books

“What happened to my dreams? Simply put: they changed,” reads Phil Augusta Jackson aloud to a crowd in a furniture store. Tonight’s theme is change. From a podium, the television writer reflects on the long, thorny odyssey of his career. A pinball machine blinks in the background. Behind him, dreamy abstract prints hang on the wall, their shapes seeming to melt in the unseasonable spring heat.

Alongside mid-century furnishings and art in Echo Park, siblings Madeline Walter and Evan Walter host their wildly popular reading series, Essays. It’s a warm spring night. In a tender essay, Evan considers what he’s inherited from his idiosyncratic father. “I scream-sneeze like him now,” he reads. “It feels like a mess figuring out what parts of your parents you’re going to keep.”

In March 2024, the Walter siblings began the reading series in a friend’s backyard. “It was cold and wet, and we were so nervous nobody would come,” says Madeline. Since then, the show has moved through a series of venues before settling into a home at The Hunt Vintage. In just two years, it has grown into a local phenomenon, regularly drawing crowds of more than 150 people into the singular space.

The idea for Essays took shape during a conversation about creative constraints. Both writers and comedians, the siblings wanted to host a show that pushed beyond snappy punchlines and polished half-truths. “The objective is different from just being funny,” Madeline says. “It’s to tell me about yourself. Tell me something you’re thinking about.”

Siblings Madeline and Evan Walter host a popular monthly reading series called Essays at Echo Park’s Hunt Vintage.

(Ryan Wall )

Like many readings across Los Angeles, Essays taps into a growing appetite for sincerity. “People are really craving a space where you can be funny, be vulnerable, laugh at yourself — and where there’s an earnestness,” Evan says. That sensibility feels familiar to them. They grew up in what Madeline describes as a “very NPR-coded household that loved David Sedaris-style stuff.” She adds: “Doing something in the essay space feels like a surprising return to form.”

“One of my roommates describes it as a church-like experience, because everything is just so emotionally0driven and connective,” says Kaitlyn Kilmer, a longtime attendee.

The legacy of the series has begun to ripple outward. Their reading series has created a complementary Substack. Kilmer is now hosting a reading in her living room among friends.“We decided that we wanted to do our own, so I gathered a few friends who had been fans of the Essays show,” she says.

Essays exists in a larger network of reading series that make up Los Angeles’ diverse and ever-evolving literary scene. “There are so many readings now,” explains non-fiction writer Diana Ruzova, who frequently attends readings. “I’m not mad at it, though, mostly grateful that L.A. has a thriving literary community.”

In Los Feliz, Skylight Books continues to host intimate book launches for some of the most anticipated literary releases, drawing local favorites and celebrities.

“Our vibe is cozy,” says Mary Williams, general manager of Skylight Books. “We set up chairs under the big tree that grows in the middle of the store, and we hope this is a go-to place for our community to see their favorite authors while mingling with other book lovers.”

Elsewhere, at Heavy Manners Library, the tone of literary events leans more toward the experimental. “Experimental, unpolished writing can be shared and reflected on in an accessible, communal setting,” says program assistant Jane Shin.

This spring, literary events across the city run the gamut — from independent book fairs to poetry workshops, from the bizarre to the deeply vulnerable — welcoming everyone from curious newcomers to die-hard bookworms.

JANE Fallon has revealed she has undergone surgery following her shock breast cancer diagnosis.

The author, who is the partner of Ricky Gervais, told fans earlier this month that she was suffering with breast cancer, despite having no symptoms before the diagnosis.

Now, Jane has confirmed that her operation is over and assured fans she is feeling in high spirits after the procedure.

Sharing some snaps of herself from hospital, Jane wrote to X: “So… I had my op today.

“I’m feeling remarkably fine, which is possibly the drugs & that might also explain why I’m cross eyed in pic 4).

“I had quite a lovely couple of hours drinking tea & reading the brilliant @CatSteadman ‘s new one (more on that later).”

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Jane also shared an update on when she will get the all clear, explaining that it will be at least a further week.

She said: “The popsox have to stay on for 48 hours so that’s nice.

“Then 8-10 days wait for confirmation that they’ve got it all & the margins are clear (small % chance of more surgery if not).”

She is now resting up at home with the support of cat Pickles.

Jane has been with comedian Ricky for over 40 years, with the couple meeting back in 1982.

She is known for career as an author, having penned books such as Getting Rid of Matthew, Got You Back, Queen Bee, Worst Idea Ever, and Faking Friends. 

Revealing her breast cancer diagnosis earlier this month, Jane assured fans not to “panic” and said her prognosis was “excellent”.

She said on Instagram: “About a month ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer – very early stage thankfully & the prognosis is excellent.

“I had a routine mammogram a week before Christmas. I had no symptoms but the brilliant radiographer spotted something iffy & sent me for further tests & eventually a biopsy.

“Since then I’ve had more mammograms, more biopsies and an MRI so they can pinpoint the problem area precisely. It’s been a lot, I’m not going to lie.”

The star added that she has been under “incredible” care.

Tom Junod has devoted his long and distinguished career to writing about other people. He won two National Magazine Awards as a star feature writer for Esquire, GQ and ESPN: The Magazine, covering everything from athletes and movie stars to the victims of 9/11 with his elegant prose style. However, it took Junod years before he could tackle the toughest subject of all: His father, Lou, a decorated World War II veteran who fashioned himself as a kind of suburban Sinatra.

He was a hard-drinking philanderer who carried with him a complicated legacy that Junod untangles in his memoir “In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man.” I spoke with Junod about fathers and sons, and the difficulty of excavating his family’s fraught history.

✍️ Author Chat

You pondered this book for years. Was there a moment when you finally said, “Right, time to write this now”?

There was definitely a moment, when my brother Michael had lunch with a woman named Muntu Law, who was one of my father’s lovers. It was the late summer of 2015. She told him, “Of course, you know your Dad and I had an affair for 11 years.” And he didn’t know that. He called me immediately after and asked me if I knew about the affair and I said yes. He asked me why I hadn’t told him, and I responded that I both knew and didn’t know. I knew it the moment Muntu stood up at my father’s funeral.

You intuited it?

Yes. There was a split there that I needed to reconcile and explore. There was too much unresolved stuff.

Your father’s story is shot through with a lot of tragedy. What is the writing process like for you? Was it an unburdening, a catharsis or something else?

When you unburden yourself, what you wind up doing is taking up much heavier burdens, which is what the book was. But it’s very interesting, because now I’m talking about my father with people in my family, and some of these discussions are difficult, but at least I’m talking about him with them. It was mostly pain, writing the book. Exposing your secrets isn’t particularly a relief, but it allows you to carry on your life without the necessity of being silent.

Tom Junod untangles his father’s complicated legacy in his memoir “In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man.”

(Lee Crum)

Your Dad is emblematic of this kind of postwar American male that served in the war and came home flush with triumph and a kind of male privilege. Would you agree?

To the absolute max. My dad was an extreme character, and I think what the war did for a lot of men was it allowed them to reinvent themselves and create themselves. I look at my dad as a completely self-created phenomenon.

He clearly carried himself like a star.

There’s a line in the book where I say that Dad was the only celebrity I’ve ever known.

What’s remarkable is that you broke the cycle. You write about your marriage to your wife, Janet, in the book, whom you met in college. You have been together for over 40 years.

I think a lot of people are surprised by that when they read the book. People just thought I had it, you know — that I was successful and I was able to handle difficult situations. Back in the summer, I gave a copy to my friend, Lisa Hanselman, who I worked with at Esquire and GQ for a long time. And she called me up one morning and just said, “I didn’t know.” And that meant a lot to me. In my mind, it’s one of those things that justifies the effort it took to write the book.

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

📰 The Week(s) in Books

In “AlphaPussy,” Gina Gershon’s real-life stories deal with “themes of manipulation, survival, and moving around and being able to stand on your own two feet.”

(Evelyn Freja / For The Times)

Mark Athitakis is agog over Lauren Groff’s new story collection “Brawler,” a book that “blends the depth of the long view and the drama of the pivotal moment.”

Acclaimed nonfiction writer Daniel Okrent has written “Stephen Sondheim: Art Isn’t Easy,” a short, sharp biography of Stephen Sondheim for Yale’s “Jewish Lives” series, and Julia M. Klein approves. “[Okrent] seeks to liberate Sondheim’s reputation from the encrustation of myth and to demystify his relationships, while offering a succinct analysis of his achievements,” she writes.

Actor Gina Gershon has written a freewheeling memoir called “AlphaPussy,” which looks back on her San Fernando Valley childhood as a proving ground for dealing with male toxicity as a woman in Hollywood. “I’m not that tough,” Gershon tells Cat Woods. “But I’d learned how to maneuver a lot just from growing up in the Valley, and it was a crazy time to be living there. So I thought about the stories that led me to be able to steer myself through toxicity.”

Finally, Yvonne Villarreal sat with Christina Applegate to discuss her new memoir, “You With the Sad Eyes.” “This book is not cathartic for me — let’s just go there,” Applegate says. “I just needed to dump this s— out somewhere.”

📖 Bookstore Faves

Casita Bookstore in Long Beach prioritizes stories from unrepresented and marginalized voices, says owner Antonette Franceschi-Chavez.

(Antonette Franceschi-Chavez)

An inviting literary haven in Long Beach, Casita Bookstore prioritizes stories from underrepresented and marginalized voices from the BIPOC, immigrant, LGBTQ+ communities and what store owner Antonette Franceschi‑Chavez calls “other historically silenced communities.” I spoke with Franceschi‑Chavez about what readers are excited about now.

What kind of clientele do you get in the store, typically?

Our clientele is wonderfully diverse, but they share a common desire for stories, knowledge and community that center voices often underrepresented in mainstream spaces. We see a strong mix of local community members, educators, families and young readers, along with writers, activists and creatives who are drawn to our focus on books by [underrepresented and marginalized writers].

What’s selling right now?

That’s a difficult question, because we get a wide range of reader personalities. I can say that one of the top-selling trends in adult reading right now is dystopian fiction. Some of the top sellers in our bookstore are “Parable of the Sower” by Octavia Butler, “Chicano Frankenstein” by Daniel Olivas and Agustina Bazterrica’s “Tender Is the Flesh.”

Is there still a place for bookstores as community builders?

Of course! Indie bookstores are vital community hubs. Even in the digital age, bookstores provide physical spaces for connection, conversation and shared experience. You can’t replicate that type of connection online. We’re also living in a time when voices are being silenced or punished for speaking out about social justice, oppressive actions and, overall, what’s right. Bookstores are here to lend their spaces, share those stories and bring attention to needed causes. I’ve seen many bookstores, including ours, function as fundraising and donation hubs, protest art spaces, open-mic venues to allow for communities to unite in shared social causes.

Casita Bookstore in Long Beach is located at 272 Redondo Ave.

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

HE may be a 63-year-old “normal” dad these days, but Shaun Ryder has not lost the ability to shock.

When the Happy Mondays frontman spoke to host Jack Whitehall at the Brit Awards last month, his tale of nearly being busted for drugs had to be edited out.

But, then again, putting the potty-mouthed and straight-talking singer on live telly is always a risk.

In an exclusive interview with The Sun, the Mancunian reveals that ITV did not appreciate his story of a drugs raid that happened when he was up for a Brit award in 1996.

Back then, Shaun’s other band, Black Grape, had been nominated for British Breakthrough Act.

Shaun says: “I told him I went to score and the gaff where I went to score got raided by the police as I’m scoring and the cops cottoned on who I was.

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“And I’m saying, ‘Oh, I’m getting a Brit Award here’ and they let me go.

“They busted a heroin house and they let me go because I was up for a Brit Award.”

You might think that Shaun, who has already published two autobiographies, has no fresh stories.

But the singer, who has a new memoir out now and who is writing material for Happy Mondays’ first album in 20 years, always has plenty of tales to tell.

In his latest book, 24 Hour Party Person, he recalls facing down what he believes was a killer orangutan, escaping a gun battle and being held hostage by an armed robber.

There are also numerous car crashes from which he somehow escaped alive.

Shaun, who quit drugs aged 40 after 20 years of substance abuse, admits: “I have used up more than nine lives.”

It could all have ended shortly after Happy Mondays’ first album, Squirrel And G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out), came out in 1987.

Shaun, who was not famous at that point, went to Amsterdam to live for a short while.

He remembers: “Some nutcase we knew from Manchester, who was doing armed robberies and was then in Amsterdam, hijacked a load of people, put them in the canal and shot them and then turned up at the gaff where we were staying and held us hostage for a day or two.”

Luckily, Shaun managed to talk the robber into letting them go.

But there was no way of having a nice discussion with a great ape that appeared in front of Shaun on a Barbados beach when he was recording Happy Mondays’ fourth album in 1992.

At the time there were stories in the local Press about a dangerous orangutan, nicknamed Jack the Ripper, on the loose.

Shaun claims: “This thing just dropped out of the trees right in front of me. It was a f***ing big orangutan.”

Telling himself “don’t show any fear”, the musician stood tall and shouted, “Grrr, arrrgh, f*** off, just f*** right off”, at the animal.

Remarkably, the orangutan did as it was told.

Orangutans are not native to the Caribbean, so there is a good chance it was indeed Jack the Ripper.

And Shaun, who was “smoking up to 50 rocks of crack cocaine a day” in Barbados, insists it was not a hallucination.

The album, Yes, Please!, failed to generate enough sales to justify the £150,000 spent making it and the following year the Happy Mondays broke up.

Shaun formed Black Grape in 1993 with his dancer mate Bez and rapper pal Paul “Kermit” Leveridge.

But it did not help keep him out of trouble.

During one trip to Jamaica, he and Kermit found themselves in the middle of a gun battle while trying to buy drugs.

He recalls: “I was going scoring and someone got shot, shot in the head. We just ran for it. If you’re a junkie going scoring, that’s the sort of s**t you come across.”

It was getting together with third wife Joanne which finally helped Shaun give up drugs and stop boozing.

They had dated briefly before Happy Mondays had hits, but he says: “She blew me out.”

Joanne, who now manages the TV part of his career — which has included two appearances on I’m A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out Of Here! — remained in the same circle as him.

The couple got together more than 20 years ago and married in 2010.

They have two daughters, Pearl, 17, and Lulu, 18.

Shaun, who also has four other children with previous partners, says: “She reeled me in and it’s a good job. “She didn’t let me get away with half of the stuff.

“If she hadn’t I’d have just carried on with crashing, but once I hit 40, I was determined to give up drugs anyway.”

His older children had to deal with his absences and spells in rehab.

But the youngest two have grown up in a more stable environment.

Shaun, who is also stepdad to Joanne’s son Oliver, explains: “I’ve still got two kids at home, so for the last 18 years, I’m just Dad.

“They’ve grown up coming and watching us at music festivals, and they’ve seen me in the jungle, but they’ve never seen that Shaun Ryder who’s off his nut.

“I pick them up from college and all that sort of thing, and drop them off. I’m the f***ing taxi service.

“In this house, you know, we don’t even have booze or anything, so, we’ve just been like a normal f***ing mad family for the past 18 years or whatever.”

Shaun says he did not see much of his older children and admits he was not a good dad to them.

But he says: “I’ve had really no trouble off my kids, I’ve been very lucky with the kids.”

This year is going to be an important one for Shaun.

Apart from the book and new album out next year, he is doing a Q&A tour and is on the road with Happy Mondays.

The return to the studio is due to former Creation Records label boss Alan McGee.

Shaun reveals: “I’m writing it now. Alan McGee wanted a new Mondays album, so Alan usually gets what he wants.”

When it comes out, it will be 40 years since the Manchester group’s first release in 1987.

These days various health problems, including a recent bout of pneumonia, means performing is harder than ever for Shaun.

One legal substance that has helped keep him on the road is the fat jab Ozempic.

Shaun says: “You just raid the medicine cabinet, don’t you, and get on with it, so the show must go on.

“I have an overactive thyroid, so even if I ate f***ing lettuce and tomatoes, I would be big.

“Since I started on the injections my thyroid started to get better.”

If Shaun has his way he will keep performing until the Grim Reaper finally catches up with him.

And the singer would settle for dying on stage, like the comedian Tommy Cooper.

He says: “In this game, you’re doing some Tommy Cooper style, you know what I mean?

“As long as you enjoy it, do what you do, f***ing do it and I still do.

“I’ll still make music and go play music out there until I f***ing drop dead on stage.

“It’s a good place to go, innit? To drop dead on stage, singing Kinky Afro.”

• Shaun’s new book 24 Hour Party Person is available from awaywithmedia.com.

The L.A. Times Festival of Books is back for its 31st year.

The event will feature authors, poets, artists and podcasters across panels, book signings, cooking demonstrations and screenings. This year’s lineup includes comedian Larry David, actor and Booker Prize judge Sarah Jessica Parker, musician Lionel Richie, Beyoncé’s mother and multihyphenate Tina Knowles, bestselling author and social critic Roxane Gay and News & Documentary Emmy- and Peabody-nominated scholar Reza Aslan, among others.

Scheduled for April 18 and 19, the literary festival will feature more than 550 storytellers and nearly 100 panels across the University of Southern California’s campus.

Other notable personalities include: Pat Benatar, Blippi, Mark Harmon, David Duchovny, Susan Lucci, Jennie Garth, Hannah Brown, Anne Lamott, Chanel Miller, Lisa Rinna, Stephanie Garber, Jon Klassen, Mac Barnett, Meghan Quinn, Hayley Kiyoko, Megan McDonald, Elyse Myers, Eli Rallo, Raegan Revord and Molly Jong-Fast.

As part of the Ideas Exchange speaker series, Richie will sit down with Times Pop Music Critic Mikael Wood, to discuss “Truly,” Richie’s new memoir. The book explores the singer’s upbringing in Alabama and his rise to stardom, including performing with the Commodores.

On Saturday, Sarah Jessica Parker and Alexandra Oliva join the festival to discuss Oliva’s new SJP Lit novel “The Radiant Dark.” The following day, Larry David and Times News and Culture Critic Lorraine Ali will talk about Ali’s new book, “No Lessons Learned: The Making of Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

This year’s event will debut the Audiobook and Podcast Stage presented by Spotify, hosting talent like “Crimes of The Times” host and Times writer Christopher Goffard and “Remarkably Bright Creatures” bestselling author Shelby Van Pelt. The festival will also screen a preview of the Hulu show “Rivals,” which will be followed by a discussion between producer and writer Dominic Treadwell-Collins and actor Nafessa Williams.

At the Times Food Stage, Cassandra Peterson, known for her work as Elvira, will be demoing from her book “Elvira’s Cookbook From Hell.” Culinary influencer Cassie Yeung will also be stopping by to discuss recipes from her new Asian takeout cookbook “Bad B*tch in the Kitch.”

The festival will kick off April 17 with The Times hosting the 46th annual L.A. Times Book Prizes at Bovard Auditorium. The ceremony will honor Amy Tan with the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement, We Need Diverse Books with the Innovator’s Award and Adam Ross with the Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose. The prizes recognize 61 works in 13 categories.

General admission to the festival is free. Friend of the Festival packages, which include panel reservations, parking and merchandise, are currently on sale.