of deals and snag the lowest prices before the holiday rush, especially as fuel prices keep rising.

Google data shows travelers should buy their tickets as soon as possible to save money, particularly if they are headed to destinations in Mexico or Europe.

An analysis from the previous five years found that Christmas prices typically reach their peak around 56 days prior to departure for domestic flights.

Fortunately for travelers, several major airlines are offering holiday-season deals to help customers save on their travel plans.

While not Christmas-specific, Southwest Airlines is one of the few companies promoting sales this time of year, as most airlines look to capitalize on increased spending.

Southwest currently offers one-way flights for as low as $59, but customers must act quickly, as these deals run only from November 10 through the 12th.

Elsewhere, American Airlines is also offering vacation deals, with some advertised flights targeting the week of Christmas itself, such as Dallas to Los Angeles for $247 round trip.

As with any flight, customers should always check with the airline before clicking purchase to confirm rates and see if they include baggage fees and other charges, which could increase the final charge.

Finding a good deal is half the battle when traveling for the holidays, and choosing when to fly is often just as important.

Google found departing on a Monday and returning on Tuesday or Wednesday could be 14% cheaper, with domestic travelers potentially saving as much as 20% by avoiding Sundays altogether.

For Christmas, departing closer to the holiday could also offer great savings, according to travel company KAYAK.

December 21 and December 22 offer some of the season’s best deals for domestic flights, and those flying international should aim for December 23 or even Christmas Eve.

Travelers returning immediately after Christmas should consider departing after December 27 to get the lowest price.

For Americans traveling for the holidays, waiting until the last minute could hurt your wallet in a big way.

With bookings in full swing, travelers may have little time to secure the best deal.

LONDON — A satirical dystopian novel whose themes of “catastrophe and apocalypse” chime with our uneasy times won the Booker Prize on Monday, the first work of science fiction to take the prestigious literary award.

British writer M. John Harrison was awarded the 50,000-pound ($67,000) prize at a ceremony in London for “The End of Everything,” a book the judges said combines “huge ambition” and “extraordinary, expert writing.”

Harrison beat five other finalists including previous winners Douglas Stuart and Marlon James, who had been the oddsmakers’ favorites, and Pulitzer Prize laureate Elizabeth Strout.

“The End of Everything” is set on England’s Channel coast in the near future, after an unspecified calamity has shattered society and brought an influx of enigmatic alien entities to Britain. It centers on a beachcomber who lives with his gun-toting aunt and discovers a puzzling, shape-shifting artifact on the shore.

Asked what he wanted to convey to readers, Harrison said: “It’s a grim world, and it’ll keep on being grim. And it’s weird. But at the end of things there may be some kind of — I wouldn’t say hope, or closure, but there might be some kind of relief.”

Critics have praised the book’s dark humor, though some have been confused by its elusive narrative.

Historian Mary Beard, who chaired the judging panel, said the book is “the politics of now seen through the lens of the future,” and about a society “undergoing a catastrophe that they don’t really understand.”

“What he does is to say, when the catastrophe comes, you won’t know what’s happening,” Beard said. “And there are bits where you, the reader, are with the characters in not fully understanding. Now, I think that’s fantastically exciting.”

Harrison’s work includes large dollops of fantasy and speculative fiction, and he won the Arthur C. Clarke science fiction award for a previous novel, “Nova Swing.” Although borders between publishing genres are increasingly blurred, it’s still rare for a work of sci-fi to win a major literary prize.

Harrison said before he won that he had been “working for 40 to 50 years to shift the balance, both as a novelist and as a critic. Why shouldn’t a well-written (work of science fiction) be considered to be literary fiction?”

Booker Prize Foundation Chief Executive Gaby Wood noted that the prize has removed references to “literary fiction” from its materials, because “all fiction is literary.”

Beard said Harrison’s win was “recognition of what some people would see as the blindingly obvious, that you find great books in every genre.”

Founded in 1969, the Booker Prize is open to English-language novels from any country published in the U.K. and Ireland and has a reputation for transforming writers’ careers.

Its winners have included Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan and Arundhati Roy. Last year’s winner was “Flesh” by Hungarian-British writer David Szalay.

Harrison, 81, is the oldest writer to win the Booker, two years older than Margaret Atwood when she won in 2019. “The End of Everything” is his 13th novel. But Beard said the prize was definitely “not a lifetime achievement award.”

“We thought this was a book that had earned it,” Beard said.

She said the judges, who included poet Raymond Antrobus and singer Jarvis Cocker from the band Pulp, met for four or five hours to pick a winner, and the choice was ultimately unanimous.

“There was a lot of discussion and disagreement and debate, but nobody stomped off,” she said.

Lawless writes for the Associated Press.

ATLANTA — Former President Biden writes in his White House memoir that Donald Trump, at once his predecessor and successor, has deeply damaged the country and world with an administration determined to “tear down institutions and inflame hatreds.”

And the 83-year-old Democrat said the 80-year-old Trump’s years of lies about his 2020 defeat to Biden and the Jan. 6 attacks on the Capitol should “follow him to his grave.”

Biden’s sweeping indictment comes in the first excerpt of “Promise Me, America,” published Monday by the Atlantic. The 46th president’s full memoir is set for a Nov. 17 release. Biden said that while doctors are encouraged by his response to cancer treatment, his activities promoting the book will be limited because of his health.

“Donald Trump led an insurrection,” Biden wrote of the attack by Trump supporters as Congress met to certify the 2020 election won by the Democrat. “His goal was to remain in power after the American people had voted him out of office.

“The rioters weren’t ‘peaceful protesters,” he wrote. “They came armed to stop the official certification of a legitimate election.” He chided Trump for later issuing more than 1,500 pardons of the offenders.

“To this day, Trump and his supporters continue to preen and posture like they’re supporters of law enforcement,” Biden wrote. “Here’s my view: You don’t get to turn a blind eye to cops being punched, speared, sprayed, and brutalized and call yourself a friend of law enforcement. What Trump did on January 6, 2021, should never be forgotten. It should follow him to his grave.”

Biden also laments Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency and his aggressive reversal of many of his policies, especially those intended to address climate change.

“All presidents must confront a feeling that their legacy is vulnerable to the pendulum of politics and the whims of their successors,” Biden wrote. “In my case, that feeling was magnified by the dismissive and destructive nature of Donald Trump, who seemed unable to tolerate the idea that someone else’s accomplishments might be worth building on rather than tearing down.”

The memoir’s release comes on the heels of Biden’s fellow Democrats trouncing Republicans in the midterm elections, securing stunningly broad House and Senate majorities and flipping control of several statehouses in a comprehensive rebuke of Trump’s second presidency. But Trump’s return to power two years earlier was itself a rejection of Biden’s one White House term, and many voters still harbor skeptical views of his presidency and his party.

In a lengthy social media post on Sunday, Biden pitched his memoir as the best way he can explain his presidency, “the challenges we faced, the decisions I made and why I made them.”

During his four years in office, Biden confronted the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout, and he worked to restore global alliances that Trump frayed. But he faced widespread concerns about his age, and he abandoned his reelection bid after a disastrous June 2024 debate with Trump. Dogged by lingering inflation and other concerns, Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris, lost to Trump that November.

Months after leaving office, Biden announced that he’d been diagnosed with prostate cancer. He opened up about his condition in his Sunday social media post, saying he “won’t be able to do as many conversations about my book as I’d hoped” and urging people to let the book speak for him.

Biden said his doctors “continue to be encouraged by how I’ve responded to treatment.” But, he acknowledged, “Some days are better than others. It hasn’t stopped me. But sometimes it slows me down.”

In the excerpt, Biden recounts an unusual Oval Office meeting with Trump days after the 2020 election — well before the Jan. 6 riots.

“‘You know, Joe, if it weren’t for politics, I believe we’d be good friends,’” Trump said, according to Biden.

Trump even commented “that he’d been relieved he didn’t have to run against me,” Biden added.

Public polling at the time Biden dropped his reelection bid showed him trailing Trump, and Democrats pushed for him to yield out of fear that he could not win.

Biden said he used the meeting to give Trump “a tour of the world,” including the Ukraine-Russia war, NATO alliances, Israel and Gaza and China-U.S. relations. Biden said Trump “focused on the personalities” of world leaders rather than the substance of international relations.

He said that two-hour meeting left him worried Trump would indeed dismantle much of his presidency. He wrote that Trump’s opening weeks — his Day One executive orders and everything that followed — confirmed his worries about a “crueler government” that “tried to tear down institutions and inflame hatreds” and a president who “took a wrecking ball to our traditions.”

The memoir’s title echoes an earlier Biden book, “Promise Me, Dad,” that he wrote about his son Beau’s cancer and death — a parallel that implicitly acknowledges the former president’s age, condition and the reality that he may not have a long post-presidency to see the direction of the country and the evolution of his legacy.

In that first book, released between Biden’s vice presidency and his 2020 presidential bid, he explained that the title came directly from a father-son conversation around Thanksgiving in 2014.

“Promise me, Dad. Give me your word that no matter what happens, you’re going to be all right,” Biden recalled Beau saying. Beau Biden died six months later.

In his Sunday post, Biden repeated an argument he made often when campaigning and during his presidency, saying the U.S. is unique because it was “built on an idea” that “all of us are created equal.”

“Promise me, America,” he concluded, that “we’ll never forget it.”

Barrow writes for the Associated Press.

Jaaleen Best had little knowledge about who Muhammad Ali was as he was growing up in Alexandria, Va. But he recalls how others compared him to the legendary boxer.

“There were cousins, people like that who said, ‘Hey, you look like the young Muhammad Ali,’ ” Best said. “Then there were people when I would be playing a pick-up basketball game who would say, ‘Man, you remind us of a young Ali.’ ”

The 28-year-old actor is now a walking encyclopedia of the athlete who is arguably one of the most famous and beloved figures in America. More significantly, he has become Ali.

Best stars as Ali in Prime Video’s “The Greatest” which premiered Nov. 4. The eight-episode season differs from most projects centered on Ali, tracing his coming-of-age, when he was known as Cassius Clay before taking on the name which would define his conversion to Muslim.

The series dramatizes Ali’s journey from his gold medal victory at the 1960 Rome Olympics to his first world championship battle with Sonny Liston in 1964 when he renounced the name of Clay as a “slave name.” Along the way he would experience triumphs but also formidable odds such as racism in his community and conflicts in his family, including hints of domestic violence.

Jaalen Best in a scene from “The Greatest,” which depicts Muhammad Ali’s journey from Olympian in 1960 to his match with Sonny Liston in 1964.

(Brooke Palmer / Prime)

Executive producers of the series include Oscar winner Michael B. Jordan (“Sinners”) and Jay-Z’s Roc Nation production company. The cast includes Omari Hardwick (“Power”) as Ali’s father Cassius “Cash” Sr., Michael Ealy (“Think Like a Man”) as Malcolm X and Giovanni Ribisi (“American Hostage”) as trainer Angelo Dundee.

Best was all smiles during a video call from his home in Hawaii as he sat in front of a wall with a Christmas wreath. (“One of my favorite times of the year is the holiday season. I start celebrating early here.”)

“I look at this as a tremendous opportunity,” said Best, who had only a few professional acting credits before “The Greatest.” “I just felt so ready for this through the entire process.

“Because I didn’t really have a perspective on Ali growing up, I felt that made me more perfect, in addition to my athletic background,” he added. “Plus we’re telling a story that hasn’t really been told before.”

Ali‘s widow, Lonnie, who is an executive producer of the project, said of Best in a statement: “With Jaalen Best, we have uncovered a soulful gem. He is such a talented young man who not only embodies Muhammad, but exudes his resilience, courage, charisma and confidence.”

“The Greatest” is the latest in a voluminous array of books, documentaries and films created over the years about the larger-than-life figure whose fame intersected sports, entertainment and political and religious lines. The most prominent entries include 1996’s Oscar-winning documentary “When We Were Kings,” about the infamous “Rumble in the Jungle” with George Foreman, and Michael Mann’s 2001 film “Ali,” which featured Will Smith’s Oscar-nominated performance as the boxer.

The new drama also shares the title with a biopic, “The Greatest,” in which the heavyweight champion played himself. The 1977 feature, which covers the same era as the series, co-starred Robert Duvall and Ernest Borgnine.

But creator and executive producer Ben Watkins (Prime Video’s “Cross”) said he was not daunted in the least revisiting well-tilled territory.

“From my perspective, there can never be enough about Ali,” he said in a video interview. “I would say there needs to be something every other month. The challenge of people working in TV is knowing what has been done and what can we do differently.

“Yes, he’s been well covered, but we haven’t seen behind the curtain. We haven’t seen what happens when the cameras are not rolling or when the lights are off, so I decided to lean into that. My hero, who I had put on a pedestal, was just a kid, just a human. That was very refreshing and enlightening for me and made me admire him even more.”

Ali’s family in the series, from left: mother Odessa “Bird” Clay (Dana Gourrier), Cassius Clay (Best), brother Rudy Clay (Kai Parham) and father Cassius Clay Sr. (Omari Hardwick).

(Ian Watson / Prime)

Lonnie Ali proved to be a valuable resource, Watkins said, since she she had known Ali as a young man and could put producers in touch with others who had known him.

He added, “We’ve been through the documentaries, the movies, the books. The key thing was to go back and instead of blowing through those little moments, make those the moments you focus on. Then I can use that as a launch pad to deal with the more well-known events.”

The more daunting challenge was finding the right actor to play the legendary Ali. Casting director Kim Coleman, who was a casting consultant on “Ali,” searched community theaters and boxing gyms while also looking at more veteran actors.

“It was a really grueling process,” Watkins said. “We looked at thousands of candidates. Once I found that person, then I would need them to train and sculpt and transform.”

Watkins said Best was an early standout: “I wanted someone who could deliver the essence of Ali, the charisma and confidence accompanied by an incredible work ethic and ambition.”

Showrunner Ben Watkins said Best was a standout among the actors who tried out for the role: “I wanted someone who could deliver the essence of Ali, the charisma and confidence accompanied by an incredible work ethic and ambition.”

(Juan Veloz)

Although he had a background in competitive basketball, soccer and football, Best had never boxed before. But he was given six months to train before shooting began. “At first boxing was a real challenge, but I came in with a readiness to learn,” he said. “My trainer would challenge me to think like an athlete as opposed to thinking like an actor.”

Still, the continual focus on authenticity during training sessions could be harrowing, “There would be 12 hour days of just boxing,” Best said. “I had to memorize every punch and every move of Ali’s real fights. Those were real long days. There was a physical therapist on the set.”

The real priority was perfecting the Ali shuffle in the ring.

“It would always bother me when I’d see actors playing Ali that they could never get the shuffle right,” Best said. “So early in the process, I really worked on that.”

The work outside of the ring was also intense. “I really studied his voice. He had a spoken-word an album in 1963 called ‘I Am the Greatest.’ I would study and listen to that album five hours a day. I would play it real loud, and it did get to the point where I could recite it without listening to it.”

Best was also determined to differentiate between the public and the private Ali. “There was this bravado in his voice when he was out, and another voice when he was with his mom and dad. He was very different in private, very quiet. He cried a lot and had a very sensitive side. So it was like playing two different people.”

He also did not shy away from studying other actors’ performances of Ali, particularly Smith’s: “I would break down every portrayal I could, whether it was a film or TV show. At the same time, I’m developing my own perspective in doing my own research and reading books. So once I had a grasp of Ali from Jaalen’s perspective, I discovered the nuances which allowed me to bring a more human approach and make Ali more grounded.”

If the series is renewed, Watkins has two more eras he would like to explore: the “dark years,” when the boxer spoke out against the Vietnam War and was banned from boxing, and the period leading to “the Rumble in the Jungle.”

Best, in the meantime, is grateful for the experience of playing an icon: “It’s something I feel I can carry with me forever.”

While Elizabeth Alexander ‘s career trajectory has taken her from scholar and author to educator, cultural advocate and most recently philanthropy, she considers herself first and foremost a poet. “Day job by day, writer by night,” she quips about her two very different and separate identities.

On the creative side, Alexander’s bona fides as a writer of poetry and prose are impressive: six volumes of poetry, including the 2009 poem for Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration, “Praise Song for the Day,” three essay collections and, most recently, “The Light of the World,” a moving memoir of love, grief and meaning in the wake of loss. On the business front, she’s the president of the Mellon Foundation, the largest private funder of the arts culture and the humanities in the United States. How does she bring such seemingly disparate parts of her life together in service of her work?

It starts with presence.

Over our Zoom call, Alexander is engaging, calm but focused on the things that matter in her life: poetry, family, community, justice and connection. She quotes freely from poetry in conversation, and says she keeps the poems that inspire her in an “internal Rolodex,” as offerings to colleagues and students. And now, readers in “Signals Across Vast Distances,” a collection of transformational essays and stories, 10 years in the making, about life’s challenges and how poetry, art and the humanities can connect and sustain us through difficult times.

A Rolodex of poetic resistance

The book’s title is taken from a 1967 Muriel Rukeyser poem in which she writes of “news pouring out of various devices/Interrupted by attempts to sell products to the unseen” and of people trying to connect to each other through the confusion “to construct peace, to make love, to reconcile…ourselves with each other,/Ourselves with ourselves.”Rukeyser’s poem had been in Alexander’s Rolodex for some time. Its resonance is more profound in a period that she describes as beginning “with the global pandemic and moving into the protests in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, the increased nihilistic despair over climate change, and the second coming of authoritarianism.”

Her succinct conclusion: “We are navigating through some very challenging times.”

Poetry like Rukeyser’s and others by Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert Hayden or the essays by James Baldwin that Alexander parses in the book, provide sustenance for the journey. Prescient in its reference to the news reaching people through various “devices,” Rukeyser’s poem also resonates for Alexander, “because as I consider being from a generation that lived through the civil rights movement, women’s movement and gay liberation movements, I felt we were always moving forward. But Rukeyser’s poem reminded me in 1967 the United States [which brought escalation of the Vietnam War, war protests and race riots] had not come to an agreement about what it believed, or how it would move forward. So, I kept hearing that poem in my head, which became not only instructive to me but an offering I could give to others… as encouragement that, even when we are separated from each other, we are still connected.”

Alexander knows that need for connection and a sense of being able to reconcile ourselves with our most essential human values is more urgent that ever. What encourages her, and she offers to readers, is poetry and other literature, which “gives us the encouragement to stay grounded.”

In addition to writing about Gwendolyn Brooks’ “The Second Sermon on the Warpland,” whose line “Conduct your blooming in the noise and the whip of the whirlwind” serves as a Alexander’s mantra to stand and fight for justice, she includes stories from her own life, including anecdotes about her late husband, the artist Ficre Ghebreyesus, and others whose journeys to and lives in America as refugees and citizens spark an essential question: “Will we build homes with open sides that welcome wayfarers into our lives?”

As evidence of Alexander’s deep connection to the humanities, the book includes a dozen beautiful color reproductions of fine art by Rashid Johnson, Elizabeth Catlett, Lorna Simpson and Amy Sherald, among others, including a self-portrait by Ghebreyesus. The art was selected as counterpoint to the essays, another means to draw the reader into reflection and contemplation.

Reshaping who — and what — we choose to remember

Alexander’s expansive consideration of the importance of the art to expand our understanding of ourselves and inspire connection includes “Notes on the Nation,” an essay that reflects on Simon Rodia’s Watts Tower— which Alexander admires for their “inspirational power and seeming impossibility” — and the monuments she’d like to see “that do not teach us to memorialize war or to commemorate fighting against others because their beliefs are different….I’d like to see those monuments.”

Alexander’s sentiment was shared by the Mellon Foundation’s leaders, who commissioned a study on the nation’s commemorative works that found, among other things, that 50% of monuments were in honor of people who owned other people. That inspired the funding of the Monuments Project, a $500-million, multiyear commitment (the largest in the foundation’s history), which seeks to answer a fundamental question posed on the foundation’s website: “How can we transform our commemorative landscape so that it accurately conveys complexity of our history and the inspiration that is possible in public spaces?”

While perhaps its best known project has been the MONUMENTS exhibit, co-sponsored by the Brick and the Museum of Contemporary Art, which explores the removal and reinterpretation of decommissioned Confederate statues, Alexander also expressed enthusiasm for Kootéeyaa Deiyí, a totem trail on Juneau, Alaska’s waterfront that commemorates the region’s Indigenous communities and Lauren Halsey’s sister dreamer, an ode to the history and vibrancy of South Los Angeles. “I’ve visited that monument several times,” Alexander admits of the monument that sits at the corner of 76th Street and Western Avenue, “and I am awed by the way people have taken to it and claim it as their own.”

The purpose of the project, as is Alexander’s work as a poet and scholar, is to create a more complete picture of our country. “We limit our greatness as a nation,” she argues, “if we think a sanitized history is of any use to anyone!”

Weaving poetry into the margins of everyday life

As important as discussions of language and art can be in connecting us to each other and providing inspiration to seek justice, Alexander is acutely aware that readers live in the real world, where exhortations to speak truth to power are noted side-by-side with reminders to pick up the dry cleaning. So she closes “Signals” with her personal “To Do List,” an idea which came from another notable poet and friend, Rita Dove, who Alexander reveals includes lines of poetry amid her personal to-do list as a way to remind herself of what’s most important.

Alexander’s list reflects her own particularly hard-won wisdom, like “There should always be salad with dinner.” “Speak up, even when you are afraid.” Or “Give something away every day. Pass along a book when you have finished it. Think about the ecosystem of your actions—what you take in, send out,” the latter of which she includes in a more expansive concept of tithing, of contributing to a common pot for greater good.

There are other thoughts in this essential collection that readers may use to construct their own “to do” lists, which Alexander jokingly says could be “the next great literary genre.” It may be lines of poetry or prose she quotes in the book, or passages from others’ or her own essays that will resonate with readers seeking reconnection with what’s most important in their lives. “As a poet, I know that language is what connects us as human beings,” she asserts. “And I still believe that books are powerful tools to bring us together in a common experience. I want the signals this book sends out across the vast distances of this country to be a conversation starter… and a journey.”

See the author live Nov. 9, 7 p.m. at ALOUD Presents: Elizabeth Alexander in conversation with Jacqueline Stewart at the Mark Taper Auditorium in Central Library. 630 W. Fifth St., L.A.

Woods is a regular contributor to The Times, a member of the National Book Critics Circle and the editor of several anthologies and four novels in the “Charlotte Justice” mystery series.

With its gridlocked terminals, infuriating delays and long lines for everything from security checks to coffee, LAX might be where patience goes to die. It’s a place most dream of escaping; instead L.A.-born novelist Alexander Maksik takes readers inside the airport to witness both the unease and shared humanity of people passing through.

Longlisted for the 2026 National Book Award in fiction, Maksik’s new novel, “Passengers,” unfolds within the airport’s sprawling concourses. The story centers on Ivan and Nina, a distant father and daughter meeting up for a flight to Paris. For 75-year-old Ivan, it’s a chance to show his daughter where he once lived. For 29-year-old Nina, it’s a free trip and an opportunity to finally understand a parent she barely knows. When their flight is delayed, and then delayed again, frustration shifts from the departure boards to the fault lines between them.

Maksik, speaking via video conference from his Parisian apartment, always planned that the book would be about a father-daughter pair. “When my daughter was born, like many new parents, I found I could only think in clichés, and I didn’t try to resist them,” he says. “But as time went by, I started to toy with the idea of writing a novel about a father and daughter in which the battle against cliché would become central, would take on huge, even life-saving, importance.”

The author also plays with the idea of nostalgia. “Nostalgia brings you close to the edge of real feeling without forcing you to confront the weight, power and terror of real feeling. It’s too easy to keep yourself wrapped up in the false ease of the past.” One of the things that airports remind us of, he says, is change. Restaurants and boutiques close and open regularly. In one era, people sought out bookstores; in another, they’re looking for headphones and portable chargers.

“For a long time, airports felt to me like places of civility,” says Maksik. “I remember having real conversations with strangers at a bar or in various waiting areas. There was promise and possibility and warmth in such interactions. Now an airport is just one more place to look at your phone.”

As Ivan and Nina walk, talk, do tequila shots and observe their fellow travelers, those travelers are also observing them. One of the most powerful conceits in the book occurs when the two leave an airport venue and readers get the perspective of a person who served or overheard them. For example, one character, “an elegant woman, long gray hair in a braid” thinks about her dead husband when she notices Ivan and Nina: “It was impossible for the woman to see two people together, really any two people, and not feel his absence.” There’s another man who thinks he can tell that father and daughter “were the kind always looking for a way around the rules, who think waiting is for suckers like him.” Each underscores the fact that strangers affect and can even change one another (like our own offspring do).

Something else Ivan and Nina share is physical labor. Ivan spent decades as a building contractor, while Nina is a masseuse who goes to clients’ homes, not liking “the idea of going to the same place again and again. She wanted to travel, to peer inside different lives.” Maksik himself held service positions for many years, experience that gave him a different outlook than some of his colleagues at the renowned Iowa Writers Workshop, which he entered at the relatively senior age of 38.

“At Iowa, I was drawn to those who were writing about worlds that were far away from literature and academia,” he says. “Maybe that’s because I’ve worked so many different jobs. I washed dishes. I was a bartender. I cooked. I delivered pizza. Those experiences were vivid and interesting and at least as formative to me as a writer as anything I learned in the classroom. To write well about work is something I admire a great deal.”

Of course, Maksik is writing fiction, and can write about any sort of life, including that of a teacher, as he did in his critically acclaimed 2011 novel “You Deserve Nothing,” about an affair between an American teacher and his French high school student. As he knows, there’s a shadow over that book because one of his students alleged that the story was about Maksik’s affair with her when she was 17 years old.

“I will aways have to acknowledge my own history, and how I came to write that novel,” he says. “And there will always exist people to whom this acknowledgment means nothing. Perhaps this is as it should be. I’m certainly not proud of that period of my life, and, frankly, I’m no longer particularly proud of the novel either. Nevertheless, it will always be part and parcel of my history, and I have no intention of pretending otherwise.”

As Ivan and Nina wrestle with their own emotional truths, which range from her mother Nora’s departure from their lives to Ivan’s clumsy recitations of Nina’s childhood antics, something alarming is afoot. Nina can’t make or receive calls on her phone. The pair notices that others can’t make calls, either; a restaurant loses its checkout interface; and everyone is snaking cords around to keep devices charged for the moment when service returns.

Something is definitely wrong, and no one seems to know what it is. Soon Nina sees that her father is tired and weak, despite a meal and plenty of water; she becomes convinced that he needs fresh air. When they try to exit the airport, they find barriers set up and armed soldiers who say no one is allowed to leave.

The sense of unease Maksik creates mirrors the sense of disconnection between all of the people stranded, from a brusque young woman in bunny slippers and giant headphones to an older couple huddled beneath racks of merchandise: “We’re trying to sleep … Can’t you see that?” one of them says. This LAX, unlike the island of civility and good manners Maksik remembers from childhood, fosters alienation and dread.

The author laughs ruefully when accused of his own version of nostalgia, admitting that the version of the airport he’s created feels closer to our present-day reality. As it happens, Maksik himself will be taking a flight soon, from France to Florida, taking part in his fellow author Lauren Groff’s First Editions Book Club. How does he feel about that?

“Our daughter was born in late 2019, and then there was the pandemic. Each day since then seems more dangerous than the previous one. I wouldn’t at all be surprised to find myself trapped in an airport, whether as a result of climate change, AI, or one of the many petulant maniacs who run the world.”

Patrick is a freelance critic and author of the memoir “Life B.”

Here’s how conspiracy theories shaped the last 600 years. The printing press helped spread European witch-hunts even as it helped usher in the Enlightenment. The Nazis turned radio into a weapon of mass persuasion. Social media promised freedom but gave dictators new tools of control. We trace centuries of conspiracy theories – and ask what artificial intelligence could bring next.

In this episode:

Episode credits:

This episode was produced by Mohamed Hassan, Marcos Bartolome, Marthe van der Wolf and Sonia Bhagat and was edited by Alexandra Locke. Our engagement producer is Adam Abou-Gad. Our sound designer is Alex Roldan.

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“The Daily Show” writer Kevin Bleyer died in a car crash on Sunday. He was 54.

The death was confirmed via his wife, Nella Vera, who shared the tragic news on her Instagram account on Tuesday. Multiple news outlets report that the Oct. 25 crash occurred in Millrift, Pa., a rural town near Bleyer’s country home.

“The last eleven years have had their ups and downs, as life does, but above all, they have been filled with immense love, laughter, dogs, and travel,” Vera wrote in her Instagram caption. “I was in awe of his intellect, dazzled by his wit, amazed by his fearlessness and spirit of adventure, besotted by his loving heart, and smitten by his beautiful blue eyes.”

The two met in 2010 at a production of “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson” at the NYC Public Theater and shared a love for political comedy. Bleyer was an esteemed staff writer on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” for nine years, during which he won four Emmys for writing for a variety, music or comedy program.

The couple began dating in 2015 and married in June 2025.

“I feel incredibly lucky to have shared the past decade with such a brilliant, complicated, funny, stubborn, and wonderful man,” Vera added in her caption. “He had many public accomplishments and awards throughout his long and successful career, but to me, he was my soulmate, my partner in crime, and the one who made life so much more fun.”

Prior to “The Daily Show,” Bleyer also wrote on the satire show “Politically Incorrect” led by comic commentator Bill Maher, the improv comedy show “Significant Others” and late-night talk show “Dennis Miller.”

In 2010, Bleyer co-wrote the book “Earth (The Book): A Visitor’s Guide to the Human Race,” a comedic travel guide for aliens that details the history of humanity, alongside Stewart and dozens of other comics. He was also the solo author of 2012‘s “Me the People: One Man’s Selfless Quest to Rewrite the Constitution of the United States of America,” which poked fun at the way in which Americans choose to interpret the historic document.

In 2013, he moved to Kyrgyzstan, where he was the executive producer of “Studio 7,” the first political satire news show in Central Asia, according to his website. When he returned to the States, he co-founded Pilot Media Initiatives, which launched civics-minded media programs in democratically-challenged countries, including North Macedonia, Nigeria, Moldova, Kenya, Jordan and Estonia.

Bleyer also served as a writer and producer for NBC News’ “Today” show, as a supervising producer for MSNBC’s “Ronan Farrow Daily” and as a writer and producer for a CNN talk show pilot starring Kal Penn.

The humorist was also a gifted speechwriter for various NASA astronauts, political diplomats — once serving as deputy chief speechwriter for New York Mayor Bill de Blasio — and Colombian pop star Shakira.

Bleyer also contributed to the funnier speeches made by President Obama, including all of his White House Correspondents’ Assn. dinner addresses. In a 2017 TED Talk, Bleyer pointed out Obama’s famous 2011 monologue, which aimed multiple shots at Donald Trump and his ability to lead the country; various political analysts believe the humiliating moment set the groundwork for Trump’s 2016 presidential run.

“Before I go any further, I feel like I should offer an apology. The rumors are true, Donald Trump is president of the United States of America, and there’s a good chance it’s my fault,” joked Bleyer in his 2017 TED Talk. “I’m told he ran for president, in part because he couldn’t take a joke, a few jokes actually.”

In her Instagram tribute, Vera described him as a “private person,” although some of his own political commentary aired as a guest on National Public Radio, “CBS Sunday Morning,” CNN and MSNBC.

Bleyer was born in Maryland but grew up in Washington state. He later attended Stanford University, where he switched his engineering major for communications.

He began his career as a dramaturge and assistant to actor-playwright Anna Deavere Smith at the New York Public Theater and Broadway’s Cort Theater. He later moved to London, where he worked for journalist David Brancaccio at the London bureau of the public radio business affairs program “Marketplace.”

There will be a private gathering in a few months to honor Bleyer’s life, Vera said. Individuals are welcome to donate funds to the Alzheimer’s Assn. New York City Chapter, where he volunteered, or the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Bleyer is survived by Vera, his father, brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew.

A man dedicates U2’s “With or Without You” to the ex-boyfriend who ghosted him. A woman sings “I’m Coming Home” from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” for the late Tim Curry. The room pounds their fists on the tables to the bridge of Metallica’s “One,” a harrowing anthem about the horrors of war.

This is Blue Mondays, a karaoke night dedicated to sad songs that’s become a ritual of catharsis for its regulars. It happens the first Monday of every month at the Fable, where singers compete for what KJ (karaoke jockey) Teri Gamble calls, “the most coveted shirt in all of Eagle Rock”: a blue T-shirt featuring a pajama-clad Garfield (the cat, not the president) with the caption “I hate Mondays.”

Gamble, an actor, musician and podcaster, has sung karaoke since childhood with their babysitter. They host several karaoke events, including a Broadway night at Akbar in Silver Lake, and have helmed Blue Mondays for about two years.

Singers gather at the Fable on the first Monday of the month to belt out their saddest songs.

Gamble doesn’t always choose the best singer to win the Garfield shirt. They consider performers who make a song their own, get everyone singing along, or seem like they need a win.

“There was a girl who … had a cast on her arm. She cried her whole song. I said, ‘you don’t have to tell me what happened, but I love you and I hope everything gets better.’ And then I definitely gave her the shirt that night,” Gamble said.

Thom Sigsby, who owns the Fable with his wife, Monica Katzenell Sigsby, enjoys the low-key performances. “Someone did [Sara Bareilles’ “She Used to Be Mine”] and it was just devastating. There wasn’t a single moment of feeling like she realized there was anyone else in the room,” he said.

You’d expect long faces nursing their drinks, but it’s often the opposite. There’s something freeing about exorcising negativity through song that keeps people coming back. There’s community here, across the dedicated regulars and the staff — Gamble’s an incredible singer, and bartender Megha Wescombe absolutely crushes “Maybe This Time” from “Cabaret.” As Nicole Kidman might say, “Heartbreak feels good in a place like this.”

Patrons cheer after a performance during Blue Mondays. Regulars tell stories of forging new friendships at the event.

Mel Minghelli can perform both parts in “Phantom of the Oprah” thanks to her wide vocal range.

“I think I end up feeling less sad about my own personal sads because we are sharing them together,” Gamble said. “So it feels like the burden is lessened by the end of the night every time.”

Akhil Indurti, a software engineer who also performs musical improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade, won October’s shirt. He sang System of a Down’s “Chop Suey” (frontman Serj Tankian owns Kavat Cafe, two doors down), though his go-to is Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game.”

“I think oftentimes [people] listen to sad songs because they’re sometimes more musically interesting,” he said. “They’re not just a major chord progression. It’s not usually just sadness. There’s nuance and subtlety. There’s some storytelling.”

Soraya Sebghati won September’s shirt with Linda Ronstadt’s “Long Long Time.” She fronts the band Night Talks, and said sometimes people tell her she shouldn’t be allowed to do karaoke because she’s a professional. She still loves it, both as a performer and a spectator, and — despite her seemingly upbeat demeanor — enjoys Blue Mondays as a “safe space for the freaks and the goths and people who want to sing sad stuff.”

Fable owner Thom Sigsby says his karaoke book, with more than 12,000 songs, may feel antiquated compared with digital karaoke platforms, but that’s the point.

“I’m the kind of person, when I’m sad, I like to listen to more sad music. I’m also a big cinephile. Bleak Week at Cinematheque’s [Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair] is my favorite week of programming of the year,” she said.

Fable owner Thom Sigsby says his karaoke book, with more than 12,000 songs, may feel antiquated compared to digital karaoke platforms, but that’s the point.

Dave Child lays it all out on the karaoke stage.

The Fable’s crowd and the songs they choose are eclectic, spanning generations and musical tastes. Some songs you’re guaranteed to hear every time — Radiohead’s “Creep” and Johnny Cash’s cover of “Hurt” are staples — but some performers choose more subversive tracks.

For example, OutKast’s “Hey Ya” sounds happy, but it’s about loveless relationships. Barry Manilow’s high-energy “Copacabana” describes a woman who drank her life away following her lover’s murder. Gamble recalled a performer who writhed on the floor while sob-singing Lou Bega’s “Mambo No. 5,” which could be sad considering the protagonist’s inability to maintain a steady relationship.

Blue Mondays didn’t start at the Fable. Sigsby was already a karaoke enthusiast when he began KJing at Bigfoot Lodge in Atwater Village about 14 years ago. By his own admission, he “got way too into it,” spending his own money to add songs to his book. A former theater kid and commercial actor, karaoke gave Sigsby a new way to express himself on stage and make friends. He and his wife even bonded over karaoke before they married.

Lyrics for “Solitaire,” a Neil Sedaka ballad, plays during a karaoke performance.

Given that Mondays are usually slow, Sigsby and his co-workers began adding shticks: single-artist blocks, nights where KJs chose singers’ songs, and Blue Mondays, which offered a free “Prozac” shot for each depressing tune (a mystery blend with an on-theme hue). Free booze — which singers still receive today — was a motivator, but so was the theme, which seemed to “resonate” more than the others.

Sigsby later founded his own karaoke company, HiHo Karaoke. It operates at bars including Ye Rustic Inn, Glendale’s the Gold Rail and Bigfoot Lodge, whose own Blue Mondays, Sigsby said, draws a younger crowd. Compared with some karaoke outfits, Sigsby admits HiHo may appear “antiquated,” but that’s intentional. “There’s no app, there [are] no [paper] slips. You literally just come talk to us because we want to meet you and talk to you and have a relationship with the singer[s],” he said.

The same goes for HiHo’s book. Streaming services may offer 50,000-song catalogs, but HiHo’s 12,000-plus book is curated by its hosts and clientele. Licensing each song ensures musicians and rights holders are paid, and lets people request the songs they’ve been dying to sing, from emo deep cuts to Puccini operas.

Brian Collins performs during Blue Mondays.

In 2019, Sigsby and his wife purchased the Fable (formerly the Old Chalet and before that, the Black Boar) less than six months before the pandemic. It was after stay-at-home orders lifted that Blue Mondays really took off. “I think it really was just this need for everyone to reconnect coming out of COVID and also have a safe space … where they really could emote,” he said.

Through the Eaton fire in nearby Altadena and today’s economic uncertainty — Sigsby notes the first Monday means everyone’s just paid rent — the Fable has continued to offer that space.

Regular Mel Minghelli, whose impressive four-octave range let her nail both the Phantom and Christine in “The Phantom of the Opera,” said, “I think in the way that sad music has helped people as a comfort, it’s really nice to be able to perform it and have other people … hear it or also feel comforted.” Minghelli used to treat her unique talent as a “party trick,” but now wants to record her own music with singer-songwriter Johnny Mace, another regular she met at the Fable.

Mace chose Calum Scott’s cover of Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own” that evening, though he said he often does Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs.” He described the Fable as a “magical” place where he’s found numerous friends and opportunities. “I was in the deepest depression and coming out here got my confidence back and I found my voice again. I [had given up] on my music career. I was really hurting and this place gave me life again so I owe this place a lot,” he said.

He won the shirt once singing the Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris” but has since given it away, to whom he can’t remember. Why? Unlike Garfield, he likes Mondays.

The next Blue Monday is Nov. 2, 8:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m., at the Fable, 1630 Colorado Blvd. in Eagle Rock.

Noah Adams, a longtime host of NPR news program “All Things Considered” and a journalist known for his gentle voice and genuine curiosity, has died. He was 84.

Adams died Oct. 16 at his home in Yellow Springs, Ohio, according to NPR. The cause was complications of a benign brain tumor removed eight years ago, his wife and longtime NPR news producer Neenah Ellis told the New York Times.

A host of the weekday edition of “All Things Considered” for 18 years, Adams helped cover major news events and produced segments from his travels around the country, talking to everyday people, often in small rural towns.

“He never liked talking to people who he knew had preprogrammed things to say,” Melissa Block, a former “All Things Considered” host who’d previously worked as a producer for Adams, said in NPR’s segment announcing his death. “He wanted people who were genuinely speaking from their heart and with conviction and sincerity.”

Born on Sept. 15, 1942, in Ashland, Ky., Adams joined NPR in the mid-1970s after working various jobs including as a DJ and in construction in and around his hometown. A college dropout, Adams was inspired to start working in public radio after encountering “All Things Considered” as a listener.

He was introduced to the program by a colleague shortly after it debuted in 1971. He told The Times in 2002 that he remembered thinking, “That sounds conversational, that they intend for me to be listening, that I’m smart enough to be listening,” when he first heard the show.

After working at the University of Kentucky’s public radio station, he applied for a job at NPR. He was hired as a production assistant on “All Things Considered” in 1975 before becoming a weekend co-host for the show in 1978. He moved to the weekday show in 1982.

Susan Stamberg, Adams’ “All Things Considered” co-host from 1982 to 1987 who died last year, described him as “the most genuine, uncontrived voice in broadcasting” in the foreword of his 1992 book about his work on the program.

“The conviction shines through the words he writes, and the quiet and very powerful way in which he speaks,” she wrote, according to Current. “He is a quiet, careful man, a craftsman in his work, his seriousness softened by a twinkle in his eye, an occasional goofy grin, and the daffodils he’ll bring into the studio on an especially tense or stuffy day.”

Adams mentioned the camaraderie with his colleagues and one-on-one interviews as among the things he would miss when he left his job as host of “All Things Considered” for a second and final time in 2002.

These interviews, which often turned into “a conversation that’s so quiet and so slow,” were the “kind of conversation [that] cannot be accomplished on anything but radio,” he told The Times.

Among Adams’ signature audio work is the 1981 radio documentary “Father Cares: The Last of Jonestown,” as well as a series of interviews with Tom DeBaggio, a man living with Alzheimer’s disease, and an interview with Betsy Walter, an 8-year-old girl whose parents had gotten divorced. Adams wrote a number of books, including “Piano Lessons: Music, Love, and True Adventures,” which chronicled Adams’ quest to learn how to play the piano in his 50s, and “The Flyers: In Search of Wilbur and Orville Wright.”

“He has a writer’s eye, and I think you hear that when he’s on the air,” Robert Siegel, Adams’ “All Things Considered” co-host, said in 2002. “And he takes sound very seriously. When you combine writing with sound, you can create extraordinary radio.”

Catapult Books, an indie publisher that has supported authors across Southern California and beyond, has been sold.

Launched by Elizabeth Koch and Andy Hunter more than a decade ago, the independent publisher will shutter operations in just over a week, per Publisher’s Weekly, which spoke with members of the publisher’s union. The Catapult Workers Collective said the company’s sale included the assets only and that the union was notified their employment would not be rolled over to the new buyer.

According to union reps, the publisher announced plans to sell the business while staff were in the midst of a union vote. The union, which includes roughly 20 staff members across various publishing departments, told the outlet that they had filed for an election earlier in the year seeking better pay, job stability, and clearer communication from executives.

The union is now hashing out a severance package, according to Publisher’s Weekly, and it’s unclear what will happen to the 16 upcoming book titles scheduled through spring 2027.

“Catapult is intrinsic to L.A. culture and L.A. literature. So many of their writers are in this area,” Gina Frangello told The Times on Thursday. The author penned “Blow Your House Down,” published by Counterpoint Press, an imprint of Catapult.

“It’s a huge loss for L.A.,” she said. “It’s a huge loss for the West Coast.”

Frangello has been publishing books for more than 20 years, and she said she’d never had the intimate publishing experience she had with Counterpoint, specifically with Dan Smetanka. The editorial director and senior vice president of Catapult is widely known in literary circles for his meticulous and thoughtful approach to editing and for his support of the authors he works with.

“As someone who has been in indie publishing culture since the ’90s, Catapult was a holdout of an old world,” Frangello said. “Dan ran things the way they used to, in the storied, fabled days of publishing before everything went corporate.”

Susan Straight, author of “Sacrament” and winner of the L.A. Times Book Prizes’ Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement, emailed The Times a missive on the Catapult news. She wrote that on Wednesday she attended the grand opening of Barnes & Noble’s new location in Ontario, “where more than a hundred readers were lined up outside, some having brought chairs to wait.”

“We keep hearing that Americans aren’t reading — for two hours I saw people of all ages browsing, buying books, and talking to each other,” she continued. “About fifty people came and talked to me, and bought copies ‘In the Country of Women,’ my memoir published by Catapult, and ‘Sacrament,’ my latest novel, published by Counterpoint. Both are indelibly So Cal Books, filled with Fontana, East Hollywood, Santa Ana, Los Feliz, and San Bernardino, and the readers were from all these places. …

“I lit a veladora last night, the Virgen de Guadalupe, set it next to a bouquet of California sage from my yard, because I’m a So Cal native, and whatever happens, I wanted to thank the universe for the editors like Dan Smetanka who’ve brought our stories to the rest of the world.

“Wednesday morning, I spent time talking about narrative with nurses, teachers, students, mothers, and nascent writers from all over So Cal. Americans are still reading — I see it every day in my community, which needs books by presses like Counterpoint and Catapult.”

Since Catapult’s debut in 2015, the indie outfit and its authors have been a force on the awards circuit, landing the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ E. M. Forster Award in Literature, a PEN/Faulkner Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, the Maine Literary Award, the Costa Novel Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Meredith Maran, the author of more than a dozen books including a novel published by Counterpoint in 2012, “A Theory of Small Earthquakes,” also mourned the publisher in a note to The Times, writing, “Counterpoint, its imprints, and its beating heart, Dan Smetanka, have been (I cannot bring myself to say ‘were’) the stuff of legends. True legends. I’ve published books with all of the big 5 houses and comparing those experiences to the Counterpoint experience, the Dan experience, is like comparing an AI-generated metaphor, to, well, this one. Counterpoint humanized publishing, revered its authors, honored and will live on in its books.”

Over the last decade, Catapult included a publishing imprint, digital magazine, and courses for budding and established writers. (The latter two were nixed in 2023.) In 2016, it merged with Counterpoint Press, which brought into the fold its own imprint, Soft Skull Press. Last fall, Catapult also acquired Hawthorne Books. In 2023, Catapult Chief Executive Koch — the daughter of billionaire industrialist and businessman Charles Koch — launched another pet project in 2021, Unlikely Collaborators, a nonprofit storytelling and experiential organization.

Bestselling author Tod Goldberg, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for fiction this year for his novel “Only Way Out,” posted a tribute to the publisher on social media Wednesday night, crediting Smetanka and Counterpoint with taking a chance on “a book others wouldn’t touch” and with that book’s subsequent success, which changed Goldberg’s life.

“Since their founding, Counterpoint has published books that matter, has taken chances on authors and topics that others wouldn’t, and have been celebrated for this strident independence with wide critical acclaim and commercial success. From their roots in the Bay Area — where they published the likes of Wendell Berry, Gary Snyder, Anne Lamott, Mary Robison early on — to their move south into Los Angeles, where they took on writers like myself, Natashia Deon, Karen Bender, Gina Frangello, Elizabeth Crane, Ben Ehrenreich, Dana Johnson, Vanessa Hua, Joan Silber, to name just a few, plus the late Eve Babitz.”

“Counterpoint took big risks and found big rewards. I’m confident that whomever the buyer is (and I’ve not been told, so y’all can stop texting me…) will keep these great writers in print while also continuing to publish new work from them, but what’s lost here is not merely a publishing house, but a culture of excellence, of risk taking, plus a dash of punk rock.”

While growing up in Palo Alto, it was not uncommon for animator Lisa Hanawalt to pretend she was a horse. This game of make-believe was a way for Hanawalt to escape her “burdensome and awkward” body, as she writes in her candid new illustrated memoir, “I Can’t Stop Thinking About Horses And Sex.” “But when I was a horse, I was powerful, graceful, and gorgeous.”

Although Hanawalt might be an unapologetic horse girl, she really hates a horse pun. So when it came time to choose a title for the book, she decided to keep it literal. “This is just the most true version of what this book actually is,” Hanawalt says about the utterly confessional nature of her book’s title, which groups two seemingly unrelated subjects that her mind wanders to when she’s bored. “They’re the two most mentally engaging things I can imagine,” she writes as a self-described “anixous lil freak.”

“I Can’t Stop Thinking About Horses and Sex” by Lisa Hanawalt

(Drawn & Quarterly)

Sitting in her Los Angeles home, the designer of such adult animated touchstones as Netflix’s “BoJack Horseman,” “Long Story Short,” and her personal creation “Tuca & Bertie” is drinking from a mug of tea as we chat over Zoom. When I ask what people’s responses have been so far to her book’s cheeky title, she says, “They just laugh. A lot of them are just like, ‘Well, I have to read that.’”

In many ways, “I Can’t Stop” represents a culmination of Hanawalt’s shtick for truth-telling via colorful anthropomorphized characters. The 43-year-old’s sketches are famously loose, bright and unrefined. Topics like weird body stuff, sex and horniness are never off the table. A typical drawing might feature an animal-human hybrid (say, a bird head on a human body) doing something utterly mundane while Hanawalt’s inner monologue appears in thought bubbles to reveal an intensely personal thought most people would never say out loud, let alone publish in a book.

“They all have personal things in them, some more overtly than others,” Hanawalt says about her particular oeuvre, which includes 2013’s “My Dirty Dumb Eyes,” 2016’s “Hot Dog Taste Test,” 2018’s “Coyote Doggirl” and 2020’s archival collection “I Want You,” as well as countless contributions over the years to publications like the New York Times, McSweeney’s, Vanity Fair and the now-defunct women’s humor blog the Hairpin.

“I think [‘I Can’t Stop Thinking About Horses and Sex’] fits in with ‘My Dirty Dumb Eyes’ and ‘Hot Dog Taste Test’ in that it’s another kind of mishmash book, and it all goes together in my mind,” Hanawalt adds of her nonlinear storytelling, which in this book intersperses memories of couples therapy and egg-freezing with drawings of a sloth dancing with a bear. Or a deep dive on the filmography of Kevin Costner.

Hanawalt has never shied away from getting personal, but there’s no question that “I Can’t Stop” takes her disarming and revelatory style to a new level. “I think it just needed that extra layer of me going through a midlife crisis and breaking up with my partner and going through all this weird stuff. It’s a weird combo with the horse stuff because my love of horses is so pure.”

An illustration from “I Can’t Stop Thinking About Horses and Sex” by Lisa Hanawalt.

(Drawn & Quarterly)

If Hanawalt ever felt embarrassment at being a horse girl (and she certainly has — as she got older, Hanawalt eased off of the horse games out of fear of being bullied), that shame has since evaporated. About eight years ago, as she faced a combination of career burnout and gut-health issues, Hanawalt started taking riding lessons in an attempt at self-care. “There’s something about riding that clears my head and eases my physical pain, for a moment,” she writes in a comic titled “How I Got a Horse.” When her then-partner (comedian and podcaster Adam Conover) noted how relaxed Hanawalt seemed when she’d return home from riding, he urged her to consider buying a horse of her own.

So Hanawalt reactivated her dormant Facebook account and began scrolling through local horse sale groups. That’s where she discovered Juniper (“Juni” for short), a 2006 Norwegian Fjord Mare. “I bought her somewhat impulsively,” Hanawalt says. “It was a huge lifestyle shift. Having a horse is often very stressful because it’s like a pet you have to rent an apartment for. It’s expensive, and they injure themselves … But then, being with her, I’m present in a way that I never am in the rest of my life. It just feels nice to care for another creature, human or animal.”

Spending time with Juni and a cast of new friends at the stables was physically and emotionally therapeutic for Hanawalt, particularly as new issues began to sneak up on her. For instance, she began to wonder if she still wanted to remain child-free. Simultaneously, her long-term relationship of 14 years was beginning to come apart. She describes in the book how she and Conover made a Hail Mary attempt at ethical nonmonogamy — an experience she’s glad to have had, even if Hanawalt jokes today about how she’s “a true polyamory fail.” She adds, “I don’t think it’s for me at all, and I never did. But I was willing to give it a go [as a] last-ditch effort to save something I really cared about. I think that’s the case for a lot of people.”

An illustration from “I Can’t Stop Thinking About Horses and Sex” by Lisa Hanawalt.

(Drawn & Quarterly)

Hanawalt admits how anxious she was to talk about her breakup in the book — so much so that she considered avoiding it altogether. “I was dancing around it, and then I was like, ‘I don’t need to explain every little part of it,’” she says. Hanawalt even solicited creative feedback from Conover, who responded by playing her bits of a new stand-up special, which showcased his perspective of their breakup (that special will be the forthcoming “Big Divorce Energy,” out Oct. 23 on YouTube).

“It’s really nice that we still have that kind of relationship,” Hanawalt says of her ongoing connection and friendship with Conover. “Because I really value his opinion and input. He’s just a really smart, creative person, and that was always a strong point in our relationship. I also just wanted him to be OK with how I was representing us. I’m still very protective of that.”

The latter half of “I Can’t Stop” finds Hanawalt processing the end of her relationship, dipping a toe back into the dating world, and exploring fertility options such as egg-freezing. Despite its heavy subject matter — one especially tough passage looks back at a sexual assault Hanawalt experienced when she was an adolescent — “I Can’t Stop” is packed with absurdist doodles that keep the mood light without seeming dismissive. For example, as she describes how Juni behaves when she’s in heat, Hanawalt considers her own overwhelming “livestock mode,” which once included a hyper-fixation on Kevin Costner. This is all laid out in a section titled “Costner Watch,” where Hanawalt decides to consume every film the actor ever made.

Artist and author Lisa Hanawalt with her beloved horse Juniper.

(Annie Noelker / For The Times)

“Yeah, I was losing my mind,” Hanawalt laughs at “Costner Watch.” “I don’t know. It was a cope, in hindsight.”

As she prepares to celebrate the release of “I Can’t Stop” with a six-date book tour, Hanawalt can’t say for sure if she’s answered any existential midlife questions. She jokes that her eggs are “still on ice.” She’s working on several new animation projects, though isn’t sure at this point which, if any, will move forward. (It probably also doesn’t help that the animation industry is currently experiencing a severe downturn, with record-high unemployment among even the most seasoned creators. “It’s a weird time,” she says.) To round things out, Hanawalt says she’s “selling hats” and even working with a perfume maker to eventually release a “horsey-themed” fragrance.

Hanawalt also has no clue what being a self-proclaimed horse girl even means in the year 2026. The other horse people she hangs out with at the barn, where Juni lives, come from “every possible income level and political belief, and they’re all kind of shoved together,” Hanawalt tells me. “It’s kind of like ‘Lord of the Flies.’

“It’s just so fun to have a community with people and be able to trust them,” Hanawalt says of the friendships she’s made through caring for Juni. “We help each other. Just to be able to go out on the trail and talk about blow jobs or whatever with women I truly connect to … They’re some of the coolest people I’ve ever met in my whole life.”

All that is to say, Hanawalt has grown more comfortable in not quite knowing what’s next. “You’re never fully happy or fulfilled,” she says. “And that’s part of being alive.”

Catch Lisa Hanawalt live Oct. 22 at 7 p.m. at Skylight Books in conversation with Priyanka Mattoo. 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles.

Brodsky is an L.A. culture and music writer. Her biography of Stevie Nicks, “Lessons & Lace,” published by Penguin Random House, is out now.

Genres Book Society, a new bookshop coming to L.A., is hiding a few secrets. The first indication that something a bit fantastical is going on here is the fact that the boutique store has a mascot.

Look up upon entering the space, and you’ll meet Lore. Lore is a dragon, and this dragon is made of books. The striking sculpture will hover over a cozy space with modular bookshelves that are arranged on a floor covered in book quotes. Peer closely and you’ll see the quotes are designed in the shape of a tree.

A story is being built, a narrative that signifies that Genres aims to be not just a bookshop, but a place that feels like a real-life fairy tale. For this bookstore is also concealing a speakeasy of sorts, a secluded cafe and bar with multiple themed spaces and a two-story tree with glowing books growing out of its branches.

Stories, Genres is telling us, are life.

“This is for people who want to enter into story worlds,” says Ann Morrow Johnson of design firm Gensler. Johnson, a former creative with Walt Disney Imagineering, leads Gensler’s entertainment and experiences division, which is designing the bookshop.

She wants guests to feel transported into a fantasy universe, and understands how to make that happen. For instance? “Adding just a little bit of theatricality and sparkle helps create an invitation of suspension of disbelief,” she says.

The centerpiece of Genre’s bookstore, shown in an artist’s rendering, will be a dragon named Lore.

(Gensler)

Genres, on track to open in mid-2027 near the intersection of Melrose and Fairfax avenues, is tapping into a local trend of heavily designed thematic spaces with a penchant for fantasy. Think, for instance, of the Witch’s Cottage in North Hollywood, or the Last Canteen in the shadow of Universal Studios Hollywood. Consider it the latest evolution of the themed restaurant, and a way to bring the heavily theatrical worlds of theme parks closer to home. Johnson, for instance, says the firm’s research with the the Immersive Experience Institute has shown a hunger in younger generations to embrace spaces such as the Rainforest Cafe.

“People are seeking out a moment,” Johnson says. “Those more theatrical, highly scenic spaces are more likely to get you off your phone. Little moments of delight center you.”

Genres was dreamed up Clare Grant and Karissa Marston, who brought the project to Gensler and tapped them to lead its design. Grant, an actor/producer, says the idea came to her while experiencing the regret of missing a retreat hosted by her girlfriends, who had rented a cabin to read the latest edition in the fantasy “Crescent City” series.

“Just having a newborn, I was like, ‘Why can’t I go read this book in a fantasy-themed cabin?’ That’s literally my dream,” Grant says. “Then I started thinking about it. Why don’t I have something like this in Los Angeles, where I can pop in for an afternoon or evening where someone is handing me drinks and food in an immersive space?”

Marston, it turns out, who has experience in hospitality and marketing with an emphasis on fandom, was already dreaming of such a space. The two of them crafted a business plan for a bookstore, one that wouldn’t look out of place in a sword and sorcery fantasy novel, with a hidden speakeasy.

“I was in Paris, and I went to the Shakespeare bookstore, and it was truly the most magical experience I have ever had,” Marston says. “I walked in and felt so immersed in the books and the history and I went up to the second floor and sat up there and wept. I was like, ‘I never want to leave this place. I only ever want to feel this way and be surrounded by books and people who love books.’”

Their vision is grand. The bookstore, they hope, will become a gathering spot for authors in the fantasy and sci-fi realms. And they talk of the speakeasy as not just being a safe eatery to sit and read all day, but also a future venue for, say, immersive theater. The two-story space will house multiple themed rooms, either for hanging out and hiding, or for potential events.

“I think it’s safe to say that if you wanted to be transported to outer space, you would be pleasantly surprised,” Marston says. “Or if you wanted to escape to Dracula’s castle or some of these other really big genres that you have, readers will be pleasantly surprised at the worlds that we are building.”

Johnson says Genres will be flexible enough to welcome introverts who want to dream away the day with a book, but can also be a home for a baby shower in addition to an author signing or a theatrical event. That’s in part why the shop and ground floor of the speakeasy have a familiar fantasy vibe, one not out of place in, say, the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, albeit with the welcoming tone of Disney.

Genres’ founders cited “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” as an inspiration for the bookshop’s bar, depicted in an artist’s rendering.

(Gensler)

“The focal point of the space is this sort of epic woodland fantasy,” Marston says. “When we first brought this to Gensler, and showed them our inspo deck, we kept saying ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’”

That’s key, as everything in the space will spring from the written word. Genres, in that sense, also feels refreshing, emphasizing actual books and tactile media at a cultural moment when AI is often dominating conversations. Grant and Marston speak of being influenced by passionate social media creators who celebrate books, wanting to build a community as much as an event space. A prerequisite to be a bartender, says Marston, will need to be a love of books.

“We’re calling all our bartenders book-tenders,” Marston says. “Not only will they be well-versed in all things spirits and cocktails, but they are also someone who can give you the next book recommendation. These are very specialized employees. They can curate cocktails and books for you.”

Consider Genres a place for dinner and drinks, but one where story is always on the menu.

“People are craving more than dinner,” Grant says. “They want experience. They want magical memories that can get them through harder moments because nothing is easy right now. People want to spend money on something that is more than just dinner or going to a bar. Like whimsy.”

On a blazing hot Silver Lake morning, ushering in yet another heatwave day, Anna Holmes and I say “no” to a steamy sidewalk table at Millie’s Cafe, opting instead for an indoor, air-conditioned spot. Our server reads our order back to us, shaking his head in theatrical disbelief. “Pancakes. French toast. Biscuit. Waffle with whipped cream.” He glances from one of us to the other. “No protein?” he asks. “Just the carbs?”

“I guess I’ll have some egg whites, too,” I cave. Not so my brunch companion who confirms, “Just the carbs.” Holmes grins, “I’m not a fan of fad diets that make women hate ourselves.”

In fact, Holmes has built a career of saying “no” to woman-hating of all kinds — starting in 2007, when she founded the boundary-pushing feminist website Jezebel, the sister site of the notoriously provocative Gawker. “I decided that NO would be our mantra of sorts,” she writes in her new book, “The Power of No: A Celebration.” “‘No’ to diet tips, ‘no’ to sexist gossip, ‘no’ to conspicuous consumption. We drove the point home again and again … creating new definitions and examples of what it means to be female.”

Raised in a biracial, working-class family in Davis, Calif., Holmes escaped to New York at 18, chasing her writer’s dream. “Davis was a safe, homogenous little town,” she tells me, spearing one of the sliced strawberries fanned prettily across her waffle. “Being Black, I wasn’t one of the homogenies. I couldn’t wait to get out.”

“The Power of No: A Celebration” by Anna Holmes

(Crown)

Accepted by several top universities, Holmes said ‘yes’ to New York University. “They gave me money,” she explains. “And they had a journalism school.” After graduating, Holmes grabbed a rung on the media ladder and started climbing: writing and editing for Glamour, InStyle and Entertainment Weekly. Holmes published her first book, “Hell Hath No Fury: Women’s Letters from the End of the Affair,” featuring a collection of breakup letters from the likes of Anaïs Nin, Charlotte Brontë and Sylvia Plath, in 2002.

“So, you’ve always been a slacker,” I say.

Holmes laughs. “I come by my drive honestly. It stems from my fear of failure. And growing up lower-middle class, without the kinds of connections the wealthier kids had.”

Next came the breakthrough media success of Jezebel. Her project quickly reached 10 million monthly views, exceeding Gawker’s. But the bold irreverence that drew droves of devoted readers to Jezebel brought contention, too. In June 2010, Jezebel reported that women’s exclusion from senior positions at “The Daily Show” — which the article called a “boys’ club” — was “frustrating and alienating” for women. The story earned an on-air mention by Jon Stewart, who announced “Jezebel thinks I’m a sexist prick” — and an open letter signed by more than 30 female “Daily Show” employees, refuting Jezebel’s allegations.

Author Anna Holmes.

(Annie Noelker / For The Times)

Weeks later, under the header “How feminist blogs like Jezebel gin up page views by exploiting women’s worst tendencies,” former Gawker employee Emily Gould wrote in Slate, “When Jezebel was founded, it proposed itself as an explicit alternative to traditional women’s magazines … but the easiest way for Jezebel writers to be provocative is to stoke readers’ insecurities — just in a different way.”

Holmes says some Jezebel haters were anti-feminist or far-right. “Others were politically aligned with Jezebel, but felt we were too pop-culture-focused. Some accused us of being snarky to other women,” she adds.

After three years, Holmes resigned. “I’d done what I went to Jezebel to do,” she says. “Also, the 14-hour workdays were threatening my marriage, my sanity and my health. I was smoking too much. Drinking too much. Gaining weight.”

Holmes said a final goodbye to her creation in 2013 by publishing “The Book of Jezebel: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Lady Things.” Despite — and because of — having founded one of the internet’s most provocative publications, she helped lift up journalists, and journalism, in her wake.

“I would follow Anna off of a cliff, professionally and personally,” says Reyhan Harmanci, Wired’s editorial director, who reported to Holmes at Topic magazine a decade ago. “She channels her curiosity in a way that opens the world to readers.”

Former Gawker editor A.J. Daulerio also lights up at the mention of Holmes’ name. “If you look back at Anna’s history of finding and developing talent, you can see her impact. Writers who’ve worked with and for her can be found on podcasts, on mastheads at major publications and on bestseller lists.” Meanwhile, New York magazine’s Emily Gould, who wrote the biting Slate critique of Jezebel in 2010, has come to admire Holmes. “Nobody’s right 100% of the time,” Gould says, “especially when publishing around the clock and reacting to news as it unfolds. My current sense of Anna is that she’s genuinely brave, clear-sighted and wise. I’m eager to read her new book.”

Post-Jezebel, Holmes wrote the “Bookends” column for the New York Times Book Review. Her byline grew a few picas when she replaced Roxane Gay as editor of the Times’ popular “Work Friend” column. Having “made it there,” Holmes decided to leave New York.

“I never considered myself a New Yorker,” she says, stirring a foam flower into her latte. “When people asked, I’d say, ‘I’m from California but I live in New York.’”

While deliberating about where to go next, Holmes says, “I got a job offer with the Obamas’ production company in L.A.”

“The Obamas?” I blurt. Holmes nods. “I was tired of New York. And wanting to be closer to my elderly mom.” In the first week of the COVID shutdown, Holmes packed her two hissing black cats, donned an N95 mask and flew to LAX. Six years later, after several moves around town, she shares the upper half of a sun-splashed 1920s duplex with Ewok and Harriet.

“I didn’t have a writing community in New York and I don’t have one here,” Holmes says about her L.A. move. “I had a media community in New York. If that exists here, I’m not invited to those parties.” She cocks her head. “Every once in a while, I wonder, ‘Does Susan Orlean have regular salons? And if so, can I please go?’”

Holmes continues to settle into a slower, more domestic groove. “I’m 53 now,” she says. “I don’t want to go out all the time. I like going to bed early. All the cliches are true of me: moving from NYC to L.A. and ending up in Silver Lake — with a Volvo, no less. In my defense, I dress like a tomboy, I don’t have tattoos and I’ve never been to Bar Stella.”

Since her big move, Holmes has written “The Power of No” and is finishing up her fourth book, a sexual memoir. Her articles on wildly divergent topics continue to appear in the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Atlantic and L.A. Material.

“The Power of No” is a slim but impactful guide to the human dance between yes and no; vulnerability and ambition. The book consists of readily digestible yet smart, sophisticated bits, including quotes from luminaries, research findings, anecdotes from Holmes’ own life and others, practical tips, and lists like “Ways to Say No” (which is especially helpful to have on hand during the upcoming holiday season).

“No,” Holmes writes on Page 1: “As uttered by a woman, a provocation. Has there ever been a more fraught relationship between women and word?” By way of example, she cites what she calls “my biggest NO, my strongest rejection of what was expected of me as a woman: founding Jezebel.”

“Has writing about ‘no’ made you better at saying it?” I ask Holmes.

“I don’t purport to be good at it,” she answers. “But I’m more cognizant now of wanting to say it, at least.”

Maran, author of “The New Old Me” and other books, lives in Silver Lake.

What is pornography? We tend to think of it monolithically, as something created by and for hetero men, reinforcing sexist stereotypes and machismo behavioral codes. For over 20 years, Erika Lust has been fighting against those preconceptions, creating adult content that expands the parameters of pornography while approaching it as something akin to mainstream independent cinema. Her subscription-only website features content that leaps over gender boundaries, and has pulled in fans around the globe.

In her new book “Lust,” the filmmaker makes a convincing case for an ethical, intelligent porn that can expand our ideas about sex and intimacy. I recently chatted with Lust about sex, power and the internet.

✍️ Author Chat

Are we calling it pornography? Adult content? What do you call it?

For me, it is pornography. What I do is pornography because I work with explicit images, but I also work with cinema, and I strive for cinematic vision and craft. I don’t just pick up a camera, film people having sex and put it online. It is a whole creative process. So when I talk about my work, I see myself first as a filmmaker whose subject matter happens to be pornography.

What compelled you to create adult content?

I was born in Sweden, and I became a feminist quite young. I studied political science in college. When I was exploring my sexuality in my late teens and early twenties, I became more and more interested in finding out about our desires and who we are and what we are attracted to. And then I started to watch porn [and] felt horrible watching it. I felt a little bit troubled by the images. Why are all these female characters just there to please the man? It wasn’t about the women, it wasn’t their stories, and that made me feel a bit angry. When I talked to other women about this, they felt the same way. I felt there was something to explore there. Of course at the time, I had no idea I would be doing this for a living.

There are a lot of tired tropes about adult content that you debunk in your book. That the performers come from broken homes and are forced to do things on camera without their consent and so on.

It’s so easy for people to think that in the sex industry there’s going to be exploitation. But my experience is the opposite. Because people I work with dare to talk about sex. The conversation is over the table, not under the table. The people I have met and worked with in this business are intelligent and smart, with a very clear plan of their future. They take care of themselves, their bodies and their sexuality.

In “Lust,” Erika Lust debunks tropes and stereotypes surrounding the production of pornography.

(Jahel Guerra)

How has technology affected how we think about sex?

There’s a lot of sex anxiety going on in our society, and I think that also has a lot to do with technology and how it has taken over our lives. And I’m reading more articles about the intimacy crisis, and the fear that people have of connecting with other people, and young people who are not having sex. Technology has gone wild. It has taken over our lives. People are afraid of other people, of friction, of negotiating boundaries. They don’t know how to explain their own desires so they would rather talk to robots. I think we need to disconnect from technology, and think more deeply and talk to each other — not just about sex, but about everything.

Given the ubiquity of free adult content on the web, how do you compel customers to subscribe to your site?

I think people that subscribe are looking for something completely different, something more elevated, and they understand that that kind of film costs money. I can’t shoot without paying my crew and my staff. Shooting with an Alexa camera is not the same thing as picking up my mobile phone. And then I need crew members who can work with that technology, I need gaffers and electricians, I need to pre-light the set the day before, and so on. The budgets that I’m working with are really budgets for independent films. We have a staff of 45 working with me and my husband.

It’s the last artistic underground, really. I did notice that Bruce LaBruce, a filmmaker whom you mention in your book, has a collection of his films presently being shown on Criterion Channel.

I never think it’s going to become mainstream. My true hope is that we can at least be known as an independent porn culture making quality films that aren’t exploitative. That people understand that it exists, and that it’s an option apart from the mainstream porn websites.

This Q&A was edited for length and clarity.

📰 The Week(s) in Books

Chuck Lorre has written a memoir, “Sitcom,” about his career

(Christopher Patey / For The Times)

How does Bonnie Garmus follow her blockbuster 2022 novel “Lessons in Chemistry”? With “Peck & Peck,” a “whimsical and winning ode to the written word, and send-up of the pretensions of its gatekeepers,” writes Leigh Haber.

Chuck Lorre, one of the most successful and prolific writers and producers in TV history, has written “Sitcom,” a memoir in which he reveals, among other things, his decade-long tenure as a card-carrying Scientologist. Writing the book “was cathartic,” he tells Mary McNamara. “There’s a little bit of therapy going on in this book. I got to say some things out loud that in the past I would have kept hidden because they were embarrassing.”

At a time when it seems like anger and hostility has become the fossil fuel of everyday life, author and conflict expert Priya Parker’s new book “The Art of Fighting” argues for civil and spirited debate as a balm for our troubled times. “As a conflict resolution facilitator for the last 25 years, I can say that healthy community needs healthy conflict,” Parker tells Margaret Wappler.

Finally, Maddie Connors talked to Michael Douglas about his new memoir, “One Helluva Ride,” a book about his life and career. “Your 80s may be a good time to share,” the 82-year-old actor tells Connors. “People interested in movies, we give them a certain insight into the process, and maybe they could learn something. For others, it’s just gossip.”

📖 Bookstore Faves

Formerly a pop-up bookstand, Reverie Bookstand is a brick-and-mortar bookstore on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park.

(Reverie Bookstand)

Located on a busy stretch of Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park, Reverie Bookstand is doing its level best to buck the AI tsunami, selling used books created by humans in a variety of subjects. In an email exchange, owner Tim Horner tells us what’s selling in his store.

What prompted you to open the store?

I was driving by and I saw it was for lease. I had been selling books for some years as a scout for other bookstores, and also at flea markets where I would pop up with a ”bookstand.” So it wasn’t a brand new idea; I had always dreamt of it. The owner of the building was a part of a small team that ran a collective DIY venue and gallery called Echo Curio around 12 years ago. It has since shut down, but Echo Curio was a place I came to as a young person back in the day. So the landlord was sympathetic to the cause and the idea of having a bookstore here. So I went for it.

What genres does the store tend to emphasize?

I specialize in poetry, mysticism, occult and out-of-print secondhand books and paper goods. All the books here in the store are used books. So far it hasn’t been difficult to keep the shelves full, I know some spots.

Who are you customers?

The clientele here is diverse. Students, working-class people, artists, local neighborhood families, musicians and people from all walks of life who simply love books and reading. A thing I am grateful for is how kindhearted and empathetic (most) book people are. It gives me a lot of strength and motivation everyday to know that my book-buying addiction is not in vain but is actually going to some strange use in helping connect people with literature.

What’s selling right now?

The things that are selling the most are things California-related and writers from California especially — Joan Didion, John Steinbeck, Octavia Butler.

Why do we still need bookstores when AI can write books for us?

I think bookstores are relevant still because we all need some type of human connection for our well-being, and books encourage that behavior. Whether it’s connecting with a space and people or connecting with authors, a bookstore is a place where you can actually browse for something and be in the moment with other people that are possibly interesting. The gesture alone validates itself in that you’re telling the world. I am open to ideas, things, places, people, and along the way you find a book you didn’t know existed, a nicer copy of something you already have, or a book you’ve been meaning to read but had forgotten about. And until this point there is no tangible way to browse for these things I have online yet and hopefully ever.

Reverie Bookstand is located at 1519 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles.

Actor Tom Arnold unleashed on Chuck Lorre on X in response to the former “Roseanne” writer-producer’s claims in his new memoir, “Sitcom.”

“He thinks he’s brilliant & beloved like Norman Lear but Chuck ‘Chuckles’ Lorre’s a terrible human, an angry dry drunk who lies every time he opens his mouth,” Arnold wrote Tuesday.

Arnold and the ’90s sitcom’s co-creator and titular star, Roseanne Barr, were married Jan. 20, 1990, four months after he first appeared on the show as a poker pal of Barr’s TV husband and four days after Barr’s real-life divorce from her husband of 14 years, William Pentland, was finalized.

Barr and Arnold were hostile to their writing and producing colleagues on the show and the network, Lorre told the Los Angeles Times’ culture critic Mary McNamara in an interview published Tuesday, the day of the book’s release.

“We were punished, the writers,” Lorre told The Times. “The word ‘cruelty’ comes to mind. And I still don’t know why, why so much cruelty. It wasn’t like we didn’t want to make a great show. We were proud to be on that show.”

Hired in 1990 after Barr fired all of the show’s writers, Lorre recalls in the book that he had a rude awakening when he took the job.

“I was now the co–executive producer on the number one show on television. I swaggered into the office assigned to me and met Danny Jacobson (a world-class comedy writer who would go on to cocreate ‘Mad About You’ with, sorry, Paul — ‘My Two Dads’ — Reiser),” Lorre writes in “Sitcom.”

Chuck Lorre, pictured in 2024, related several anecdotes in his book “Sitcom” that didn’t sit well with Tom Arnold.

(Willy Sanjuan / Invision / Associated Press)

“Danny, having been fired by Roseanne for being talented, was packing up his stuff when I walked in. He showed me a sloppy, hand-scribbled couple of pages and explained this was a ‘script’ by the show’s new executive producer, Tom Arnold. It had been part of Danny’s job to write real scripts and put Tom’s name on the front page — as if Tom had written them,” Lorre continues. “Bob, myself, and several other staff writers would be ordered to do this on many occasions…. Was it a portent of bad things to come? You tell me.”

For her part, Barr admitted after the 1990 firings, “Yeah, I probably was difficult to work with, now looking back.”

“I don’t think I was as especially clear as I could have been,” Barr told former Times television writer Rick Du Brow in a November 1990 article. “It’s like being a woman and an administrator — I never had any background like that. I didn’t know how, like I do now, to go in and say, ‘This is what I want you to do.’ I think that’s common with women in business. I would go in there and try to get them to agree with me rather than tell them what I want to do.”

Arnold’s social media screed doesn’t directly address any of Lorre’s claims in the book but resorts to name-calling and his own claims against the producer, who went on to create or co-create sitcom hits including “Cybill,” “Dharma & Greg,” the Charlie Sheen-starring “Two and a Half Men” and “The Big Bang Theory” and its offshoots.

“He trashes Trump but he is Trump & he’s a bitter hack who actually believes his lame vanity cards at the end of his lame shows are Paddy Chayefsky worthy,” Arnold wrote, invoking the three-time Oscar-winning writer of “Network.” “Chuckle’s made $800,000,000 off the backs of very talented women & a naive cracked up Charlie Sheen (clean & sober since he’s not under Lorre’s strange, abusive tutelage) then trashes them all to make him feel cool but don’t worry, Chuck hates himself more than we ever could.”

Lorre’s accounts of Arnold in “Sitcom” included several other anecdotes, including one seemingly questioning the “True Lies” and “The Stupids” star’s trustworthiness.

“Executive Producer Tom was angrily explaining to Bob [Myer] and me that some bastard had stolen Roseanne’s love letters to him and sold them to the National Enquirer. His plan was to hire a private detective and get to the bottom of this treachery. And he did. It took one day. The detective found a cashed check for twenty-five grand from the National Enquirer made out to Tom Arnold. Mystery solved.”

Lorre was famously fired after two years on the show, which Arnold recalled in concluding his X post: “I wish everyone could’ve seen his arrogant, sad clown face the day Roseanne made me fire him.”

Barr later fired Arnold from “Roseanne” in 1994 amid their divorce. In 2018, after posting a racist tweet, Barr was fired from the “Roseanne” reboot, which was resurrected as spinoff “The Conners.”