books

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.

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