books

This month, “Cool Machine,” a riff on 1980s New York in the form of a tightly plotted crime novel, arrives from Colson Whitehead. It concludes his Harlem trilogy, they say. If you’d told readers two decades ago that Whitehead would become a bestselling crime novelist, they might have thought you were kidding. He started out writing innovative novels with such intellectual and stylistic punch that the MacArthur Foundation gave him a fellowship in 2002.

His written output is fun, fearless and fantastic. Where to start? Here’s a cheat sheet.

For N.Y. lovers

With “Harlem Shuffle,” Whitehead begins his crime trilogy in the 1960s in a furniture store with stylish midcentury stock whose owner, Ray Carney, is trying not to be a fence. Love the evocation of Harlem as a place with a cool interconnected community. Worry about that cousin who’s always trouble. The follow-up, “Crook Manifesto,” is set in the 1970s. All of New York City is at a nadir; Ray is on the straight and narrow, but needs an influx of cash (for Jackson Five tickets for his daughter). Then comes “Cool Machine,” secrets to be revealed when it hit shelves this week . And as a bonus, his essay collection “The Colossus of New York,” which is vivid, episodic and yet still a story: “Talking about New York is talking about the world.”

To break your heart

The novel “The Underground Railroad” comes from an imagined misunderstanding, logical for anyone who grew up riding subways: that the path to freedom for enslaved people that we call The Underground Railroad was in fact underground. In Whitehead’s hands, that imagining takes us through both time and place while making visceral the horrors of enslavement. The book won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize and was adapted by Barry Jenkins into a limited series.

In a rare feat, Whitehead won the Pulitzer Prize a second time for his novel “The Nickel Boys,” another work of historical fiction dealing with the devastating effects of American racism. Based on the true story of a reform school where Black boys went missing, the novel pairs the stories of two teens, one a troublemaker and the other caught up by mistake. Barack Obama called it “a necessary read.” Cleverly structured, it seemed difficult to adapt, but director RaMell Ross made it into a brilliant film.

To blow your mind

In Whitehead’s debut novel, the not-realistic “The Intuitionist,” a Black female elevator inspector faces powerful forces aligned against her. Inflected with Thomas Pynchon-like wordplay and situations, it’s both ambitious and funny. So is “John Henry Days,” mixing narrative forms while telling the story of a Black journalist around the year 2000 going to every press junket he can, unmaking the myth of John Henry all the while. And “Apex Hides the Hurt” is a comic novel about the conflicts that arise in a small town when they hire a name consultant for a possible rebranding.

To eat your mind

Just around the time they started staggering onto TV, Colson Whitehead published a zombie novel. “Zone One” is a smart take on the shuffling hordes and pandemic survivors who try to take Manhattan back.

To beat the odds

Whitehead, an enthusiastic amateur poker player, wrote the nonfiction book “The Noble Hustle” about his entry into the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. It was a luxurious time in media, circa 2011, when ESPN’s Grantland paid his $10,000 entry fee and said he could keep his winnings. The book, expanded from what he wrote for them, includes his training, pending divorce, joking asides and playing for high stakes.

To take to the beach

“Sag Harbor,” set in the mostly Black, affluent beach community in the Hamptons, is the closest Whitehead has come to writing a coming-of-age story. Taking place during the summer of 1985, Benji and his teenage friends banter about culture and get their first taste of freedom.

Mothers and daughters are often caught in a double bind: biologically kindred yet divided by competing claims on identity and selfhood. In Cay Kim’s debut novel “The Future Perfect”, that bond is tangled by cultural discontinuity.

The novel’s mother has been reared in a South Korean household that places a high value on academic rigor and head-down discipline. She devotes all of her energy to grinding that work ethic into her daughter (Kim’s characters are unnamed), who is shuttled between her native Seoul and Minnesota, and grapples with finding the one true way for her to navigate the world.

I spoke with Kay, a native of Seoul who relocated to the States, about mothers, daughters and the unstoppable power of language.

✍️ Author Chat

Author Cay Kim

(Margaryta Bushkin)

This is your first novel. Did you start writing it in college?

This actually originated from a long poem that I wrote. I didn’t know I was going to turn it into a novel at the time. I just had the idea, the summer before my MFA, to expand each stanza into a chapter. That made the writing process relatively easier for me because it was such a straightforward process. I already had the frame of it.

Even though the novel is grounded in a very specific milieu — that of a child who is ensnared between Korean and American cultures — it’s very much a universal story, of a mother who feels the burden of raising a perfect daughter and is resentful when the daughter rebels against her ministrations.

It’s something that occupies so much of my head space. I wanted the mother to be portrayed as a victim of her society. The way that people choose to parent isn’t something that they learn in a vacuum. She has deep-seated beliefs about suffering and self-abnegation. But there’s a point at which an act of service risks inverting into a selfish act.

A big concept for the mother is endurance.

Exactly. It’s a generational trauma the mother is dealing with. She has had such ingrained beliefs passed down to her, and she’s unable to recognize when her methods result in her own mental and physical splintering, as well as her daughter’s.

Is it a function of the mother’s ego, or some kind of twisted narcissism?

She is putting herself through so much suffering because she believes she is doing the right thing. And there’s an extent to how much you can excuse that self-unawareness.

Yet despite this, the daughter feels tied to her mother, even when they are at loggerheads and she is living thousands of miles away.

The mother is such an integral part of the daughter’s consciousness that severance is impossible. They have a shared history and the daughter wants to share things with her mother, even when they are fighting. When she feels lonely at Stanford, the daughter verbalizes the fact that she has learned loneliness from her mother.

There are a lot of scenes in the novel tied to meals prepared by either the mother or the grandmother.

I do a lot of thinking about how cooking plays a role in our everyday lives. It’s something that people can spend hours preparing, only to have it disappear. It’s her mother’s domain. It is so opposed to the way the father thinks, which is very much tied to capital, to amassing and saving money.

The daughter really comes into herself when she is exposed to American culture.

Minnesota is where she acquires language for the first time. Language is so important to this character. Then she is shuffled back to Korea, and this disjunction is the thing that propels her narrative development. But as the story goes on, the daughter reaches a point where she has such mastery of expression and that is a power she acquires.

“The Future Perfect” is written in a very precise and concise way. What fiction writers do you admire, or who may have served as models?

I love writers whose use of language jolts the mind. My favorite writer of all time is Marguerite Duras. “The Lover” reads so easy but when you pay attention to the language, it’s very precisely engineered. I also love Clarice Lispector, for the way she expresses human spirituality.

Is this book drawn from your life? I ask that only because your protagonist winds up attending Stanford, as you did.

When I first started learning how to write, my teacher always used to say that writing shouldn’t necessarily contain the factual truth, but it should have emotional truth. And I feel like that has been the core of my writing practice throughout my life, and that even for those that don’t think consciously about it, that’s often the case.

This Q&A was edited for length and clarity.

📰 The Week(s) in Books

Country music performer Kenny Chesney sat down with Holly Gleason, the co-author of his new memoir, to talk about writing the book.

(Jill Trunnell)

The state of Ohio is celebrating America’ssemiquincentennial by offering a statewide reading project that features Toni Morrison’s fictional oeuvre, thus providing a vivid alternative history of the country. “Not only does her work re-center African Americans in the story of our country, it also tackles major events from our founding, through slavery, to the impact of Jim Crow, to the great migration and beyond,” Literary Cleveland Executive Director Matt Weinkam tells Leigh Haber.

Chef-Podcaster-Author etc. Eddie Huang has written his first novel, a lightly autobiographical twirl through the foodie-verse called “Come Undone.“ “This book was very much about breaking up with your family to start your own,” he tells Mariella Rudi.

At a time when teen literacy is declining, Rudi polled five high school teachers to find out what books students should be reading now.

Gabrielle Korn’s novel “Long Island Girls” is a Millennial coming-of-age story that drips with Y2K nostalgia and the ways in which youthful optimism and hope can drift into middle-aged cynicism. “One thing I wanted to capture about early adulthood is the constant humiliation,” Korn tells Emily St. Martin. “The thing about being young is that people are so resentful of your youth, but you don’t understand that it’s resentment, you just think everybody hates you.”

📖 Bookstore Faves

The Loved Ones bookshop

(James Alan Duran)

J.C. Gabel, the owner of local book imprint Hat and Beard, has opened a new bookshop called The Loved One, and it already feels like an essential anchor for Historic Filipinotown’s burgeoning cultural scene. The store, which is also a gallery and events space, is expansive (5,000 square feet) and inviting, with patinated hardwood floors and a wall of picture windows that bathes the interior in natural light. I spoke with Gabel about his future plans for his new space.

What is the mission statement of The Loved One?

The Loved One reflects our ongoing commitment to independent publishing, original exhibitions, and the belief that books (and ideas within them) are best experienced in conversation with one another, in-person, whenever possible. In our post-post digital age, the serendipitous nature of organically curating physical objects is, in a sense, the point of the entire operation. We envision The Loved One as a space where everyone can exchange ideas, free from data-mining tech overlords, AI slop and click-bait tomfoolery.

What kind of books are you selling?

We’re going to focus mostly on new books about the visual arts, but we’ll also have several curated tables of fiction and nonfiction organized by subject and publisher, to highlight and promote the work of publishers we admire. Moreover, our genre-based book clubs and live author events — which will run weekly by August — will also influence the titles carried in the shop, too. Lastly, we’re bringing back Big Table, our books and conversation podcast — which we started with Dub Lab during COVID — now that we have a physical space to host and record these conversations.

It’s a very large space. What are your plans for it?

We are really keeping the space as modular as possible so we can change the interior of both storefronts to exhibit art and photography, as well as host author events, artist talks, live music, comedy, book clubs, etc.

You’re also a publisher, with Hat and Beard. How will that tie into The Loved One?

At least half of the arts programming I bring to the table will tie back to Hat and Beard’s original publications; the other half will be curated by Aubrie Wienholt and her team, working in tandem with myself and the H&B family. H&B will, of course, continue to program events all over the city regularly, but it will be nice to have a storefront again for the publishing house. We also intend to sell our rare and limited edition bundles of our books at TLO. There will finally be a physical space where one can come see this work in person before purchasing.

What about Historic Filipinotown? The Loved One is such a cool addition to what is becoming a vital cultural hub for L.A.

We are honored and thrilled to be working out of Historic Filipinotown. So much has opened in and around this neighborhood since COVID. It is a really vibrant community. There is a great camaraderie among all the small businesses in and around our cluster off Temple Street and Glendale Boulevard. Our immediate neighbors, Couplet Coffee and the bar 1642, are both actively involved in our programming monthly: Couplet has sent over a pop-up barista to serve coffee and tea at our literary events, and most of our after-parties are now held at 1642, two doors down.

On a recent summer day at Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences, students ambled through yawns, braces and acne into their creative writing class. The day’s lesson tackled “style,” that elusive, ultra-subjective choice of expression.

“Who was the first author you encountered to do something different on the page?” asked the teacher, Clarke E. Andros.

They named Dr. Seuss, Shel Silverstein and Lemony Snicket before moving on to a précis of Joy Williams’ flash fiction. “These stories are weird — she’s weird,” Andros warned.

In some ways, high school looks much the same as it did 20, even 100 years ago: sleepy eyes either light up or glaze over when a teacher poses a Socratic question. Nervous laughs and unexpected insights emerge as young people use stories to make sense of themselves and the world around them.

(Fingerprint; Penguin Classics; Pantheon)

The idea of the “Great American Novel” took shape in the aftermath of the Civil War, when a fractured nation looked to literature to define itself. As classrooms evolved, so did the canon that reflected America’s changing identity.

But the syllabus today is at a tipping point. Forces — some visible, some harder to see — are upending literature and education itself. American students are in a decade-long reading recession, while fewer students are reading for pleasure than in previous generations.

Reading scores among high school seniors are at their lowest in decades, according to federal testing data, while schools across the country are grappling with how to respond to waning attention spans and artificial intelligence. The Los Angeles Unified School District has begun a course correction, voting to limit student use of laptops and tablets during class — the first major American school system to do so.

We spoke with five high school English teachers across the city — three from LAUSD, one from a charter and one from a private school — to find out what literature belongs in today’s classroom, and which stories can help us understand America, past and present.

Interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.

Raquel Olvera, Roosevelt High School, Boyle Heights

What books in the American literary canon are you teaching (old and new)?

In 11th-grade American Literature, as part of the LAUSD-approved Odell curriculum, we read four book options: “Friday Night Lights,” “Beloved,” “The Great Gatsby” and “The Warmth of Other Suns.” For my 10th-grade World Literature course, I like “Antigone” and “Things Fall Apart.” I also teach “In Cold Blood,” using it to explore Americans’ fascination with true crime and what the genre reveals about race, gender, class and the justice system.

(Simon & Schuster; Sky Publishing; Vintage)

What’s one work from the canon adults should revisit today?

“The Great Gatsby.” When I read it in high school, I wasn’t engaging with its undercurrents of racism, xenophobia, antisemitism, gender or sexuality in the way I do now. Its themes of power, wealth, consumerism and American identity remain as relevant as ever.

What are English teachers up against in the classroom in 2026?

Besides large class sizes and underfunding, I think public educators are largely battling apathy. Students and young people aren’t engaging with books like they used to. A side effect of that is a lack of empathy and curiosity. At the very least, you can model what it means to be a reader and a writer, and hope that years later, students remember that one nerd English teacher who showed them what humanity can look like.

Schehrezade Lodhy, Da Vinci Schools, El Segundo

What books in the American literary canon are you teaching (old and new)?

Students really enjoy Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” — it’s all about the human condition and cancel culture, forbidden love and lies and deceit, with witches in the forest. In poetry, we explore a range of American voices, from Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes to Amanda Gorman, and sometimes even song lyrics. I also use “The Moth: Storytelling” podcast when students are working on personal essays. The goal is to make literature, poetry and storytelling as accessible as possible. At a charter school, we have quite a bit of autonomy with what we teach.

What’s one work from the canon adults should revisit today?

James Baldwin’s “Giovanni’s Room” and “Go Tell It on the Mountain.” I read Baldwin a few summers ago, and that was quite an education for me. Unfortunately, some of the content is a bit too mature for high school, but I do talk about Baldwin a bit in my classes when we cover African American authors.

(Reader’s Library Classics; W. W. Norton & Company; Simon & Schuster)

What are English teachers up against in the classroom in 2026?

Artificial intelligence, big time. I really pared back technology in my class, and we’ve pivoted back to paper and pencil. Going into my 18th year of teaching, my biggest goal is re-creating that experience of thinking critically for oneself and studying literature through a critical lens. We’re in this era of going back to the basics. With decreased attention spans, teachers are being forced to become even more creative. It feels like we’re reinventing ourselves every year.

Aiden Brown, John F. Kennedy High School, Granada Hills

What books in the American literary canon are you teaching (old and new)?

From an educationally traditional background, I still believe in canon disruption — mixing the new and old. In American Lit, I’ve taught “Their Eyes Were Watching God” 11 times now. It’s a hard one to get on the first try because the vernacular is so particular, but when we read it physically while also listening to the audiobook, it’s such a great novel to hear. I pair it with bell hooks’ “All About Love.” I teach “Macbeth” from a performance-based lens, making it less intimidating. My favorite book is “Frankenstein,” written by a teenage girl who invented science fiction. My ninth-graders’ favorites were “Fahrenheit 451,” “The Odyssey” (Emily Wilson translation) and “Persepolis,” a graphic novel about a girl discovering punk rock and rebelling against the established order.

What’s one work from the canon adults should revisit today?

All of the lonely young men need to reread “The Great Gatsby,” and anyone freaked out by the state of the world should read “Parable of the Sower.” One quote from the book hangs on a poster board in my classroom: “A community’s first responsibility is to protect its children — the ones we have now and the ones we will have.”

What are English teachers up against in the classroom?

Teenagers are still the funniest people on the planet. As the world around them becomes more atomized, I find that they’re increasingly interested in connection. In the classroom, we are seeing skill loss and a decreased ability to focus on a task. I don’t think that’s just because of AI or the pandemic — it’s also phones, screens and the world kids are growing up in. One thing teachers seem to agree on is a return to pen and paper.

Clarke E. Andros, Crossroads School, Santa Monica

What books in the American literary canon are you teaching (old and new)?

A newer addition I would recommend is “Hunger: A Novella and Stories” by Lan Samantha Chang. Especially in California, we have a lot of great Asian American literature, including works by Amy Tan, but I enjoy the writing level in Lan’s — it’s accessible to students but pushes them, all about intersectional identity and the first-gen experience. A lot of the Latino students I’ve taught in Los Angeles also connect with that book.

(Penguin Classics; Grand Central Publishing; Mariner Books Classics)

What’s one work from the canon adults should revisit today?

“Of Mice and Men.” Revisiting it today opens up deeper conversations about labor, social conciousness and power. Steinbeck creates a microcosm of American society, where disability, gender, race and class are all represented and shaped by an economic hierarchy. The characters are left navigating a world where people often turn on each other rather than challenge the systems around them. It’s novella-length, so you could read it in a Sunday morning.

What are English teachers up against in the classroom in 2026?

We’re up against systems that often prioritize ed-tech and third-party vendors over smaller class sizes and more teachers. When I was at LAUSD, it was clear from our superintendent — who just stepped down over his fraud investigation — was just in bed with tech. It’s hard for me to imagine the folks in power didn’t look at [the failed AI chatbot venture] and see it as a grift.

On the flip side, at hyper-competitive, elite schools like this, students are approaching high school with college in mind rather than with high school in mind. When students understand the value of the process, they’re less likely to look for an easy shortcut like AI.

Adam Tan, Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies, Mid-City

What books in the American literary canon are you teaching (old and new)?

With independent reading, memoirs are big, like “Crying in H Mart” and Sylvia Plath’s fictionalized “The Bell Jar.” Younger kids gravitate to “Musashi,” a celebrated epic based on a famous samurai. We have a lot of Korean American students here, so they like “Pachinko,” dealing with racism and the Korean population in post-World War II Japan. I’ll also throw in “The Bluest Eye.”

In ninth grade, we read “Slaughterhouse-Five,” “Of Mice and Men,” “The Thief and the Dogs” and “Romeo and Juliet,” with the film adaptations to use media literacy. In American Literature, the major texts are “The Great Gatsby,” “The Things They Carried” and “The Crucible.” We also read nonfiction articles, including pieces on AI and robots, while focusing on rhetorical devices.

(Blackstone Publishing; Knopf; Little, Brown and Company)

What’s one work from the canon adults should revisit today?

“The Catcher in the Rye” benefits from the distance of adulthood. It’s a novel about disillusionment and the search for identity, but when you revisit it, you also see that it’s very much a love story. I often encourage students to look for forms of love beyond romance — love for family, friends and fellow human beings. Even today, students can tell you that the biggest phony in the book is Holden himself. The novel reminds us that while literature may not have answers to the world’s problems, it can help us examine our wounds and find solace in art.

What are English teachers up against in the classroom in 2026?

A lack of accountability in the modern world. In general, we have a school district focused on 100% graduation rates, no F’s. [LAUSD] wanted everything on computer, and now they want less computer time, which is great, but not everyone at top management is on the same page. Teachers are often trying to balance what the district wants with what we know our students need.

What I try to instill instead is an intrinsic desire to grow as a thinker. How do you make sure students are reading without taking the joy out of it? A lot of us are going back to pen and paper. Despite all the concerns about AI, I still think the soul and spirit of young people is as strong as ever. The core is not rotting.

New reads abound for your vacation tote throughout the weeks of July, with fiction picks featuring a Carnival cruise casualty, a highly entertaining jewel heist at the Waldorf-Astoria, and a Soviet-era madcap adventure. In nonfiction, authors consider how we define wild places, how we pigeonhole the aging, and how languages live or die. Happy reading!

FICTION:

A Real Animal: A Novel
By Emeline Atwood
Catapult: 368 pp., $29
(July 7)
After surviving a sexual assault, narrator Lucy stalks her college campus as a leopard. Don’t spend too much time worrying about whether this transformation is real, or not; Lucy’s knowledge of her fierceness is the point, a fierceness she employs as she struggles to negotiate her independence from parents who wish she’d come home to recover and men who offer up their desires and ignore hers. It’s an astonishing debut with a compelling voice.

Man Overboard!: A Novel
By Kathleen Rooney
Gallery Books: 208 pp., $27
(July 7)
Readers expecting something akin to Rooney’s wondrous previous novel, “Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk,” should remember that that book followed “Cher Ami “ and “Major Whittlesey,” a story about a pigeon and a World War I Army officer. In other words, Rooney doesn’t repeat herself, and in “Man Overboard!” she’s concocted a hilarious adventure tale of a man floating in the Gulf of Mexico, adrift with himself, his thoughts, and a few sea creatures.

Astronaut!: A Novel
By Oana Aristides
W. W. Norton: 272 pp., $28
(July 14)
Imagine a dystopia set neither in the future nor in fantasy; that’s the 1989 Romania 7-year-old Lia inhabits, its adults living in fear of Communist dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu, its infrastructure strained by deprivation, and its reality so scrambled that calling an explorer an “astronaut” instead of “cosmonaut” risks punishment. When Lia sets out to buy her mother a birthday gift, she sets in motion a series of weirdly probable yet totally weird events.

City of Widows: A Novel
By Nadia Hashimi
William Morrow: 432 pp., $32
(July 28)
During the two decades of American occupation, Afghanistan experienced a sort of peace, one in which women could be educated, work as professionals, and even serve in the military. When the U.S. left in 2020, those same women found themselves — regardless of their individual status — subject to Taliban restrictions that deny differences in gender, desire and ambition. Hashimi (“Sparks Like Stars”) shows how desperate and daring the women become.

Cool Machine: A Novel
By Colson Whitehead
Doubleday: 368 pp., $30
(July 21)
First “Harlem Shuffle,” then “Crook Manifesto,” and now, “Cool Machine,” the highly anticipated “Harlem Trilogy” conclusion from the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning Whitehead. The inimitable Ray Carney, who started out as a minor criminal, is now Sterling Furniture’s “Northeast Regional Dealer of the Month,” a respected businessman. It’s the mid-1980s, and when Ray’s beloved wife Elizabeth gets turned down for a small-business loan, he takes matters into his own hands, in his own former ways.

NONFICTION:

How to Kill a Language: Power, Resistance, and the Race to Save Our Words
By Sophia Smith Galer
Crown: 304 pp., $33
(July 7)
Smith Galer’s nonna spoke an Italian she called “dialet”; her mother spoke “dialet” and English; Smith Galer herself speaks only English. What do we lose, the author asks, when a language dies? The answers she found are powerful, like an enzyme to treat HIV that was found in a tree that was discovered because a researcher spoke Samoan. Unsurprisingly, she also found that language death often corresponds to ecological and cultural devastation.

The Earth Said Remember Me: How to Revive Our Memories and Restore Our Planet
By Jason Dove Mark
W. W. Norton: 224 pp., $25
(July 14)
Perhaps art will be the thing that preserves the environment, even if humans can’t save it. “Go outside. Bear witness. Make a record. Pass it on,” writes Mark in this eloquent, impassioned plea for us all to remain involved in environmental action. The more we appreciate the natural world, the more we’ll want to care for it, share it with others, and help future generations understand how some changes are natural and not all are inevitable.

Aging Out: An Exploration of Caregiving, Community, and How Americans Grow Old
By Lucy Schiller
Flatiron Books: 272 pp., $30
(July 14)
Services for the elderly range from luxury assisted-living facilities to special digital devices meant to bypass phone scams, but as Schiller explains, these things not only commodify a natural life passage — they separate older people from their natural communities. The author was inspired to investigate our country’s aging population when she cared for a grandmother who died from COVID; the book weaves the personal with the political in a meaningful way.

(Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schust)

Dad, Love, Me: A Memoir
By Matthew Quick
Avid Reader Press: 320 pp., $30
(July 21)
Novelist Quick (“The Silver Linings Playbook”) turns to memoir in recounting his contentious relationship with his father, whom he’s losing to dementia. While the author has had big highs (like the movie adaptation of “Playbook”), he’s also experienced deep lows, including alcoholism and severe creative block. Somehow, through recovery (which he credits to Jungian therapy), he affords both his imperfect, ailing parent and himself grace.

The Savage Landscape: How We Made the Wilderness
By Cal Flyn
Viking: 448 pp., $35
(July 28)
In “Downton Abbey”, the Dowager Duchess of Grantham starchily asked “What is a ‘weekend?’” In this book, journalist Cal Flyn asks — more affably, but with equal intensity — “What is a wilderness?” Her answer: Depends on your perspective. In other words, nearly every place on Earth teems with life. It’s only humans who have attached words like “wild” and “unexplored” to regions where they feel uncertain, afraid, and even awed.

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

For 45 years, in his novels, short stories and essays, James Ellroy has been creating the definitive under-history of his Los Angeles hometown, mapping in his work the subterranean currents of power, corruption, sex and lies that have shaped the polity of the city. Ellroy’s latest is another compelling entry in his ongoing project.

“Red Sheet” is a multilayered American epic that blurs fact and fiction, a deep dive into anti-Communist paranoia, from the corridors of City Hall to the dank precincts of the LAPD. The novel also marks the return of Fred Otash, a real-life Hollywood fixer whom the author has featured in previous novels, including his last book, “The Enchanters.” I recently talked to Ellroy about Otash, L.A. in the ‘60s and L.A. today.

✍️ Author Chat

Freddie Otash has been something of a twisted muse for you. In “Red Sheet,” Otash is an LAPD detective trying to smoke out Communist sleeper cells in Kennedy-era L.A. He was, in fact, a real person, a notorious Hollywood fixer. How did you first become aware of him?

I had seen a documentary about his specious role in the cover-up caper surrounding Marilyn Monroe’s death. I’d been hearing about him for years, and then I created the Jack Vincennes character who worked for scandal magazines in my book “L.A. Confidential,” played by the scurrilous Kevin Spacey in the vastly overrated movie of the same name.

Did you ever meet him?

Years ago I met a producer named James B. Harris, who produced all the old Stanley Kubrick movies and had optioned one of my early books called “Blood on the Moon.” I asked him if he knew Freddie Otash, and he said everyone in Hollywood knew Freddie Otash. I was planning my novel “American Tabloid” and so I arranged to meet him. He was unpleasant and charmless and way past his prime. I spent some time with him in Miami, where he was living in a place called the Jockey Club, and I had to listen to him talk about his many conquests of the world’s most beautiful and desirable women. I didn’t believe a word of it.

But he did have useful stories, I’m assuming.

Otash I used for the character Pete Bondurant in “American Tabloid.” We entered into a deal whereby I would pay him 10% of what Knopf was paying me in exchange for him keeping his mouth shut. He has become that valuable literary artifact: the great detective.

“Red Sheet: A Novel” by James Ellroy

(Knopf)

Your book deals with a piece of legislation called the Rumford Act that would tear down the city’s racist racial housing covenants in 1963, but the act in ’62 had enemies in high places, namely Mayor Sam Yorty and his power base. You were 14 in L.A. in 1962. Did you feel this racial tension?

I remember vividly how the world was changing. I knew there was de facto segregation in housing. I remember Nixon’s pathetic campaign for governor in 1962. But I remember racial barriers breaking down, particularly in school. Just talking with Black kids in school, because why wouldn’t you? And I had been this dumb, bigoted kid.

What’s interesting about the characters in your book is that their ideological alliances are quite fluid, depending on the circumstances. Communists are married to John Birchers, who may be, in fact, red-diaper babies, and so on.

People are endlessly complex. Going back to Freddie Otash again. He knew Tom Bradley in the ‘40s, when Bradley was a cop. And Freddie becomes a bag man for the civil rights movement, and the Rumford Act in particular. He’s about the most unlikely guy you would expect to support civil rights. I wanted to show [how] complex human beings and their beliefs can be, and this book is a primer on that.

You are so closely associated with Los Angeles, and you lived here for most of your life. Why do you live in Denver now?

Helen Knode is my all-time life partner, who is also my second ex-wife. Ten years ago, we decided to get back together, but she was living in Colorado. She came up with the idea of me getting a loft in her building, and we would have the keys to each other’s places, and that’s why I did it. I like it in Denver, though it’s quite hot at the moment.

Do you miss L.A? What are you feeling about the city now?

I was just there on my book tour. I feel like it’s a complete dump. It’s just totally run-down. When I got off the airplane, I noticed a smog layer, so smog is back. I saw many young, odd-looking, overly adorned young people. I don’t know. … It’s a kid’s town now, to a certain extent.

This Q&A was edited for length and clarity.

📰 The Week(s) in Books

Country music performer Kenny Chesney sat down with Holly Gleason, the co-author of his new memoir, to talk about writing the book.

(Jill Trunnell)

Greg Sarris is the chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria in Sonoma County. He’s also an acclaimed novelist whose his first book in 28 years, “The Last Human Bear,” is loosely based on the life and teachings of Pomo spiritual leader Mabel McKay, a constant lodestar for Sarris. “An American Indian woman is as richly complicated as anybody else. I wanted to show this rich and complicated character who’s negotiated a history that she’s showing you,” Sarris tells Maddie Connors.

In “Daughters of the Sun and Moon,” author Lisa See excavates the events surrounding the Chinese Massacre of 1871. In doing so, she also digs into her own Chinese heritage in L.A. “My great-grandfather’s fourth wife was 16 when he brought her here, and she was never let out,” See tells Emily St. Martin. “My mom used to say these women would all get together, and she used to describe it as birds twittering together, because they actually had this opportunity to be with each other, but on really very rare occasions.”

Fear not, literary Cassandras: Authors can still generate online heat, thanks to BookTok and other social media outlets. So much so that more books are being adapted into streaming content than ever before. “With the advent of BookTok, it allows you to have so much social chatter around these authors,” producer Bryan Unkeless tells Gary Goldstein. “They’re becoming new rock stars, in a way.”

Finally, Kenny Chesney sat down with Holly Gleason to discuss their collaboration on “Heart Life Music,” Chesney’s new memoir. “I didn’t know if there was a story there,” the country megastar tells Gleason. “Over time you wore me down, to make me pause and … reflect.”

📖 Bookstore Faves

The interior of Counterpoint Records & Books.

(David Jones)

In a city that has so often seen its old-school retail businesses turned into nail salons and real estate offices, Counterpoint Records & Books remains an outlier. Originally established in 1979 by John and Susan Polifronio, the store on Franklin Avenue has remained, even as many of its nearby store-mates have shuttered, offering a well-curated selection of secondhand books and records from every conceivable genre. I chatted with David Jones, who is one of the owners of the Franklin Avenue store, about Counterpoint’s enduring success.

Counterpoint is an Eastside institution, but businesses along your strip on Franklin have gone under while you have survived. What is the secret to your longevity?

Firstly, we are lucky enough to own the building we do business in, which has given us a lot of freedom to be able to pursue doing business our way. That didn’t happen until we were in business for almost 20 years, but now in our 47th year we feel lucky to be able to continue to provide a physical, in-person shopping experience. I think our success is tied to this. People are looking for an experience away from their screens, and I think we provide that without being anachronistic or nostalgic by keeping up with and stocking contemporary music, digital media and all types of books.

Is your clientele mostly local? I’m guessing it’s a multigenerational clientele, given the store’s long history.

We definitely have a younger demographic these days, but we have a very intergenerational staff, and I think that attracts an all ages clientele. We meet folks daily from all over the world as a destination that people return to and tell their friends about. I think word-of-mouth is our greatest form of outreach. People say we feel special to them, as if they’ve stumbled onto a secret by shopping here. It’s something I love and am very proud of.

How have books maintained their staying power despite the countless distractions of daily life?

I think of it as one of life’s greatest luxuries. To be honest, I never thought too much about the staying power of books until the pandemic. During that time, people would come in and thank us for being open and a place they could come to escape what was happening. It was a real turning point for me. I started to think more about the importance of what we do and how much of an effect it has on people. I never took what we do for granted, but it gave me a sense of urgency that I didn’t quite have before.

Counterpoint Records & Books is at 5911 Franklin Ave. in Hollywood.

(Please note: The Times may earn a commission through links to Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.)

There’s a good reason why David Sedaris is the most beloved humorist in America. He has an unerring ability to tap into the absurdity and petty annoyances of American culture more cogently than any other writer of his generation. He is also funny as hell.

Sedaris’ latest collection, “The Land and Its People,” finds the author grappling with the seductions and consolations of technology, creeping mortality, unwanted sexual advances and feral dogs, for starters. I recently chatted with Sedaris about books, nannies and iPhones.

✍️ Author Chat

Your first book was a collection of short stories. Was it always the intent to move into writing essays, or did you have designs on being a novelist?

It never occurred to me that I would write essays about my life. I started off writing fiction, and then I started doing these readings in Chicago. Then I was to read at this variety show at this place called Park West. I was limited to about five minutes, and so I just plucked something from my diary. And it worked. I would walk onstage wearing a tie with a stack of diaries in my hand. Then I started doing these radio shows, and I thought I could read my fiction, but it had to be nonfiction. So a lot of the earliest pieces that I ever read were just things plucked from my diary.

What actually happened was that after this piece I wrote called “The Santaland Diaries” had been on the radio, I had this other book that I had already written, and I was just kind of waiting for someone to call and ask if they could publish it. But it couldn’t be published unless “Santaland” was included.

That book was “Barrel Fever” in 1994 which was a big hit. Now you were that rare creature: a bestselling essayist.

With essays, there’s a kind of shorthand to it. If you’re writing fiction, you have to world-build with every story, whereas with an essay I can just get up on stage and say “my sister and I went shipping” and people know who my sister is, and I can just get right into it. My fiction is always way, way over the top. I can’t write any story where people are reasonable.

What makes you unique is that you are onstage in front of an audience more often than 99% of authors. You can workshop material to see if it lands, much like a comic.

Yes, and I don’t ever want to waste an opportunity to do that. The frustrating thing about being on a book tour is that I can no longer make any changes to the book. So I’ve been bringing out some little, short things I’ve been working on to get it on its feet.

Much of your writing is observational. Do you find, given your public profile, that it becomes harder to do that?

It depends on where I am. If I’m hanging out in places where people don’t read, or in another country, then it doesn’t make any difference. The bigger problem is that when you’re spying on the world now, the world is just looking at their phones.

“The Land and Its People” is the new collection of essays by David Sedaris.

(Little, Brown and Company)

I know you aren’t big on the phone, or at least taking pictures with your phone. In one of your essays in the new book, you are on a Kenyan safari with your partner Hugh and you adamantly refuse to snap a single photo.

If you’re at a book signing, you meet someone and then stand up and someone takes a picture with their phone. I’d rather talk to that person, you know? The picture thing, it just doesn’t make any sense to me. It doesn’t mean anything. I was invited to the Academy Awards because I wrote something about a movie, which was crazy. But it never for one moment occurred to me to go up to anybody to take a selfie. All that means is that I bothered this person. By the way, I have never once asked Hugh to send me his safari pictures.

What books make you laugh out loud?

I’m always happy to find a funny book, but they are hard to find. Did you read “Rejection” by Tony Tulathimutte?

It’s on my nightstand.

Oh my God, I laughed out loud so many times at that book. And he’s not a humorist. I’m not even sure if he thinks the book is funny. There’s a short story in there, about a guy who’s just a complete a— and his girlfriend moves in with him and he makes her put all of her stuff in the oven.

I like things that are funny that aren’t supposed to be funny. Somebody said to me a few weeks ago, “How can we laugh with the world in such terrible shape?” I said, it’s easy. Just get rid of any sense of empathy or compassion! If you’re writing satire, you have to go big. You can’t tone it down. Then it’s not satire anymore, it’s just cereal milk.

You do write in the new book about this kind of language policing that is prevalent now.

I hate it. I mean, the New Yorker is pretty good to me. I can’t complain. But I turned something in to them, and they told me I couldn’t use the word “nanny” in the piece. I mean, a nanny is a real profession, like a pharmacist. I told them I wouldn’t cut it. It just makes me think about young people who are starting out, who can’t say no because they need the money.

(This Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)

📰 The Week(s) in Books

(Illustration by Jim Cooke / Los Angeles Times; Photo via Getty Images)

Leigh Haber is blown away by Anne Patchett’s 10th novel, “Whistler.” “This exquisite writer has once again delivered an incandescent work of fiction — sweet, but never sentimental, infinitely wise and suffused with love,” Haber writes.

Songwriter and Sheryl Crow collaborator David Baerwald has written a novel called “The Fire Agent,” about his grandfather Ernest, a musician and a prisoner of war in a Japanese internment camp during World War I. “One of my characters tells Ernst that he has ‘yuyo,’ which might best be described as grace,” Baerwald tells Bethanne Patrick. “Its Japanese meaning is closer to the state of a river rock that has been washed over and tumbled thousands of times, so that it’s both distinct, and a meaningful part of its environment.”

Rasheed Newson, a showrunner for “The Chi” and “Bel-Air,” has written “There’s Only One Sin in Hollywood,” a novel about an often-neglected chapter of Hollywood’s Golden Age. “I wanted to do a deep dive into Black queer history during the Golden Age of cinema,” Newson tells Meredith Maran. “The first thing that came to me was Xavier’s character. I decided to make him the 10-years-younger, queer rival of Sidney Poitier, to highlight the acceptable versus unacceptable — meaning, straight versus gay — 1950s Black movie star.”

Finally, Adam Messinger, a staffer at West Hollywood’s Book Soup, attempts to answer the question: Why are books shrinking? One possible culprit may be social media. “Holding the book up to take a photo of it is easier,” writer and social media influencer Caroline Mason tells Messinger. “Although I do sometimes still drop it.”

📖 Bookstore Faves

Lost Books in Montrose looks and feels unlike any other bookstore in L.A. — a verdant terrarium filled with new and used books and vinyl. Created by Last Bookstore co-owners Jenna and Josh Spencer, Lost Books also sells plants. Moss has colonized the ceiling, and tall trees keep sentry over the store’s diverse and eclectic inventory. I asked Josh Spencer about how Lost came about.

What was the thinking behind opening Lost?

It was spontaneous. My wife and I were eating dinner in the very charming neighborhood of Montrose, and saw a very cool vacant storefront. It also happened to be on Honolulu Avenue, and with both of us being from Hawaii, we took it as a sign. We did not want to franchise the Last Bookstore at the time, and wanted the new store to have its own name and unique vibe.

You also sell plants. Where did that idea come from?

My wife grew up in a rain forest on Maui. She loves plants, and we thought that a pairing of nature with literature was exciting and not done before.

Who are your customers?

Mostly locals in Montrose, La Cañada, La Crescenta, Glendale. But we get a fair number of tourists and also people from other parts of L.A. People who love beauty, nature and books. And vinyl!

Are you seeing that big vinyl resurgence we’ve been hearing about?

Absolutely! Our vinyl does very well for us.

What genres or types of books do well for you there?

Classics, kids books, mysteries, graphic novels, art, self-help, memoirs, cookbooks and gardening of course!

Lost Books is located at 2233 Honolulu Ave., Montrose.

(Please note: The Times may earn a commission through links to Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.)

HE is the nineties pop star who finally found his happily ever after.

But for Phats & Small singer Ben Ofoedu, the road to marital bliss was paved with a painful history of what he now describes as mental abuse and emasculation by former partner Vanessa Feltz. Something which friends of the Channel 5 presenter vehemently deny.

A year on from his lavish £100,000 Cumbrian wedding to aesthetics entrepreneur Vanessa Brown – affectionately dubbed Vanessa 2.0 by the man himself – the 53-year-old musician is practically glowing.

He is happier, healthier, and four stone lighter. But behind his beaming smile and the tales of his idyllic new life, there lies a darker, turbulent history that he is only just now ready to reveal to the world.

In a searingly honest new interview with The Sun, Ben has opened up about the toxic reality of his 17-year relationship with television and radio veteran Vanessa Feltz, making explosive allegations about the profound psychological toll of their high-profile romance.

While the collapse of his engagement to the Channel 5 presenter in 2023 was highly publicised following his admitted infidelity, Ben claims the public has only ever heard half the story. Now, after intense therapy and finding true love, he is shedding light on what really went on behind closed doors.

Through his recent charitable endeavours with his new bride, the singer has found himself reflecting heavily on his own past.

“We do a lot of charity stuff for victims of abuse, and you come across a lot of men in these situations,” Ben explains.

“Men who’ve been mentally abused, not so much physically. People think abuse means physical, but you can be abused mentally.

“Everything from emasculation to being told you’re not good enough. It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

When asked if this observation stems from his own personal experience with his famous ex-fiancée, Ben doesn’t flinch.

“Yeah, oh yeah, without a doubt,” he states firmly. “Emasculation, people referring to you as not being able to read, down-talking you, a constant barrage of insults. People don’t have to look too far to see where it came from.”

The trauma, he reveals, is deep-seated, creeping up on him over the course of almost two decades.

He recalls: “When I was out of it. When you’re in it, it’s so subtle, so gradual that you don’t quite see it happening, you don’t quite know. You question everything and ask, ‘Why did that happen? Why did I feel like that?’ When someone professional starts going through it with you, you can see the patterns and stuff like that. Yeah, I had therapy after that.”

Today, Ben refuses to even utter his ex’s name, a stark indicator of the deep freeze between the former couple.

“There is only one Vanessa,” he declares, referring lovingly to his new bride. “I don’t know that other lady. And I definitely don’t know her from the comments she’s said. I don’t know that lady anymore.”

He confirms that he has no contact with the 64-year-old broadcaster, nor does he have any desire to ever cross paths with her again.

He insists: “No, not at all, and I really wouldn’t want to. I’ve got nothing to do with her, I want nothing to do with her. People are in your life for a season, a reason, or a lifetime, and she was there for a season. It was a long season, but it was maybe a bit too long.”

The fallout from the split undeniably damaged his public reputation, painting him squarely as the villain of the piece.

But Ben is deeply critical of how his former flame handled the break-up.

“The truth is, I’m kind of a musician, and that’s kind of what it is, it’s only tied to her until something else happens and there’s a new story being written, it’s the past really, that’s what that is.

“I’ve not really much to say for her. I think she was completely classless the way she dealt with things, it’s not my sort of person, I don’t know her anymore, I don’t recognise her.”

Addressing the fallout and the damage to his reputation, Ben remains philosophical.

“Yes, completely. The great thing that happened was I got to know who my friends were,” he admits.

“I understand the general public doesn’t know me personally, but my wedding was a great testimony of the people who know me and the friends that I had, the people who really knew me. You reap what you sow; that’s all I can say. You reap what you sow. It doesn’t take a genius to see what’s going on.”

When pressed on the cheating scandal that ultimately torpedoed the relationship, Ben is defensive, taking a swipe at how his ex monetised the pain.

“Now about the infidelity, I never said that it was the way to do things,” he explains.

“For Vanessa, that was her story, and she used it and monetised it, and when it’s not working for her, she moved on to something else. I wouldn’t monetise a real relationship that had real problems. I think to tell the media that it’s over before you tell the person is not… I don’t know many situations that do that.”

When asked if his new wife worries about his history of being unfaithful, Ben is quick to shut down the narrative that he is a serial cheat.

He told me: “I don’t know if doing it once is a history, I don’t know if that constitutes a history of it. She made me look worse than I was, and it garnered a lot more attention. I don’t know if once is a history, that’s what I will say about that. There’s never been any conversation about that at all.”

He also casts doubt on whether his previous 16-year engagement was ever destined for the altar at all, bluntly suggesting the intention to actually tie the knot was not there “from the other side”.

He also has a brutal theory as to why his ex has failed to find lasting romance since their bitter split.

“I mean, I don’t know if I would want to be with a lady who’d want to discuss every single detail of their private life,” he said.

“I think how men saw me come out of that situation, they think, ‘No thanks, not for me’.”

But Ben is finally ready to reclaim his narrative. He is currently putting the finishing touches on his own autobiography, playfully titled Turnaround: Memoirs of an Ageing Boy Bander, which he hopes will hit the shelves this December.

“I’ve been writing it. I was going to put it out last year, but there were a few parts I missed out when I read through; I need to give the full context. Everything’s in the book; it’s about turnaround moments in my life, good and bad. That period of my life.”

“But it’s nice for people to see the actual context and how we got together and what happened behind closed doors, you’ve only heard her side of the story,” he adds, taking a thinly veiled swipe at his ex’s memoirs.

“I didn’t respond to anything she said in her book, and obviously it didn’t do very well, that’s the thing. I’m not doing it for that. I talk about my musical journey, it brings me up to the current day, and what a happy relationship can be like.”

He confirms no lawyers have had to get involved with his manuscript: “No, I won’t mention her name. She cleverly didn’t mention mine, she called me OHW [One Hit Wonder], but people will know.”

Asked if the book will definitely hit shelves this year, he says: “Aiming for December, but I don’t know. It’s not quite finished, I need to type two more chapters, making sure everything is real and really happened, making sure. We’re hoping for December, that’s what we’re pushing towards.”

The contrast between his turbulent past and his blissful present truly couldn’t be starker. Ben is buzzing with energy as he discusses his 30-year-old wife, Vanessa Brown.

The couple, who married after a whirlwind romance, are utterly inseparable.

“I found myself again, I am buzzing,” he says. “Every day is happy, we got together, and within six months we were married, when you know you know.”

He has strong advice for others when it comes to love, formed by the fire of his past mistakes.

“These long drawn-out engagements, unless you’ve got a couple of kids and are waiting to afford the wedding, I think they’re pointless,” he says.

“You’re engaged to be married, not to be engaged. I don’t think that works, and that’s just from experience. If you meet someone, within six months, you pretty much know whether you’ll get married or not. Don’t carry on the relationship more than six months if you’re not sure you want to spend the rest of your life with that person.”

He also revealed that the couple are actively trying for a baby.

“Hopefully, by the end of the year, that’s what we’re trying to do. If Vanessa fell pregnant late this year, that would be amazing news; that’s why we’re travelling and doing all the things couples do before they have kids.

“We want as many as God provides. I come from a big family, and I know what it’s like to have brothers and sisters. I always loved that growing up.”

For Ben Ofoedu, the dark days of his past are now firmly in the rearview mirror.

He insists that with Vanessa 2.0 by his side, a tell-all book on the way, and exciting baby plans for the couple, his life is now complete.

Representatives for Vanessa Feltz were contacted for comment.

TAKE this as your sign to grab your faves and book a brilliant spa break.

From Champneys, Tring to The Greenway Hotel & Spa, Cheltenham and a Fab find in Faversham – we’ve got you covered for rest and recuperation.

THE FRIENDS’ GET-TOGETHER – Champneys, Tring

Editor in chief Sinead McIntyre and pals found R&R in Hertfordshire.

THE PAD

Set in 170 acres of beautiful countryside, this stately home, once owned by the Rothschild family, gives immediate Downton Abbey vibes, thanks to the sweeping staircases, huge chandeliers and grand fireplaces that are home to roaring fires on cooler days.

As do the rooms, with their opulent floral curtains and plush carpets.

Much to our delight, on arrival we are upgraded to two deluxe suites – mine has a super-king-size bed, adjoining lounge and two bathrooms, as well as stunning views of the grounds.

WAIL OF A TIME

I drove Irish Route 66 with deserted golden beaches and pirate-like islands

TEMPTED?

Tiny ‘Bali of Europe’ town with stunning beaches, €3 cocktails and £20 flights

There is no scrimping on the toiletries here either, with both Champneys and Elemis products, as well as soft white robes and slippers.

The standalone bath is the centrepiece of one bathroom, while the second has an invigorating rainforest shower.

The lounge is the perfect spot for a much-needed gossip, washed down with complimentary bubbles. Champneys, which celebrated its 100th birthday last year, also has more exercise classes than you can shake a stick at, from reformer Pilates to pickleball and HIIT, so we sign up for a legs, bums and tums class, followed by stretch and relax by candlelight.

There are also maps for walks in the extensive grounds and we enjoy a wholesome 45-minute stroll before dinner.

THE SPA

With its 25m pool, sauna, steam room, whirlpool and alfresco Jacuzzi, this is relaxation at its best – and that’s before you even book a treatment.

However, definitely do!

My 50-minute Upper Body Bliss massage, £105, using Elemis oils, was absolutely gorgeous and got rid of the tension I was holding in my shoulders after a stressful few months at work.

THE GRUB

There are so many delicious food options – stays are full-board, and breakfast and lunch are both buffets with tasty cereals, yoghurt, fresh fruit and bagels each morning and delicious meats, salads and pasta dishes come lunchtime.

But the evening menu is the star of the show.

We loved the pulled oyster mushroom taco and the crab and prawn summer rolls to start, while the sirloin steak with peppercorn sauce and the monkfish curry were both melt–in-the-mouth.

Make sure you leave room for the deconstructed honeycomb cheesecake for pudding, while the cheeseboard is also a winner.

OUT AND ABOUT

Forget it, you’re here to chill and chat.

BOOK IT

Full-board stays at Champneys, Tring, cost from £210 per person, per night (Champneys.com).

THE COUPLE’S ESCAPE – The Greenway Hotel & Spa, Cheltenham

Senior Assistant Editor Sarah Barns and husband Patrick cosied up in the Cotswolds.

THE PAD

Throw open the velvet drapes, take in the stunning views and relaaaax. Winner of four AA Red Stars, this gem, just 13 minutes’ drive from Gloucester train station, offers the perfect rural recharge.

The Elizabethan manor house blends historical charm with modern luxury, and although there are 21 newly refurbished bedrooms to choose from, our pick is the Manor Suite, where the bed is so large you can both starfish, the marble bathroom comes with a bath and walk-in rainfall shower, plus there’s a cosy living area.

THE SPA

Take a dip in the hydrotherapy pool and outdoor vitality pool, sweat it out in the sauna and steam room, and indulge in a TempleSpa treatment at the Elan spa, awarded five bubbles by the Good Spa Guide.

Hot stone massages, which use warm basalt stones (essentially giant black rocks) to harmonise energy points throughout the body, fixed our tense muscles and helped us instantly de-stress.

The Rocks Of The Mediterranean 75-minute treatment costs from £119 per person.

THE GRUB

The Garden Room restaurant, run by talented head chef Abhijit Dasalkar, offers a brilliant value à la carte dinner.

Think treats like Cornish crab with lemon, yuzu gel and edible flowers – one of the prettiest plates I’ve ever seen – and beef wellington served perfectly pink.

Three courses cost £67.50 per person.

Opt for the veggie Full English come morning – it’s a winner.

OUT AND ABOUT

Hit Cheltenham, 15 minutes’ drive away, for indie shops, as well as faves like Jo Malone, Toast and Reiss, plus Regency architecture.

Hatchards bookshop gives Hogwarts library feels, and Society Coffee serves up excellent flat whites, £4, and scrumptious chocolate cruffins, £3.95 (Society-cafe.com).

A short walk from the hotel is the Leckhampton Loop, a four-and- a-half-mile amble in gorgeous Cotswolds scenery.

Some parts are hilly, so you’ll have earned your lamb roast, £25.95, and sticky toffee pudding, £8.95, at The Frogmill (Thefrogmill.co.uk).

BOOK IT

B&B for two costs from £97 per person, including 90 minutes of spa use (Thegreenwayhotelandspa.com).

A fab find in Faversham

You don’t need a swish spa hotel in this Kent town, says Contributing Picture Editor Ruth Greatrex.

Embracing the therapeutic heat of the Finnish barrel sauna, my friend Katie and I gaze out at the vivid green fields, our skin slathered with sea-salt scrub, fragrant with rose petals and uplifting orange oil.

Staff are poised to bring juices, kombucha, or even a cocktail at the ding of a bell, too.

Once suitably baked, we brave the chilly overhead water bucket, then plunge into the ice-cold barrel.

A restorative soak in the wood-fired hot tub later, we both emerge with baby-soft skin and feel thoroughly revived.

A 90-minute session costs from £18 per person (Seascrubsauna.co.uk).

This Sea Scrub Sauna sits on the site of Macknade, one of England’s best farm shops and a family-run spot where apples and hops have grown since 1847.

We grab lunch at the new street-food village, digging into miso cream mushrooms, £11, at Hop Shed Bar & Kitchen, washed down with zingy Faversham bacchus, £9 a glass, and finishing with brown butter popcorn ice cream, £4.15, from Bears Ice Cream, before checking out the amazing food hall (Macknade.com).

Family-owned country estate Mount Ephraim Gardens is 10 minutes’ drive away and offers rooms.

We play ladies of the manor, strolling through the pretty rose gardens and even spy the sea from the Sir Edwyn Suite, which has a freestanding bath.

Double rooms cost from £150 per night (Mountephraimgardens.co.uk).

Come morning, we’re tempted back to Macknade for pancakes with blood orange and rhubarb compote, £12.

Although there are HIIT and spin classes on offer, I go for a soothing hot-stone aromatherapy massage, from £35 for 30 minutes (@Serene_ massage_therapies).

You don’t need long here to rediscover your zen. . .

In Deborah Levy’s new novel “My Year in Paris With Gertrude Stein,” the celebrated British author turns her keen observational and critical eye toward Stein, a writer that Levy feels has been criminally redacted from the canon of modernist masters that emerged at the turn of the 20th century. “My Year in Paris With Gertrude Stein,” however, is anything but a dry-as-dust revisionist treatise.

Levy couches her thoughts on Stein’s life and work within the story of three women in contemporary Paris, including Levy’s fictive avatar as the narrator, grappling with her own notions of identity as she writes about Stein and her partner Alice B. Toklas. I spoke with Levy about Stein, Toklas and Picasso.

✍️ Author Chat

Have you always had an abiding interest in Gertrude Stein?

She has always been lurking there for a number of reasons. When I was studying modernist literature, I was pointed to all the usual suspects — T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Beckett, Joyce. But no one ever pointed to Gertrude Stein. She was absent in Britain, anyway. I’m not sure it’s the same in America.

I feel like in America she certainly is not frequently cited among that pantheon of modernist writers that you just mentioned.

I thought her most commercial work, “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas,” was quite enchanting. But when you start to dig into her other writing, you find this mixture of very obtuse, very violent work, and some brilliant work.

You write in the book that you sometimes don’t understand Stein, but this doesn’t diminish your enjoyment of her work.

The thing about avant-garde writers is that they either crash or they triumph. For readers, it’s either someone popping a vein at the new and strange, or someone over-praising the work. And I thought, well I’m allowed to have mixed emotions about Stein’s writing. Sometimes she is totally brilliant, and sometimes less so.

Author Deborah Levy

(Sheila Burnett)

You also celebrate Stein and Toklas’ fierce individuality, which runs counter to the usual narratives about female authors during this time.

Well, female writers are supposed to suffer or commit suicide. And the glorious thing about Stein and Alice is that the art of living was very important to them. Travel, conversation, or driving around. This really appeals to me. You know, Stein would have a roast chicken leg in one hand and one hand on the steering wheel, with the dogs in the back.

I feel like Stein’s legacy as a writer has been occluded by her renown as a collector of the greatest modern art of the century, most notably Picasso before he became Picasso. She is remembered more for collecting others’ art than for her own art.

If you’re going to collect this bold, daring art of your own time, and you’re buying it cheap, because it’s being mocked, you have to know how to defend it. Stein wasn’t an art historian. She studied psychology with William James and then studied medicine at Johns Hopkins. Through her conversations with Picasso and others, she really began to acquire the apparatus to defend the work, and that fascinated me.

You write that Stein wanted to kill the 19th century with her work by dismantling and then reassembling language.

She was going to write through continuous present tense. She got rid of commas so she could hurtle through time and make her thoughts move forward. No question marks, because it was self-evident to her when someone was asking a question in her writing. She really was a pioneer.

Her prose reads like Beckett’s, decades before his novels were published.

The critic Roland Barthes wrote that all writing has some kind of behavior. A lot of avant-garde writing behaves like Stein, but she wasn’t imitating any other thing. She made something new for her century.

(This Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)

📰 The Week(s) in Books

Book jacket for “Marilyn and Her Books: The Literary Life of Marilyn Monroe” by Gail Crowther

(Los Angeles Times illustration; book jacket from Galley Books)

Marilyn Monroe was an avid reader who traveled with her treasured library of books wherever she lived. Yet, the stubborn image of Monroe as a literary dilettante remains. Now Gail Crowther has written “Marilyn and Her Books” which sets out to debunk that misconception of the screen legend. Crowther’s sharp account is both the story of Monroe’s library and “what we’ve projected upon Monroe when we’re asked to consider that she had one,” writes Mark Athitakis.

As Cuba struggles with a faltering economy and President Trump’s saber-rattling overtures, Ada Ferrer’s timely new memoir “Keeper of My Kin” “argues that the grand narratives of exile and revolution are, at their core, made up of private reckonings with irretrievable consequences,” writes Mariella Rudi.

When Eagle Rock’s Read Books was threatened with a massive rent hike from its landlord, co-owners Jeremy and Debbie Kaplan rallied the community around the fight for tenant’s rights and started an activist organization called Save North East Los Angeles Shops. “Commercial landlords [have] unbelievably unrealistic expectations of rent, and a small business can only sell a T-shirt or a hamburger or a service for what the market will bear,” neighborhood preservationist Aaron Peskin told Emily St. Martin.

Finally, Swan Huntley found a novel way to put off writing her next book: She hiked to every Erewhon store in Los Angeles.

📖 Bookstore Faves

A Good Used Book’s beautiful interior

(A Good Used Book)

Jenny Yang and Chris Capizzi started A Good Used Book in 2017 by selling secondhand titles at local flea markets and the Grand Central Market downtown. Seven years later, after a brief COVID blowback, the pair opened their own storefront in Historic Filipinotown. Now, A Good Used Book has blossomed into a vital community space featuring a vast selection of previously loved books across all genres. The store also hosts pop-up markets on the weekends, with more events scheduled in the coming year. I spoke with Capizzi about his store.

Who are your customers?

Our customer base is pretty broad. We’re selective about the books we carry, but we want anyone to be able to find themselves somewhere in the shop, whether you’re just getting back into reading or you’re the kind of person who already has strong opinions about translations. And we try not to take ourselves too seriously, so even though we may have critical theory, we also have “Choose Your Own Adventure.”

How do you pick inventory? Is there any emphasis on any particular genres that might be popular?

We definitely do the work to find books, but honestly a lot of the time the books seem to find us. In terms of what we carry, we focus mostly on classic, modern and contemporary fiction, but we love genre fiction too, like sci-fi, crime and horror. And a big part of what makes the store feel like us are our nonfiction and culture sections — humanities, sciences, film, music, fashion and design. Anything for that curious person who just wants to go a little deeper.

I know the store is about much more than books. Can you tell me about some of the other community events you guys organize?

During the week we’re all about the books. Every Sunday we host the Every Sunday Funday Market that features two food pop-ups out front, one savory and one sweet, and four or five local vendors and artists inside. We rotate vendors selling and making ceramics, jewelry, Japanese retro radios, soaps and candles, zines and prints, and even Persian perfumes. And we always have drinks going out of our vintage Coleman cooler, too. It’s a lot of things happening at once, but it adds up to a pretty easy, fun Sunday afternoon.

A Good Used Book is located at 307 Glendale Blvd., Los Angeles.

(Please note: The Times may earn a commission through links to Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.)

In the age of Ozempic, the buzziest hardcovers are getting smaller — and slip right into your Baggu. At Book Soup in West Hollywood, the bestselling hardcover fiction display is marked with laminated cards that denote the book’s place in the top 10, with each one cut snugly into the popular hardcover frame of 6-by-9 inches. But lately, more of the books rising to the top wear the placard noticeably looser.

I should know, I work at Book Soup so I spend a lot of time staring at this display and can tell you, the answer to this problem is definitely to print out smaller cards cut to the little sister “trim size” of 5-by-8 inches — or 5½-by-8¼ to be specific.

While the New York Times bestsellers from 2025 skew in favor of the 6-by-9 trim, the popularity of 5-by-8 books appears to be on the rise. Current utilizers of the smaller cut include the buzzy Vanderbilt heir Belle Burden’s “Strangers,” George Saunders’ darkly humorous “Vigil” Lena Dunham’s millennial-tinged tell-all “Famesick” and the infamously tablet-sized “Transcription” from Ben Lerner.

1/5

“Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage” by Belle Burden  (The Dial Press)

2/5

“Famesick: A Memoir” by Lena Dunham  (Random House)

3/5

“Vigil: A Novel” by George Saunders  (Random House)

4/5

“Transcription: A Novel” by Ben Lerner  (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

5/5

“Lost Lambs” by author Madeline Cash  (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Gretchen Achilles is the director of interior design at Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Achilles recently implemented the 5-by-8 cut for one of this year’s breakout hits, “Lost Lambs” by Madeline Cash. “It’s a tone,” she says. “Smaller trim sizes have an intimacy. … You want to echo what’s going on in the text as an experience for the reader.”

According to Achilles, FSG frequently implements the 5-by-8 trim size. She said that length is the No. 1 factor when deciding to employ it, followed by genre. She listed literary fiction, memoir, biography, and essay collections as the defining genres of the smaller size books.

Caroline Mason is a writer in New York whose debut novel “An Endless Cycle of Evenings” from Hyperion Avenue is slated for 2027; she runs the Instagram account @literarycrushes. Mason described a 5-by-8 hardcover as shorthand for a specific book she seeks out when she is in a bookstore because it often signals a character-driven novel. “It’s my favorite kind of book,” Mason says. She adds that it’s also Instagram-friendly.

“Holding the book up to take a photo of it is easier,” she says with a laugh. “Although I do sometimes still drop it.”

Dahlia de la Vega is an L.A.-based Bookstagrammer who runs the page @ofpagesandprint. According to De la Vega, she finds the shrunken books more approachable. “When I sit down to read a small hardcover, it almost feels like I’m reading a journal,” she says. “Whereas when I read a large hardcover, it almost feels like I need a journal to jot down notes about what’s happening.”

Ethan Mann, my colleague and a supervisor at Book Soup, told me he remembers the place he was both mentally and physically when he purchased a 5-by-8 hardcover copy of “The Parade” by Dave Eggers. (Right before the pandemic struck at CSUN campus store at Cal-State Northridge). “It’s easier to attach relevance to the specific feel of [the book] because it seems one of a kind,” he says.

Mann adds that hardcovers are sometimes a tough sell on the floor. They are often derided for their cost, and customers declare they will wait till the paperback comes out. But the smaller hardcover has the benefit of fitting into nearly any bag.

Esther Margolis is a publishing veteran and the founder of Newmarket Press. She says that the 5-by-8 hardcover is nothing new. According to Margolis, the smaller trim size was previously the industry standard for U.S.-based publishing houses, and any fluctuation is due to the evolution of printing technology.

“Unlike for mass-market paperbacks, hardcover books were shelved, so it didn’t matter that the books were different sizes,” Margolis says. “They didn’t have to fit into a pocket.”

The popularity of the 5-by-8 hardcover is, at the very least, indicative of a shift in what I witness consumers at Book Soup seeking out. With social media making it easier than ever to connect over the act of reading, or looking like you are reading, cover design and presentation — and how it cuts through the noise of the attention economy— is perhaps a factor too.

“A small hardback is like a Labubu,” my co-worker Mann says. “ The feeling in your hands isn’t just about books — it’s about all cute things. … We like small things we can control.”

The success of the publishing industry could never rest on the tiny shoulders of the small hardcover. It may not even represent any changes in production. But on the bestsellers display at your favorite local indie, it represents the small pleasure of palming a near-pocket-size book in your hands.

And, yes, maybe Instagrammability too.

Messinger is a writer in L.A. who runs the Substack adumbmessinger.

In 1951, not long after her breakthrough appearances in “All About Eve” and “The Asphalt Jungle,” Marilyn Monroe went to college: She enrolled in a pair of 10-week classes at UCLA’s adult-extension program, both covering literature. Looky-loos peeked through the windows. Some likely assumed a publicity stunt. But Monroe’s passion for books was sincere. An orphan who bounced around upward of a dozen foster homes and orphanages regretted that she’d never graduated high school, she moved often in her life but always made sure her books came wherever she went.

Gail Crowther’s “Marilyn and Her Books” is the story of that library, though more precisely it’s about what we’ve projected upon Monroe when we’re asked to consider that she had one. Our prevailing cultural reflex, then and now, is skepticism larded with misogyny. A famous 1955 photo of her sitting in a Long Island playground reading James Joyce’s “Ulysses” — one of 50 known photos of her reading — is routinely scoffed at whenever it’s posted online. (Crowther gathers up a sampling of misogynistic comments.)

But Crowther’s sleuthing determines that Joyce’s novel was a regular companion of hers, and she was particularly enchanted with Molly Bloom’s closing soliloquy. As an actor who had to be exceedingly smart to play dumb blondes, she used the shoot to make “a profound statement about her social positioning.”

Marilyn Monroe reads the book “To the Actor: On the Technique of Acting” by Michael Chekhov in a quiet moment at the Ambassador Hotel in New York.

(Ed Feingersh / Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images)

Writing about Monroe’s reading habits demands a lot of speculation on the part of Crowther, who’s written engaging books on Dorothy Parker, Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. We know a lot about the star’s library — when she died in 1962, she owned more than 400 books, diligently cataloged and auctioned in 1999. There’s documented marginalia and scribblings that suggest a serious reader, and anecdotes about her reciting poems at parties, reading Proust on set, and expounding on Whitman, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. She had strong opinions about Hemingway: “Those big tough guys are so sick, they aren’t even all that tough. … They always want to kill something to prove themselves.”

And Crowther literally has the receipts from Los Angeles and Beverly Hills stores like the Pickwick Book Shop, Martindale’s Book Store and Hunter’s Books, where she purchased titles that were practical (“How to Live With a Cat”), relatable (“Sister Carrie”) and weighty (a three-volume life of Sigmund Freud).

Her third husband, playwright Arthur Miller, suggests the purchases were largely a pose: In his memoir, he wrote that aside from some short stories and Colette’s “Cheri” she likely never read anything start to finish. It would be nice to know more, but as Crowther pointedly observes multiple times, journalists never thought to ask her about her reading. When the subject of literature came up, Monroe seemed compelled to play to ditzy expectations. After telling interviewers she wanted to play Grushenka in an adaptation of “The Brothers Karamazov,” they asked her if she could spell the character’s name. She demurred.

A clearer historical record might have blunted the sexist comments that have stalked her, and given Crowther an opportunity to do less guesswork. “Marilyn and Her Books” is scaffolded with 15 chapters, each dedicated to a question that usually can’t be answered in full: “Did Marilyn read all her books?” (probably not, who does?), “Did Marilyn suffer from imposter syndrome?” (probably, who doesn’t?). Some questions feel like attempts to pad the pages (“Are there any surprising omissions from Marilyn’s personal library?” “How did Marilyn’s reading compare to that of her contemporaries?”). The elegiac opening and closing chapters, in which Crowther imagines visiting Monroe’s home and scanning her shelves, also add to the feeling that too much is being extrapolated out of not enough information.

Curiously, the book also dwells little on Monroe’s own literary ambitions. Crowther shares a few scraps of despairing, Plathian verse, but almost entirely neglects her unfinished posthumous memoir, published in 1974 as “My Story.” Its relative shapelessness, along with its use of a ghostwriter, doesn’t bolster her literary credentials, but its existence points to Monroe’s ambition to have them.

And there’s plenty to say about the literary work that Monroe herself has inspired, including Joyce Carol Oates’ 2000 masterpiece, “Blonde,” or Sharon Olds’ poem “The Death of Marilyn Monroe,” in which a man who carted away her body is shocked into the reality of “a woman breathing, just an ordinary woman breathing.” Writers have afforded Monroe the grace and status in death that she was rarely afforded in life.

But the core question that drives the book, the subject of a central chapter, is valuable: “Why is Marilyn Monroe’s reading ability doubted?” Among other things, Crowther argues, Monroe suffered from a “poisonous cocktail of patriarchy, industry decisions, cultural stereotypes, social expectations, Marilyn’s unwitting complicity,” and more. Crowther keeps her focus narrowly on Monroe, but it doesn’t require a substantial mental leap to see how Monroe is just one example of a cover-model-worthy woman artist being told she’s a try-hard for demonstrating intelligence. (To pick just one example, the pop star Dua Lipa’s book club has a demonstrated high-literary bent, selecting Tommy Orange, Olga Tokarczuk and Percival Everett, which got her mocked as “an alien spaceship touching down in a medieval peasant village.”)

“Marilyn’s reading formed a concerted effort to overcome any inadequacies she perceived in herself,” Crowther writes. That, too, made her a lot like anybody who goes to books to satisfy gaps in our knowledge. We can do that in private, to avoid embarrassment. For Monroe, though, the effort was always public and always suspect — the culture was attuned to see any book in her hand as a prop. For most people, reading is an escape route. For Monroe it only led to one more cul-de-sac.

Athitakis is a writer in Phoenix and author of “The New Midwest.”

There’s nothing better than losing track of time while wandering around a city bursting with character before popping into cosy bookshops – and there’s only one UK city for it

A beautiful city brimming with cosy bookshops, including one that holds a Guinness World Record, offers the perfect escape for book lovers or those looking to explore the ‘city of dreaming spires’.

With the magnificent medieval architecture of Gothic spires and honey-colored stone, against grand libraries, cobbled streets and narrow lanes, a stroll around Oxford is enough to transport you to a scene from Hogwarts. And rightly so, as the historic city, renowned for its prestigious university, was used as a filming location for the Harry Potter franchise.

The historic Duke Humfrey’s Library, which dates back to 1487 and is part of the Bodleian Libraries, was portrayed as the Hogwarts Library in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Meanwhile, the vaulted ceiling of the Divinity School was used as the backdrop for the Hogwarts Infirmary.

READ MORE: Beautiful blue lagoon is one of the ‘best wild swimming’ spots as UK set to be hotter than IbizaREAD MORE: Small Cotswold town used as film set for Disney’s Rivals with independent shops and railway walk

But it was Christ Church College that provided numerous scenes for Harry Potter, with its staircase and hallways used to represent Hogwarts, and its Tudor great dining hall famously inspiring The Great Hall in the wizarding boarding school. New College also took centre stage with its ancient covered cloisters and courtyard, used to portray parts of Hogwarts.

UK’s best city for bookshops

Yet away from its famous movie links and breathtaking architecture that characterise the city, Oxford is an oasis for bibliophiles. The city has the optimal balance of world-famous literary heritage and a vibrant, modern vibe, so there really is something for everyone.

Thanks to its literary delights of more than 30 bookshops nestled among the historic streets, Oxford was named as the UK’s best city for bookshops by Time Out. The publication conducted a survey and found that 60 per cent of people said that Oxford’s book offerings were either ‘good’ or ‘amazing’, and it’s easy to see why.

The city is the birthplace of the well-known UK bookseller and library supplier, Blackwell’s, after it was founded in 1879. Its flagship store is situated on Broad Street in Oxford, and is a labyrinthine maze of shelves stacked with hundreds of thousands of titles.

Yet it’s the Norrington Room, nestled underground, that is perhaps the most impressive feature of this sprawling bookshop. Spanning 10,000 square feet and featuring over three miles of shelves stacked with more than 150,000 books, it is officially the largest single bookselling room and holds a Guinness World Record for this impressive accomplishment.

A wander around the store is a bookworm’s haven, welcoming a gentle calmness away from the busy streets outside, along with a friendly atmopshere, and of course, an abundance of enticing reads. Many have often described it as a tardis-like space, as it spans across multiple floors, with a welcoming café to enjoy a warming cuppa and sweet treat alongside a gripping thriller -it’s easy to spend hours in the historic yet cosy bookshop.

Independent bookshops

But that’s not the only notable offering for bibliophiles alike. Elsewhere, there’s the independent Bookstop and the Last Bookshop by Bill and Ben Books, with a focus on those preloved titles, alongside the little shop of Arcadia found on St Michael’s Street.

In Oxford’s iconic 250-year-old market, where small shops burst with eateries, vintage clothing and produce, there’s Gulp Fiction, which hosts book clubs, author events and jazz nights. St Philip’s Books, situated next door to the Alice in Wonderland shop, is another highlight in the city for those rare finds, while Daunt Books in Summertown is packed with titles suitable for all ages.

Yet it’s easy to lose track of time while exploring Oxford, especially as the city famously runs on its own time.

‘Oxford time’

Before the railway standardised British time back in the 19th century, cities would set clocks by the sun. Due to Oxford’s location, its natural solar time is five minutes and two seconds behind Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). In a long-standing tradition, it’s known as ‘Oxford time’, and today, many of its scheduled events and lectures begin five minutes past the hour.

Whether you’re an avid reader or simply want to explore the historic sites used as a film set and a place on its own time, a day trip or weekend escape to Oxford is absolutely worth it. Just be sure to set your watch five minutes and two seconds behind to experience it like a local!

Do you have a travel story to share? Email webtravel@reachplc.com

On a Tuesday evening in Eagle Rock, used-bookstore owners Jeremy and Debbie Kaplan were closing up for the day when a stranger rushed through the entrance. He tossed an envelope onto the counter, said something like: “Building’s been sold,” and slipped out.

Inside the envelope, the Kaplans found a 30-day notice: The shop’s $1,200 monthly rent would be increasing to $2,805 on April 1, they were required to decide whether they would accept the more than 133% price hike a month in advance, and they’d need to agree to a three- to five-year lease if so. The letter arrived Feb. 17, which meant the Kaplans had 11 days to accept the new landlord’s terms or leave.

“We couldn’t even consider it,” Jeremy Kaplan said. “It would be suicide.” The couple looked around the 680-square-foot shop. From the floor to ceiling, more than 20,000 books were crammed every which way into shelves they’d built and stained themselves nearly 20 years before. “My first reaction was panic,” he said. “How are we going to move out of this place?”

Their children had grown up at Read Books (pronounced like the color, as in: “These aren’t new books, they’re previously read books.”) The realization began to set in, Jeremy said, that they were being pushed out with intimidation tactics. “We started getting angry. So the next day, we started looking into our legal rights.”

After searching the internet, the Kaplans found California’s Senate Bill 1103, the Commercial Tenant Protection Act that passed last year. The law offers protections for “qualified commercial tenants” and requires landlords to give a 90-day notice for rent increases surpassing 10%.

When the Kaplans tried to contact the new property management company, Jeremy said, Systems Real Estate was evasive.

“It’s the one bill that protects commercial tenants, and it’s a fairly toothless bill because they don’t have to acknowledge it, unless you make them acknowledge it,” he said. The Kaplans, along with Sharon Kroner, whose neighboring vintage boutique Owl Talk is facing the same fate, wrote to Systems Real Estate, citing SB 1103. They had the letter certified and attached their rent checks for the next month.

In response, the 30-day notice was amended to 90 days. Systems Real Estate did not respond to a request from The Times for comment.

The Kaplans had more time to search for a new location, but Jeremy quickly saw a trend in Northeast Los Angeles. “Vacant spaces all over the place,” he said. “When we inquired, they were ludicrously expensive, most over $5 per square foot. The second thing we started noticing was small stores like ours going out of business or being priced out in the exact same way we were.”

Jeremy Kaplan stands inside his bookstore on the last day Read Books is open for business.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

Building a coalition

When Jeremy started posting about Read Books’ plight, the response was immediate and overwhelming. Many customers who reached out said they wanted to help — the bookstore had been in Eagle Rock for as long as they had.

“Not mere condolences but calls to action from people I barely knew,” he said. “Lawyers, journalists, activists, parents, children.”

Two days after the rent-increase notice was delivered, the Kaplans and their supporters were devising a plan to fight back — if not to save Read Books, then to save other small businesses.

Save North East Los Angeles Shops was born.

Chris Newman, an immigrant rights lawyer whose son learned to read with books bought at the Eagle Rock shop, told The Times he showed up to the group’s first official meeting with the intention of trying to save the bookstore.

“I was surprised to see so many people talking not just about the situation that Jeremy’s in, but an epidemic that small businesses are facing,” Newman said.

At one coalition meeting in April, Jeremy rushed in late.

He’d just come from an event where he’d been able to talk with Mayor Karen Bass about the plight small businesses are facing and asked about the possibility of imposing a commercial vacancy tax on property owners who leave storefronts vacant for extended periods.

Although sympathetic, the mayor shot him down pretty swiftly, Jeremy said, saying nobody in L.A. wants more taxes.

A representative for Bass told The Times that under her leadership, “the City is focused on cutting red tape, expanding support for local businesses, and advancing solutions that address the broader affordability crisis.”

Signs against rent increases are posted outside Read Books.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

The precedent

In March 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic shut the world down, small businesses in San Francisco had been grappling with rising rents that increasingly led to empty storefronts. Then North Beach’s beloved corner gem, Caffe Sapore, got its notice. Like Eagle Rockers, San Franciscans were done merely lamenting the community’s loss. They started organizing.

Aaron Peskin, who at the time served on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, said that while there are a variety of factors contributing to the vacancy issue, impractical property owners were the most common thread.

“Commercial landlords had unbelievably unrealistic expectations of rent, and a small business can only sell a T-shirt or a hamburger or a service for what the market will bear, and none of them could swing the rent,” Peskin said.

That year he authored Proposition D, a commercial vacancy tax ordinance that applies to street-facing, ground-floor properties that sit vacant for more than 182 days a year. It passed with nearly 70% of the vote.

“I served on that Board of Supervisors for 17 years, and it’s one of my proudest pieces of public policy,” Peskin said. “In the years since it passed, it has been working and has really helped in the post-pandemic recovery in our neighborhood commercial corridors. It’s been a rare instant success story.”

Demonstrators march toward Eagle Rock City Hall carrying protest signs against rent hikes for small businesses.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

The landlords

The question as to why someone would purchase a commercial property, raise the rent so current tenants are displaced and prospective tenants look elsewhere, only to have a onetime community hub collecting cobwebs, has inspired myriad theories.

Peskin pointed to an impractical landlord mentality; an L.A. council member suspected landlords were after tax breaks; a professor of economics said that his sense is that there’s more going on and tax benefits are likely not the driving factor; and a commercial real estate expert said landlords are likely pricing tenants out so they can tear the buildings down.

The Times reached out to Dr. Ari Ucar, the new owner of the Eagle Rock Boulevard building, who did not respond.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, a former tenant rights attorney, told The Times that landlords can benefit by claiming the vacancy as a loss on their taxes. “For landlords who own multiple commercial properties in a wide portfolio, a vacancy can be marked as a loss. In essence, when you file taxes and mark this as a loss, it reduces the total income generated. That’s the perverse incentive of having a vacancy.”

But a tax attorney in Los Angeles, Andrew Gradman, wasn’t convinced the tax incentive was enough to curb a landlord’s appetite for the passive income of steady rent payments. “You have to consider the most reasonable premise, which is that these landlords think they can get a better tenant, or they think that the lease would stand in the way of their getting some other better deal, in the form of, say, selling the whole building.”

A commercial real estate broker, Nick Quackenbos, said the likely motive for such a price hike is plans to scrape the building and build apartments in its place. He pointed to a recent landmark bill, State Senate Bill 79, which overrides local zoning laws to allow for taller, denser buildings near major transit stops. The bill will take effect statewide July 1, but L.A. plans to delay citywide upzoning until 2030 by carving out bespoke plans that target 55 single-family and low-density areas, allowing for 4-16 unit buildings up to four stories tall.

The 55 areas are mostly in Central L.A., West L.A., the Eastside and the San Fernando Valley. While Eagle Rock isn’t what L.A. city planners are designating an “opportunity hub” right now, Read Books is located a stone’s throw from the upcoming Colorado/Eagle Rock station, a stop on the North Hollywood to Pasadena BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) line slated to launch ahead of the 2028 Summer Olympics.

“The bill is allowing things to take place which could disfigure a city like Eagle Rock,” said Quackenbos. “I bet that’s what you’re going to find down the road: These places will become vacant, and suddenly there’s groundbreaking for a new apartment building going up.”

Jeremy Kaplan speaks to community members outside his store, Read Books, about the issues small business owners face.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

The rally

Read Books was set to close last weekend, and the Kaplans wanted to go out with a bang. In the shop’s front window was a single book: “The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto” by Tavis Smiley and Cornel West, surrounded by signs that read “Forced Out!,” “Shame on Greedy Landlords,” and “Our Family Loves Read Books.”

As Debbie sat at the register inside, helping a steady flow of the shop’s final patrons, protesters gathered behind the building, clutching homemade posters and waiting for Jeremy to speak. Choking up, he addressed the crowd.

Debbie Kaplan, who co-owns Read Books, hands a customer books.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

“Three months ago, when this all began, my initial action was to fight back, because fighting is my default setting. But I also felt … fear of insignificance, of disappearing, as if everything we built in the last 19 years, often working seven days a week, might soon be dismantled and forgotten. The support you’ve gifted us with these last few months has been a constant reminder that we’re all in this together.

“The real estate lobby is rich and powerful. They have more lobbyists than our representatives have staff, but we are building a coalition to fight them.

“What’s at stake? The soul of Los Angeles.”

Barnes & Noble was turning a page on the chain’s history of declining sales, but recent comments have stirred bad blood for the bookseller.

James Daunt, the chief executive credited with breathing new life into the retailer, is clarifying the store’s stance on stocking its shelves with AI-written books.

The controversy stems from Daunt’s Monday appearance on “Today” with Jenna Bush Hager. In a viral clip from the interview, Daunt said, “I have actually no problem selling any book, as long as it doesn’t masquerade or pretend to be something that it isn’t. So, as long as an AI-written book says it’s an AI-written book, then we will stock them.”

By Wednesday, thousands of calls to boycott the bookseller had flooded social media.

Kathlin Finn, a writer and former employee of the chain, posted on social media, writing, “Hey Barnes & Not Noble, I worked for you and have supported you, but your latest AI decision is extremely disappointing. I will not be shopping or promoting B&N unless you change your AI policy.”

Author Cristin Bishara wrote, “As an author this [is] the most depressing news. I’ve been saying for a long time that this was coming. People told me I was overreacting. And I had a feeling it would start with a cute round table at the front of a B&N.”

Another social media user added, “The Barnes & Noble CEO saying they’ll stock AI generated books as long as they’re labeled and aren’t ‘ripping off somebody else’ is wild considering all generative AI is ripping off someone else.”

Daunt told The Times that the wave of backlash is based on misinterpretations of what he said, and that only a “highly edited version” of what the bookseller “actually said” had been aired.

In an emailed statement, he said the bookseller does not sell AI books, “as far as we are aware.” Barnes & Noble “demand[s] that publishers label any books that are AI generated,” and the chain takes “active measures to exclude all AI generated books.”

Daunt further stated that Barnes & Noble “will sell AI generated books if there is clear demand” and not “ban reputable books published by reputable publishers, even if AI generated, should these be published, labeled and there be clear evidence of customer demand.”

He also said that the retailer thinks it’s “very unlikely” that there will be customer demand for AI-generated books or that reputable publishers will publish them.

“The argument is nuanced, and perhaps over nuanced, but there are important principles that have to be balanced and I believe we do so as sensibly and thoughtfully as is possible,” he said. “Book banning is a clear and present danger, so we are very careful with demands to ban any books” while also remaining vigilant “not to sell AI generated books that masquerade to be by real authors.”

Last year, Daunt spoke with BBC on the issue of AI in publishing and bookselling and said that there’s a huge proliferation of AI-generated content, and “most of it is not books that we should be selling.” He told the broadcaster that, as a bookseller, the company sells what publishers publish and that he’d be surprised by efforts to put forth an “AI-generated piece of nonsense” but that, ultimately, the decision on reading material would lie with the reader.

“We don’t dictate, and we don’t dictate around politics or any other particular issues around books,” he said. “We leave it up to the reader to decide.”

In June 2025, more than 70 authors issued a call to action to big-five publishers Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, and Macmillan, asking the companies to pledge that they will never release books that were created by machines. Authors Lauren Groff, R.F. Kuang, Emma Straub and Emily Henry were among the petitioners.

“At its simplest level, our job as artists is to respond to the human experience. But the art we make is a commodity, and our world wants things quickly, cheaply, and on demand,” the letter read.

“We are rushing toward a future where our novels, our biographies, our poems and our memoirs — our records of the human experience — are ‘written’ by artificial intelligence models that, by definition, cannot know what it is to be human. To bleed, or starve, or love. …

“Every time a prompt is entered into AI, the language that bot uses to respond was created in part through the synthesis of art that we, the undersigned, have spent our careers crafting. Taken without our consent, without payment, without even the courtesy of acknowledgment.”

In March, Hachette pulled “Shy Girl” from publication after widespread allegations that the horror novel appeared to be AI-generated and was swiftly scrubbed from Amazon and the Hachette website. The book’s author, Mia Ballard, denied that she had relied on AI to pen the book but said an acquaintance she had hired to edit the novel used AI.

“Hachette remains committed to protecting original creative expression and storytelling,” a Hachette spokeswoman said, per the New York Times.

For more than 40 years, Barry Walters has been closely watching the dance floors of New York and San Francisco, chronicling the ways in which LGBTQ+ culture has influenced mainstream culture. As a writer for the Village Voice, the Advocate and Spin, among others, Walters became one of music journalism’s most eloquent and crucial voices, championing artists like the Pet Shop Boys and Madonna during their formative years.

Walters’ new book, “Mighty Real,” draws on his deep firsthand knowledge, offering a comprehensive history of LGBTQ+ music from 1969 to 2000. I recently spoke with Walters about Babs, Madge and Bowie.

✍️ Author Chat

In the book, you make a distinction between pre-Stonewall LGBTQ music and post-Stonewall LGBTQ music.

Gay culture before Stonewall really had to be hidden, or at least secretive. I think of Barbra Streisand as a quintessential pre-Stonewall figure. Judy Garland, as well. These women are tough, and even though they sing songs written by men, it’s not in a submissive way. They are singing like they are the champions, even when they are suffering through what men do to women through the torch songs they perform.

What can you say about the encoded nature of certain songs that spoke to gay culture in a way that flew under the radar of hetero listeners in the pre-Stonewall era?

The music that spoke to gay culture, by necessity, had to be encoded. “Secret Love” by Doris Day is a good example. It’s about struggling to have something that’s otherwise forbidden. Sinead O’Connor covered that song. There was a song I loved as a young child called “Have I The Right?” by the Honeycombs, which was written by two British gay men at a time when homosexuality was illegal in England. You know, have I the right to be with whomever I want to be with?

What, in your view, was the big bang of post-Stonewall LGBTQ music?

David Bowie to a large degree. Right around the time that “Hunky Dory” was being released in 1971, he told the Evening Standard newspaper that he was gay, flat out just said it. And it was such a strange thing to say that many people doubted his sincerity.

Barry Walters, a writer for the Village Voice, the Advocate and Spin, among others, wrote a new book about the history of LGBTQ+ music.

(Kelly Lawrence for Walters)

I remember seeing Bowie wearing that dress on the cover of “The Man Who Sold The World,” thinking that was the most transgressive act any rock star had ever committed.

And then he performed “Starman” on Top of the Pops in 1972 and he put his arm around his guitarist Mick Ronson, who also looked gorgeous. They were displaying a familiarity men aren’t supposed to have.

I thought I knew everything about pop music, but you have uncovered so many fascinating stories. Tell me about Olivia Records.

Olivia Records was an independent record label in the Bay Area owned and controlled by lesbians for female artists. This is years before punk or indie rock, when so many small labels cropped up. They pioneered so much. They would recruit fans in different cities to man the merchandise and to help get their records in stores. The idea of a merch table was something new at the time. They also created the forerunner of Burning Man. They would go find a farm somewhere and create an impromptu village, with food, sanitation and the rest.

You have given the most space in your book to Madonna, whom you have written about extensively over the years. Why is Madonna such a huge figure in the history of LGBTQ music?

Her art is so queer. I feel like she is one of us. She’s very much like Grace Jones, in that her sensibility is so aligned with gay culture. I related to Madonna on multiple levels. In the early ‘80s, I would see her around town, dancing at the same New York clubs I was frequenting, like Danceteria. She was steeped in gay culture, and then she brought all of this into the mainstream, and that was profound. I also feel like she was misunderstood in many ways. When straight men called her a slut, things like that. That is so far from the truth. She is such a complex artist. If you are making that claim, you don’t know anything about her.

(This Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)

📰 The Week(s) in Books

(Javier Pérez / For The Times)

Pulitzer prize winner Elizabeth Strout has a new novel called “The Things We Never Say,” and Julia M. Klein approves. “[Strout] reprises her familiar themes: the mysteries of human personality, the perils of solitude, the occasional possibility of grace … in deceptively simple, occasionally mannered prose that draws readers in and immerses them in her fictional worlds,” Klein writes.

They’re on a boat! Paula L. Woods climbed aboard a 130-foot yacht in Marina del Rey to soak in the vibes of the Yacht Girls Book Club. “I wanted conversations with like-minded women that were intellectual but fun,” club founder Aloni Ford told Woods. “And talking about books seemed to be the ideal way to achieve that.”

“PEN15” co-creator Anna Konkle has written a memoir called “The Sane One,” and Rachel Brodsky talked to her about it. “In some ways, ‘PEN15’ was a reaction to loving memoirs,” she tells Brodsky. “Raw memory has always been very exciting to me.”

Finally, our Times critics take the measure of this summer’s hottest beach reads.

📖 Bookstore Faves

Kinokuniya bookstores sell Japanese manga, stationery and literature.

(Courtesy of Kinokuniya)

When Kinokuniya opened its first L.A. shop in 1977, it was primarily to provide Japanese expats with imported books and magazines to read in their native tongue. Forty years later, the store has become a locus of Japanese printed matter for Angelenos eager to scoop up Japanese literature and manga in Japanese and English, as well an expansive selection of imported stationery products that, in L.A., can only be found in Kinokuniya’s three stores. I spoke with Sakura Yamaguchi, who manages two of Kinokuniya’s stores downtown (the third is in Mar Vista) about its many-splendored pleasures.

How did the store travel from Japan to Los Angeles?

Books Kinokuniya was founded by Moichi Tanabe in 1927. Located in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo in a two-story wooden building, the first Kinokuniya started with five employees, including Mr. Tanabe himself. In 1969, Kinokuniya opened its first overseas bookstore in San Francisco. The first Los Angeles store opened in 1977.

Who are your customers?

We first started as a store for Japanese customers, so we imported Japanese books and magazines and sold them, mainly. But in the past 10 years, Japanese manga/anime, stationery and literature has been quite popular in the U.S. Therefore our customers are a mix of Japanese-speaking customers and non-Japanese speakers who are interested in Japanese culture.

What percentage of your clientele buys Japanese–language products?

Forty percent Japanese-language products versus 60% English books.

What specific titles are selling for you right now?

“Witch Hat Atelier Grimoire Edition, Volume 1,” “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Purple Smoke Distortion” and the “Strange Houses” series.

Are you seeing more young people turning to printed matter? It seems like there is an analog revival at the moment.

We have been trying to make exclusive editions that come with freebies to make the printed manga more attractive, but without that our English manga sales have been increasing and our main target for the manga is young people. There are many titles that are published exclusively in e-book format, but we frequently hear from customers asking when they will be released in print form. Also, recently there has been a growing number of cases where titles that were originally available only in digital format have later been published as physical books.

Kinokuniya at the Bloc in Los Angeles is located at 700 W 7th St.

(Please note: The Times may earn a commission through links to Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.)

STEPPING through the floo network into the Ministry Of Magic, I feel like I’ve been transported straight on to the Harry Potter film set.

The attention to detail is next-level, even down to the sheer size of the building I’m standing in.

Surrounded by green subway tiles, ginormous gold ornate statues of magical creatures and hanging banners featuring some of Azkaban’s Most Wanted, the magic really has come alive.

So much so that, as a huge Potter fan, I find myself choking back tears.

Feeling Epic

My friends and I are at Epic Universe, which opened in Orlando last year.

After exploring 1920s Paris, Fantastic-Beasts-style, we head to Nintendo World to ride on Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge, where VR really does make me feel like I’ve been dropped into the game.

WAIL OF A TIME

I drove Irish Route 66 with deserted golden beaches and pirate-like islands

TEMPTED?

Tiny ‘Bali of Europe’ town with stunning beaches, €3 cocktails and £20 flights

Later, in the How To Train Your Dragon zone, Hiccup’s Wing Gliders is a super-fun coaster I want to ride again and again.

However, nothing quite hits the adrenalin high of Stardust Racers – a mega coaster in the park’s centre that reaches speeds of 62mph and heights of up to 133 feet, with spins and turns aplenty.

All this excitement leaves us needing a tipple, and the best place to take in the view of the park at night with a glass of pale rosé, £13, in hand, is Bar Helios at the top of the Helios Grand Hotel.

We’re staying a five-minute shuttle ride away at Terra Luna Resort, which also opened last year.

Designed in the colours of the solar system, my room features a spaceship-style window looking out on to Epic Universe.

Double rooms at Terra Luna start from £119 per night (Universalorlando.com).

Walt a ride

Orlando is, of course, also home to Walt Disney World, where each park brings its own adventure.

At Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park, its new Zootopia: Better Zoogether! 4D film inside the Tree Of Life theatre entertains, and at EPCOT, I adore the thrills of “omnicoaster” Guardians Of The Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, before sipping champers, £16, in the recreation of Paris and tucking into fish and chips, £10.75, in the park’s nod to England.

No trip would be complete without visiting Magic Kingdom, home to the Cinderella Castle, and we’re soon flying around on motorbike rollercoaster Tron Lightcycle.

The new night-time parade, Disney Starlight: Dream The Night Away, makes the already dazzling performance even more breathtaking, too (Disneyworld.co.uk).

Meanwhile, stepping into our villa at Villatel Orlando Resort brings back MTV Cribs vibes.

Located on International Drive, these sleek, modern, self-catering pads can sleep up to 26, and all have private pools – many even have cinema rooms.

There’s a large resort swimming pool, too, with water slides and a lazy river, which I sit beside, sipping frozen margaritas, £12.60, as I dive into a good book.

Stays at Villatel Orlando Resort cost from £48 per person per night (Villatel.com/villatel-orlando-resort).

That’s mall, folks!

One evening, we visit nearby entertainment complex Activate Orlando at Pointe Orlando, where teams face physical and mental challenges using interactive technology.

My favourite is one which involves dipping and dodging a network of lasers.

Hour-long sessions cost £22 per person (Playactivate.com/pointe-orlando).

It proves great fun and leaves us ravenous.

Luckily, Palm Tree Club Orlando close by offers a party atmosphere alongside delicious Lavender Hugo Spritzes, £12, rigatoni smothered in a vodka sauce, £14.80, and sides of charred broccolini, £9.60, which are a fitting reward for our energetic endeavours (@Palmtreecluborlando).

Orlando’s huge shopping malls are almost as famous as the theme parks, and as Fabulous’ Fashion Editor, it would be remiss of me not to visit one.

I pick The Mall At Millenia, home to designer boutiques and US faves Pottery Barn, Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s (Mallatmillenia.com).

Yet I still end up buying a pair of boots from H&M for £35!

The real souvenir of my trip, however, is the magic feeling this city gave me, theme parks and all.