Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday sharply criticized “fake MAGA-manufactured outrage” over his comments about his low SAT score in Atlanta Sunday during his national book tour.
Conservative commentators, Trump loyalists and right-wing media outlets accused the California governor and potential 2028 presidential candidate of disparaging Black Americans when he was discussing his struggles with dyslexia.
“First MAGA mocked his dyslexia and now they’re calling him racist for talking about his low SAT scores,” said Izzy Gardon, a spokesperson for Newsom, in a statement. “The governor has said this publicly for years — including with [the late conservative commentator] Charlie Kirk and dozens of other audiences.”
During a conversation with Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, who is a Black politician, Newsom was asked what he wanted the audience and readers to know about him. The governor, in a long-winded response, said he wasn’t trying to impress anyone, but “press upon you I’m like you.”
“I’m no better than you,” Newsom said. “I’m a 960 SAT guy.”
The governor continued to discuss his dyslexia and struggle to read.
“@GavinNewsom Thinks a 960 SAT Makes Him ‘Like’ Black Americans. Let That Sink In,” Fox News commentator Sean Hannity posted on the social media platform X.
Newsom offered a profanity-laced retort to Hannity, accusing him of long ignoring President Trump’s racist remarks and social media posts, then feigning outrage at Newsom’s remarks.
“You didn’t give a shit about the President of the United States of America posting an ape video of President Obama or calling African nations shitholes — but you’re going to call me racist for talking about my lifelong struggle with dyslexia?” Newsom posted on X. “Spare me your fake fucking outrage, Sean.”
Gardon pointed out that Newsom was speaking to a mixed-race audience during the conversation with Dickens.
“Take it from someone who was actually in the chair asking the questions: context matters more than a headline,” Dickens said on Instagram. “The conversation around his new book included him speaking about his own academic struggles, including not doing well on the SAT. That wasn’t an attack on anyone. It was a moment of vulnerability about his own journey.”
Sunday’s event wasn’t the first time Newsom has mentioned his SAT score. The governor has cited his performance on the test many times in conversations about his dyslexia and issues with self-esteem growing up, including during an interview with The Times about his new memoir “Young Man in a Hurry” earlier this month.
“Come on, I’m a 960 SAT guy, governor of the fourth largest economy in the world,” Newsom told The Times. “I’m a guy, you know, with sweaty hands as described in the book, you know, who can’t read a speech, and I’m governor. I’m talking to you. Come on, the whole thing is sort of fascinating.”
Newsom used the low score as an example of the grit and resilience he learned from his mother.
The governor is accustomed to sparring with Republicans on social media. Ring-wing furor over his remarks, whether justified or politically motivated, is likely to continue as he flirts with a 2028 presidential run.
“We’ve gotten so used to loud, chest-pounding politics that when someone speaks about shortcomings, people try to twist it into something else,” Dickens, said in his post on Instagram. “Let me be clear though. This is Atlanta. We don’t need anyone to tell us when to be offended. And history has shown… when we are, you’ll know.”
Our present podcast era has bred a new generation of interlocutors from the public sphere, veteran interviewees turned journalists. Harper Simon is among the many pro musicians who have taken on the role of insatiably curious interrogator. The singer-songwriter, who is the son of Paul Simon, has made four solo albums and toured the country both as a solo artist and sideman, but it wasn’t until he was tapped by music manager Michael Lustig in 2016 to host an internet series called “Talk Show” that Simon found his new avocation.
The cream of Simon’s interviews have now been collected in “Thinking Out Loud,” which is published by L..A. imprint Hat & Beard Press. I chatted with Simon about the art of the interview, Pink Floyd and Ed Snowden.
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An exclusive look at what we’re reading, book club events and our latest author interviews.
I have found that people who have been interviewed a lot are good at interviewing others. They know how to avoid the banal and obvious questions.
I’m not a trained journalist, so the conversations were closer to what Andy Warhol’s “Interview” magazine used to be. More of a casual back-and-forth, rather than me trying to ask questions or having someone promote their product. So the book is really a combination of folks that I’ve known my whole life and others that I just asked to interview.
Interviewing public figures can be a very stilted experience. And then you wind up not getting much of anything.
Interviews with journalists are a funny thing. There is always this weird, uncomfortable hierarchical relationship, where the journalist might feel superior, or the subject feels that way. It creates this strange imbalance. The journalist might feel the need to wrest some hot information from the subject, or find some aha moment and then the subject gets their guard up. I feel like the interviews in my book are very relaxed. You’re going to get some truth, even if it’s a modest truth. There were some interviews I left out of the book because the subjects seemed too media trained or too guarded.
Some of your interviewees, like Eric Idle and Buck Henry, are people you’ve known your entire life, having grown up with your dad in that kind of very stimulating artistic milieu. Does that help or hurt?
I think I might get better material from folks like that. There’s a warmth there, but I’m also a huge fan of their work, so I want to hear about Eric Idle’s work with Monty Python, or Buck Henry hosting “Saturday Night Live.” There are still plenty of stories that I’ve never heard.
Harper Simon, the artist and son of Paul Simon, has released three solo albums and toured the country. His latest project is a collection of interviews.
(Demme)
Someone like Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour has been interviewed hundreds of times in his career. What is there left to ask?
It’s kind of like my father, where the legacy is so familiar and well-known, what is there left to be said? What is there left to say about “Dark Side of The Moon”? But it turned out to be a really good interview. He had some great things to say about [Pink Floyd founder] Syd Barrett, how Gilmour felt like the other members had behaved callously towards him at times. He also speaks with great warmth about his own family.
Harry Dean Stanton is in the book, and I have to empathize. He was by far the most difficult interview subject I’ve ever had to deal with. A man of few words.
It’s funny, because I wound up doing some projects with Harry Dean, like this big tribute event to help raise money for Vidiots in Eagle Rock, but even after all of that, we didn’t get any closer. He was a very hard person to know.
You interviewed James Woolsey, and you guys were definitely not on the same page, but the tone remains civil. Don’t you think it’s important to have a reasoned discourse with someone you don’t agree with politically?
Absolutely, but that was one that definitely became contentious at times. James Woolsey had been the former head of the CIA under Clinton. So I came into the interview feeling very outgunned. I’m not a trained political journalist. But somehow I had gotten it in my head that I was Abbie Hoffman and he was J. Edgar Hoover or something. This was 10 years ago, and Edward Snowden was the big story in the news. So I led with that, and Jim Woolsey, being a good CIA man with very strong convictions, felt that Snowden was a traitor. But then he said he would like to see him hung by his neck, which felt aggressive. Then things really went off the rails when we somehow got locked into a discussion about Israel and Palestine. I remember him saying to me, “You’re just parroting the talking points of the Muslim Brotherhood.” Now I found those words echoing in my thoughts when I listen to some people discuss the current situation. I respected him and enjoyed the conversation but it was intense. I thought I held my own reasonably well but he was a tough guy to get in the ring with.
(This Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)
📰 The Week(s) in Books
“‘Second Skin’ is more sociological than sexy; more anthropological than animalistic,” writes Meredith Maran.
(Los Angeles Times illustration; book jacket from Catapult)
Meredith Maran thinks Anastasiia Fedorova’s book “Second Skin” does a great job of busting open the taboo of what is commonly regarded as deviant sexual desire. The book “advocates for a person’s right to like what they like and to get it consensually,” writes Maran.
Victoria Lancaster has a chat with Emily Nemens about her new novel “Clutch” and the challenges of writing about midlife among a clutch of close female friends. “I was cognizant of balance and understanding the lazy-Susan of it,” says Nemens. “Making sure I was spinning all the way around the table and touching each piece in each storyline.”
Two new novels about game-changing women in history — Janet Rich Edwards’ “Canticle” and Paula McLain’s “Skylark” — find favor with Bethanne Patrick. What these books “get right about their very different heroines and time periods is that change doesn’t happen overnight. … [But] change can and does happen, one determined woman at a time.”
Finally, on the occasion of the new screen adaptation of “Wuthering Heights,”six authors weigh in on their love of Emily Brontë’s enduring romance novel.
📖 Bookstore Faves
Skylight Books on Vermont is a staple of the Los Feliz literati.
(Joel Barhamand/For the Times)
Let us praise Skylight Books, which for over 30 years has remained a pillar of its Los Feliz community, with the main shop and the arts annex just a few doors away from each other on Vermont Boulevard. Store manager Mary Wiliams tells us what her customers are sweeping off the shelves right now.
What is selling right now?
“Vigil” by George Saunders is our biggest seller right now. Aside from that, it seems like great recent fiction in paperback is dominating the bestseller list — “Rejection” by Tony Tulathimutte, “The City and Its Uncertain Walls” by Haruki Murakami, “Martyr!” by Kaveh Akbar, and “All Fours” by Miranda July all are books that keep on selling really well for us, month after month.
Do you sell more fiction than nonfiction, or is it a tie?
We sell a good amount of both, but fiction is the bigger seller. Especially literary fiction, which is our bread and butter. On the nonfiction front, “Everything Now” by Rosecrans Baldwin is a perennial bestseller out of our Regional section — it’s a great collection of essays about Los Angeles. And everything Patti Smith touches turns to gold, so her book “Bread of Angels” is also a hit here.
Your arts annex is unlike anything else in L.A. I suppose there is still a market for cool periodicals and expensive art books that the internet hasn’t knocked out?
Our goal with the annex is for it to be a place of discoverability — where you can find the weird cool art book, comic or magazine you didn’t know you needed. We hope even our customers who are well-versed in art books find something new every visit. A fair amount of what we carry isn’t widely available online in the U.S., so when we put it on our website in our Annex Picks section and advertise it in our newsletter, we get orders from around the country.
Skylight Books in Los Angeles is located at 1818 North Vermont Ave.
(Please note: The Times may earn a commission through links to Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.)
Mike Trout says he would prefer to return to center field for the Angels, and the star slugger says he will skip the World Baseball Classic because of insurance issues.
The 11-time All-Star who been plagued by injuries since 2021 says his familiar position isn’t as physically demanding as the corner outfield spots, contrary to traditional thinking.
Trout played his most games since 2019 last season, finishing at 130. The three-time American League MVP started 22 of his first 29 games in right field before a knee injury sidelined him for a month. The 34-year-old was exclusively a designated hitter when he returned in late May.
Trout had 26 home runs but hit just .232, by far the worst average of his career when he had at least 400 at-bats.
He spent time in left field early in his career but was a center fielder for 11 consecutive seasons before the switch to right. Injuries limited Trout to 111 games the previous two years.
Trout said conversations with first-year manager Kurt Suzuki have included the idea of a return to center.
“I feel like I’m at my best when I’m in center,” Trout told reporters at the club’s spring training facility Monday. “If I have to go to the corner, I’ll go to the corner.”
Trout said a return to center will be good for his health.
“When I was in center, it was less on my body than the corners,” Trout said. “To be honest, in right field I felt I was running a lot. Talking to some other outfielders and they’re saying that they feel the same way sometimes, center is less on your legs. I just feel … confident in center.”
Trout, who played in his only WBC three years ago, had said he was interested in playing again before insurance issues arose.
“It’s disappointing,” Trout said. “I wanted to run it back with all the guys.”
Promising young Boston outfielder Roman Anthony has been named as a Team USA injury replacement for Arizona’s Corbin Carroll, who has a broken bone in his right hand.
PHOENIX — Dodgers manager Dave Roberts expects a lot from Shohei Ohtani this season. But even with those high expectations, a topic of conversation Friday as pitchers and catchers went through their first official workouts at Camelback Ranch, the superstar two-way player already found a way to exceed them.
“I came into camp at the beginning of February,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton following a bullpen session. “This is my third bullpen with pretty good intensity. … I’m not really sure how I’ll be able to practice in the WBC setting, so I’m going to try to ramp up as much as I can to a point where I’m throwing a live BP, which should be next week.”
The 2026 season will be Ohtani’s third year with the Dodgers, and his first pitching without restrictions. Fully recovered from his second Tommy John surgery, Ohtani was able to enjoy a regular, albeit short, offseason. With Ohtani in full bloom, Roberts has even higher hopes for the four-time MVP in the coming season.
“I think there’s certainly a lot more in there, and regardless of my expectations for him, his are going to exceed those,” Roberts said Friday. “I think it’s fair to say, he expects to be in the Cy Young conversation, but we just want to be healthy and make starts and all the numbers and statistics will take care of themselves, but man, this guy is such a disciplined worker, and expects the most from himself.”
Ohtani’s highest placement in Cy Young Award voting came in 2022, when, still a member of the Angels, he finished fourth after logging 15 wins, a 2.33 ERA and a 1.012 WHIP across 166 innings pitched. Ohtani suffered a torn ulnar collateral ligament the following season, requiring Tommy John surgery.
“If the end result is getting a Cy Young, that’s great,” Ohtani said. “Getting a Cy Young means being able to throw more innings and pitch throughout the whole season, so if that’s the end result, that’s a good sign for me. I’m just focused on being healthy the whole year.”
Ohtani appeared in 14 games last season, logging 47 innings pitched. Roberts liked what he saw in the small sample size.
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“I think the thing that was most surprising from last year was his command,” Roberts said. “And I’ll say that he still feels his command wasn’t up to par, but given the Tommy John and what typically command looks like the year after, it was above that. So, I think that was impressive. Just his ability to command the couple different breaking balls, to change the shape of his breaking balls was pretty impressive, and everything he does is with a purpose. So, I’m really excited to see with the full offseason and to just prepare and not rehab, what he can do this year.”
Physically, Roberts believes Ohtani is in the right place entering the ninth year of his career.
“I think he just looks strong,” Roberts said. “He looks strong, but there’s not too much mass. Just watching him throw, watching him run, his body’s moving well. I think he’s in a sweet spot. Just watching him, the muscle mass, it just seems that he’s in a sweet spot.”
Ohtani and Roberts said that they don’t yet know when Ohtani and some of his teammates will be departing for the World Baseball Classic, but Ohtani will continue to ramp up in the time leading up to next month’s event. Last month at DodgerFest, Roberts announced Ohtani will not pitch in the WBC in order to focus on pitching in the regular season.
“As much as people think that he’s not human, he’s still a human being who’s had two surgeries,” Roberts said Friday. “He’s got a long career ahead of him.”
Yoshinobu Yamamoto throws live BP
Yoshinobu Yamamoto threw a live batting practice Friday as the World Series MVP took the mound for the first time since he recorded the final out of last year’s Fall Classic. Yamamoto threw 20 pitches to a pair of his teammates, with right-handed hitting catcher Will Smith and left-handed hitting infielder Hyeseong Kim alternated at-bats.
Kim turned on a pair of fastballs from Yamamoto, ripping a pair of base hits into right field.
A little over an hour before Yamamoto pitched, Roberts was asked by reporters about Yamamoto’s durability, coming off a postseason where the 27-year-old totaled 526 pitches, capped off by a Herculean effort in Game 7 that powered the Dodgers to their second straight World Series championship.
“I just believe that he knows his limitations and he’s prepared, so I’m not too concerned about it,” Roberts said.
Yamamoto wasn’t the only pitcher to see some run on the Dodgers’ first day of camp. Among those to throw a bullpen session Friday: veteran Tyler Glasnow, promising sophomore Roki Sasaki, playoff hero Will Klein, newcomer Edwin Díaz, and Ohtani.
Staff writer Anthony Solorzano contributed to this report.
With his six-volume magnum opus “My Struggle,” Karl Ove Knausgaard became one of Europe’s most acclaimed contemporary novelists.
At once epic and intimate in scope, the books used the raw material of Knausgaard’s life to answer questions about male identity, the obligations of fatherhood and marriage, and what it takes to become a serious artist. In his new novel, “The School of Night,” Knausgaard further explores the mysteries of artistic greatness, using as his template Christopher Marlowe’s 16th century play “Doctor Faustus.” Knausgaard sets his story in mid-1980s London, where two aspiring photographers named Kristian and Hans try to find their footing in the art world.
I spoke to the Norwegian writer about the devil, photography and Radiohead.
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Your novel’s plot and characters are based on Christopher Marlowe’s 16th century play “Doctor Faustus,” which is about a scholar who sells his soul to the devil. Was this something you’ve been thinking about for a while?
I read Thomas Mann’s novel “Doctor Faustus” when I was 19 and it made a big impression on me. It’s been with me ever since then. The devil theme has hovered over some novels I’ve written, so it remained, and then I wanted to set this novel in London, where I now live, and where Marlowe was murdered. I wanted all of this in the background, but I didn’t know how to use it. That came during the writing.
The two young artists in “The School of Night” are photographers, an art form that has long been associated with the occult and summoning the unseen world. One thinks of the spirit photography trend of the 19th century in England.
I wrote about the first photograph in the novel, shot by Daguerre in 1848. I have it on my wall in my office. It’s a Paris street, which I find very unsettling and spooky, because even though it’s daytime there are no people on the street because the exposure was too slow to capture them. There’s just this lone figure, in the center of the frame who looks like the devil. I find it intriguing that the devil might have been present when the first photograph was taken.
Karl Ove Knausgaard, one of Europe’s most acclaimed contemporary novelists, sets his newest novel, “The School of Night,” in mid-1980s London.
(Solve Sundsbo for D2)
I think one of the reasons for the enduring appeal of the Faust legend is, if given the chance, most people would sell their souls for success, especially artists.
I think you’re right. And it is also a way of explaining something that is really mysterious, how a kind of normal, maybe even mediocre person could achieve something great overnight. When I was 19, I could have cut off my left arm to just have a book published. And when I wrote “My Struggle,” I was so frustrated in my writing, I was willing to go to extremes, to just make something happen. And then I didn’t think much about that when I wrote “The School of Night.” But it’s all kind of obvious to me afterwards that I use that feeling of doing something I really shouldn’t, and I could have stopped, but I still did it.
To your point: Kristian, your protagonist, has an artistic breakthrough when he photographs a dead cat that he has boiled. I guess my question is: A boiled cat?
Oh, that’s just due to the way I write. I never know what’s going to happen in a book. He’s starting to think about inner structures that keep up life somehow. And then, he thinks, how could he take photos of that? Well, maybe a cat. And then you have to practically get a cat. And then it’s like 25 pages of me describing how to boil a cat. I never planned it, you know.
Do you not outline your novels beforehand?
No, never, I’ve never done that. I do really try to be present and see what happens there. And then there will always be consequences of the choices you make, and that will eventually be the novel. And in this case, the character is different from me, so his choices will be different, and that creates a different trajectory, really.
Your characters are music obsessives in ways that only men in their 20s can be: curating their record collections, and so on.
When I was young, music really meant almost everything to me. When I was 15, I went to a local newspaper and asked to review records for them. And I had my own radio show. I’m not obsessed anymore, but I did see Radiohead at the O2 Arena recently. They are the last band I really wanted to see, and it was absolutely fantastic. I had tears running down my cheeks.
(This Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)
📰 The Week(s) in Books
George Saunders’ new novel might be the dark humor read you need right now, writes Robert Allen Papinchak.
(Los Angeles Times photo illustration; cover from Riverhead Books)
George Saunders has published a new novel called “Vigil,” and Robert Allen Papinchak is besotted by it, calling it a “virtuoso achievement, an immersive experience for the reader.”
Nathan Smith had a Zoom chat with author Martha Ackmann about her new Dolly Parton biography, “Ain’t Nobody’s Fool,” and got the lowdown on how Parton’s fixation with over-the-top wigs began. “Her promotions man happened to be dating an actress who had a big part in the television series ‘Mr. Ed,’ ” Ackmann tells Smith. “This actress took her around, showed her L.A. and they went to the Max Factor store and tried on wigs.”
In an excerpt from this new book, “Football,”Chuck Klosterman makes a case for America’s favorite sport as best viewed in the privacy of our living rooms. “It’s not just that you can see a game better when you watch it on television,” he writes. “Television is the only way you can see it at all.”
Finally, Bethanne Patrick gives us the lowdown on the must-read books of February.
📖 Bookstore Faves
Fear not, grown-ups: Our kids are not digital zombies just yet. In fact, children’s bookstores are thriving in Los Angeles. Children’s Book World is the largest independent bookstore of its kind in the city, with over 80,000 titles for sale. The store is a wonderland of printed matter for kids, with readings, book clubs and even musical performances. I spoke with the store’s manager Brien Lopez to get the lowdown on what our kids are reading.
What’s selling right now?
T.Z. Layton’s “The Academy” series, which is about a global soccer competition for tweens, is one of our best sellers. This series has lots of boys who were not avid readers becoming strong fiction readers because they are about a subject they love and they are really fun reads.
What kind of YA books are popular right now?
For our particular store we sell lots of sunshine romance particularly targeted to new teens like Lynn Painter’s books, as well as both mysteries and suspense thrillers like Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ “Inheritance Games” series. Dystopian sci fi is also popular, like Soyoung Park’s “Snowglobe” duology.
Who are the popular authors?
We just had a 2,000-person event with Dav Pilkey for his new “Dog Man” book and how he gets kids excited about books and reading just can’t be underestimated. We also had big events with beloved authors Katherine Applegate, Stuart Gibbs and Max Brallier. Middle grade fiction and graphic novels are very popular at our store.
Are kids still interested in books, despite all the distractions in their lives?
Kids definitely are interested in books if they are allowed to read about subjects they enjoy and books they love. The moment you tell a child there is a good book versus a bad book to read you have stopped that kid’s reading journey in its tracks. Let kids read the books they love and they will do it for a lifetime.
Newsom rejects ‘MAGA-manufactured outrage’ and racism allegations on book tour
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday sharply criticized “fake MAGA-manufactured outrage” over his comments about his low SAT score in Atlanta Sunday during his national book tour.
Conservative commentators, Trump loyalists and right-wing media outlets accused the California governor and potential 2028 presidential candidate of disparaging Black Americans when he was discussing his struggles with dyslexia.
“First MAGA mocked his dyslexia and now they’re calling him racist for talking about his low SAT scores,” said Izzy Gardon, a spokesperson for Newsom, in a statement. “The governor has said this publicly for years — including with [the late conservative commentator] Charlie Kirk and dozens of other audiences.”
During a conversation with Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, who is a Black politician, Newsom was asked what he wanted the audience and readers to know about him. The governor, in a long-winded response, said he wasn’t trying to impress anyone, but “press upon you I’m like you.”
“I’m no better than you,” Newsom said. “I’m a 960 SAT guy.”
The governor continued to discuss his dyslexia and struggle to read.
Right-wing personalities pounced.
President Trump’s political operation accused Newsom of calling “black people dumb.” Former Fox News personality Megyn Kelly declared that the comment would “haunt him forever,” and Republican Sens. Tim Scott of South Carolina and Rick Scott of Florida belittled the governor. Rapper Nicki Minaj, an outspoken Trump supporter, criticized him too.
“@GavinNewsom Thinks a 960 SAT Makes Him ‘Like’ Black Americans. Let That Sink In,” Fox News commentator Sean Hannity posted on the social media platform X.
Newsom offered a profanity-laced retort to Hannity, accusing him of long ignoring President Trump’s racist remarks and social media posts, then feigning outrage at Newsom’s remarks.
“You didn’t give a shit about the President of the United States of America posting an ape video of President Obama or calling African nations shitholes — but you’re going to call me racist for talking about my lifelong struggle with dyslexia?” Newsom posted on X. “Spare me your fake fucking outrage, Sean.”
Gardon pointed out that Newsom was speaking to a mixed-race audience during the conversation with Dickens.
Dickens also rejected the allegations that Newsom was being racist.
“Take it from someone who was actually in the chair asking the questions: context matters more than a headline,” Dickens said on Instagram. “The conversation around his new book included him speaking about his own academic struggles, including not doing well on the SAT. That wasn’t an attack on anyone. It was a moment of vulnerability about his own journey.”
Sunday’s event wasn’t the first time Newsom has mentioned his SAT score. The governor has cited his performance on the test many times in conversations about his dyslexia and issues with self-esteem growing up, including during an interview with The Times about his new memoir “Young Man in a Hurry” earlier this month.
“Come on, I’m a 960 SAT guy, governor of the fourth largest economy in the world,” Newsom told The Times. “I’m a guy, you know, with sweaty hands as described in the book, you know, who can’t read a speech, and I’m governor. I’m talking to you. Come on, the whole thing is sort of fascinating.”
Newsom used the low score as an example of the grit and resilience he learned from his mother.
The governor is accustomed to sparring with Republicans on social media. Ring-wing furor over his remarks, whether justified or politically motivated, is likely to continue as he flirts with a 2028 presidential run.
“We’ve gotten so used to loud, chest-pounding politics that when someone speaks about shortcomings, people try to twist it into something else,” Dickens, said in his post on Instagram. “Let me be clear though. This is Atlanta. We don’t need anyone to tell us when to be offended. And history has shown… when we are, you’ll know.”
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Harper Simon on his ‘Thinking Out Loud’ interview book
Our present podcast era has bred a new generation of interlocutors from the public sphere, veteran interviewees turned journalists. Harper Simon is among the many pro musicians who have taken on the role of insatiably curious interrogator. The singer-songwriter, who is the son of Paul Simon, has made four solo albums and toured the country both as a solo artist and sideman, but it wasn’t until he was tapped by music manager Michael Lustig in 2016 to host an internet series called “Talk Show” that Simon found his new avocation.
The cream of Simon’s interviews have now been collected in “Thinking Out Loud,” which is published by L..A. imprint Hat & Beard Press. I chatted with Simon about the art of the interview, Pink Floyd and Ed Snowden.
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✍️ Author Chat
I have found that people who have been interviewed a lot are good at interviewing others. They know how to avoid the banal and obvious questions.
I’m not a trained journalist, so the conversations were closer to what Andy Warhol’s “Interview” magazine used to be. More of a casual back-and-forth, rather than me trying to ask questions or having someone promote their product. So the book is really a combination of folks that I’ve known my whole life and others that I just asked to interview.
Interviewing public figures can be a very stilted experience. And then you wind up not getting much of anything.
Interviews with journalists are a funny thing. There is always this weird, uncomfortable hierarchical relationship, where the journalist might feel superior, or the subject feels that way. It creates this strange imbalance. The journalist might feel the need to wrest some hot information from the subject, or find some aha moment and then the subject gets their guard up. I feel like the interviews in my book are very relaxed. You’re going to get some truth, even if it’s a modest truth. There were some interviews I left out of the book because the subjects seemed too media trained or too guarded.
Some of your interviewees, like Eric Idle and Buck Henry, are people you’ve known your entire life, having grown up with your dad in that kind of very stimulating artistic milieu. Does that help or hurt?
I think I might get better material from folks like that. There’s a warmth there, but I’m also a huge fan of their work, so I want to hear about Eric Idle’s work with Monty Python, or Buck Henry hosting “Saturday Night Live.” There are still plenty of stories that I’ve never heard.
Harper Simon, the artist and son of Paul Simon, has released three solo albums and toured the country. His latest project is a collection of interviews.
(Demme)
Someone like Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour has been interviewed hundreds of times in his career. What is there left to ask?
It’s kind of like my father, where the legacy is so familiar and well-known, what is there left to be said? What is there left to say about “Dark Side of The Moon”? But it turned out to be a really good interview. He had some great things to say about [Pink Floyd founder] Syd Barrett, how Gilmour felt like the other members had behaved callously towards him at times. He also speaks with great warmth about his own family.
Harry Dean Stanton is in the book, and I have to empathize. He was by far the most difficult interview subject I’ve ever had to deal with. A man of few words.
It’s funny, because I wound up doing some projects with Harry Dean, like this big tribute event to help raise money for Vidiots in Eagle Rock, but even after all of that, we didn’t get any closer. He was a very hard person to know.
You interviewed James Woolsey, and you guys were definitely not on the same page, but the tone remains civil. Don’t you think it’s important to have a reasoned discourse with someone you don’t agree with politically?
Absolutely, but that was one that definitely became contentious at times. James Woolsey had been the former head of the CIA under Clinton. So I came into the interview feeling very outgunned. I’m not a trained political journalist. But somehow I had gotten it in my head that I was Abbie Hoffman and he was J. Edgar Hoover or something. This was 10 years ago, and Edward Snowden was the big story in the news. So I led with that, and Jim Woolsey, being a good CIA man with very strong convictions, felt that Snowden was a traitor. But then he said he would like to see him hung by his neck, which felt aggressive. Then things really went off the rails when we somehow got locked into a discussion about Israel and Palestine. I remember him saying to me, “You’re just parroting the talking points of the Muslim Brotherhood.” Now I found those words echoing in my thoughts when I listen to some people discuss the current situation. I respected him and enjoyed the conversation but it was intense. I thought I held my own reasonably well but he was a tough guy to get in the ring with.
(This Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)
📰 The Week(s) in Books
“‘Second Skin’ is more sociological than sexy; more anthropological than animalistic,” writes Meredith Maran.
(Los Angeles Times illustration; book jacket from Catapult)
Meredith Maran thinks Anastasiia Fedorova’s book “Second Skin” does a great job of busting open the taboo of what is commonly regarded as deviant sexual desire. The book “advocates for a person’s right to like what they like and to get it consensually,” writes Maran.
Victoria Lancaster has a chat with Emily Nemens about her new novel “Clutch” and the challenges of writing about midlife among a clutch of close female friends. “I was cognizant of balance and understanding the lazy-Susan of it,” says Nemens. “Making sure I was spinning all the way around the table and touching each piece in each storyline.”
Two new novels about game-changing women in history — Janet Rich Edwards’ “Canticle” and Paula McLain’s “Skylark” — find favor with Bethanne Patrick. What these books “get right about their very different heroines and time periods is that change doesn’t happen overnight. … [But] change can and does happen, one determined woman at a time.”
Finally, on the occasion of the new screen adaptation of “Wuthering Heights,” six authors weigh in on their love of Emily Brontë’s enduring romance novel.
📖 Bookstore Faves
Skylight Books on Vermont is a staple of the Los Feliz literati.
(Joel Barhamand/For the Times)
Let us praise Skylight Books, which for over 30 years has remained a pillar of its Los Feliz community, with the main shop and the arts annex just a few doors away from each other on Vermont Boulevard. Store manager Mary Wiliams tells us what her customers are sweeping off the shelves right now.
What is selling right now?
“Vigil” by George Saunders is our biggest seller right now. Aside from that, it seems like great recent fiction in paperback is dominating the bestseller list — “Rejection” by Tony Tulathimutte, “The City and Its Uncertain Walls” by Haruki Murakami, “Martyr!” by Kaveh Akbar, and “All Fours” by Miranda July all are books that keep on selling really well for us, month after month.
Do you sell more fiction than nonfiction, or is it a tie?
We sell a good amount of both, but fiction is the bigger seller. Especially literary fiction, which is our bread and butter. On the nonfiction front, “Everything Now” by Rosecrans Baldwin is a perennial bestseller out of our Regional section — it’s a great collection of essays about Los Angeles. And everything Patti Smith touches turns to gold, so her book “Bread of Angels” is also a hit here.
Your arts annex is unlike anything else in L.A. I suppose there is still a market for cool periodicals and expensive art books that the internet hasn’t knocked out?
Our goal with the annex is for it to be a place of discoverability — where you can find the weird cool art book, comic or magazine you didn’t know you needed. We hope even our customers who are well-versed in art books find something new every visit. A fair amount of what we carry isn’t widely available online in the U.S., so when we put it on our website in our Annex Picks section and advertise it in our newsletter, we get orders from around the country.
Skylight Books in Los Angeles is located at 1818 North Vermont Ave.
(Please note: The Times may earn a commission through links to Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.)
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A return to center field could be the plan for Mike Trout
Mike Trout says he would prefer to return to center field for the Angels, and the star slugger says he will skip the World Baseball Classic because of insurance issues.
The 11-time All-Star who been plagued by injuries since 2021 says his familiar position isn’t as physically demanding as the corner outfield spots, contrary to traditional thinking.
Trout played his most games since 2019 last season, finishing at 130. The three-time American League MVP started 22 of his first 29 games in right field before a knee injury sidelined him for a month. The 34-year-old was exclusively a designated hitter when he returned in late May.
Trout had 26 home runs but hit just .232, by far the worst average of his career when he had at least 400 at-bats.
He spent time in left field early in his career but was a center fielder for 11 consecutive seasons before the switch to right. Injuries limited Trout to 111 games the previous two years.
Trout said conversations with first-year manager Kurt Suzuki have included the idea of a return to center.
“I feel like I’m at my best when I’m in center,” Trout told reporters at the club’s spring training facility Monday. “If I have to go to the corner, I’ll go to the corner.”
Trout said a return to center will be good for his health.
“When I was in center, it was less on my body than the corners,” Trout said. “To be honest, in right field I felt I was running a lot. Talking to some other outfielders and they’re saying that they feel the same way sometimes, center is less on your legs. I just feel … confident in center.”
Trout, who played in his only WBC three years ago, had said he was interested in playing again before insurance issues arose.
“It’s disappointing,” Trout said. “I wanted to run it back with all the guys.”
Promising young Boston outfielder Roman Anthony has been named as a Team USA injury replacement for Arizona’s Corbin Carroll, who has a broken bone in his right hand.
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Why Dave Roberts expects Shohei Ohtani to be ‘in the Cy Young conversation’
PHOENIX — Dodgers manager Dave Roberts expects a lot from Shohei Ohtani this season. But even with those high expectations, a topic of conversation Friday as pitchers and catchers went through their first official workouts at Camelback Ranch, the superstar two-way player already found a way to exceed them.
“I came into camp at the beginning of February,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton following a bullpen session. “This is my third bullpen with pretty good intensity. … I’m not really sure how I’ll be able to practice in the WBC setting, so I’m going to try to ramp up as much as I can to a point where I’m throwing a live BP, which should be next week.”
The 2026 season will be Ohtani’s third year with the Dodgers, and his first pitching without restrictions. Fully recovered from his second Tommy John surgery, Ohtani was able to enjoy a regular, albeit short, offseason. With Ohtani in full bloom, Roberts has even higher hopes for the four-time MVP in the coming season.
“I think there’s certainly a lot more in there, and regardless of my expectations for him, his are going to exceed those,” Roberts said Friday. “I think it’s fair to say, he expects to be in the Cy Young conversation, but we just want to be healthy and make starts and all the numbers and statistics will take care of themselves, but man, this guy is such a disciplined worker, and expects the most from himself.”
Ohtani’s highest placement in Cy Young Award voting came in 2022, when, still a member of the Angels, he finished fourth after logging 15 wins, a 2.33 ERA and a 1.012 WHIP across 166 innings pitched. Ohtani suffered a torn ulnar collateral ligament the following season, requiring Tommy John surgery.
“If the end result is getting a Cy Young, that’s great,” Ohtani said. “Getting a Cy Young means being able to throw more innings and pitch throughout the whole season, so if that’s the end result, that’s a good sign for me. I’m just focused on being healthy the whole year.”
Ohtani appeared in 14 games last season, logging 47 innings pitched. Roberts liked what he saw in the small sample size.
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“I think the thing that was most surprising from last year was his command,” Roberts said. “And I’ll say that he still feels his command wasn’t up to par, but given the Tommy John and what typically command looks like the year after, it was above that. So, I think that was impressive. Just his ability to command the couple different breaking balls, to change the shape of his breaking balls was pretty impressive, and everything he does is with a purpose. So, I’m really excited to see with the full offseason and to just prepare and not rehab, what he can do this year.”
Physically, Roberts believes Ohtani is in the right place entering the ninth year of his career.
“I think he just looks strong,” Roberts said. “He looks strong, but there’s not too much mass. Just watching him throw, watching him run, his body’s moving well. I think he’s in a sweet spot. Just watching him, the muscle mass, it just seems that he’s in a sweet spot.”
Ohtani and Roberts said that they don’t yet know when Ohtani and some of his teammates will be departing for the World Baseball Classic, but Ohtani will continue to ramp up in the time leading up to next month’s event. Last month at DodgerFest, Roberts announced Ohtani will not pitch in the WBC in order to focus on pitching in the regular season.
“As much as people think that he’s not human, he’s still a human being who’s had two surgeries,” Roberts said Friday. “He’s got a long career ahead of him.”
Yoshinobu Yamamoto throws live BP
Yoshinobu Yamamoto threw a live batting practice Friday as the World Series MVP took the mound for the first time since he recorded the final out of last year’s Fall Classic. Yamamoto threw 20 pitches to a pair of his teammates, with right-handed hitting catcher Will Smith and left-handed hitting infielder Hyeseong Kim alternated at-bats.
Kim turned on a pair of fastballs from Yamamoto, ripping a pair of base hits into right field.
A little over an hour before Yamamoto pitched, Roberts was asked by reporters about Yamamoto’s durability, coming off a postseason where the 27-year-old totaled 526 pitches, capped off by a Herculean effort in Game 7 that powered the Dodgers to their second straight World Series championship.
“I just believe that he knows his limitations and he’s prepared, so I’m not too concerned about it,” Roberts said.
Yamamoto wasn’t the only pitcher to see some run on the Dodgers’ first day of camp. Among those to throw a bullpen session Friday: veteran Tyler Glasnow, promising sophomore Roki Sasaki, playoff hero Will Klein, newcomer Edwin Díaz, and Ohtani.
Staff writer Anthony Solorzano contributed to this report.
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Karl Ove Knausgaard on ‘The School of Night’
With his six-volume magnum opus “My Struggle,” Karl Ove Knausgaard became one of Europe’s most acclaimed contemporary novelists.
At once epic and intimate in scope, the books used the raw material of Knausgaard’s life to answer questions about male identity, the obligations of fatherhood and marriage, and what it takes to become a serious artist. In his new novel, “The School of Night,” Knausgaard further explores the mysteries of artistic greatness, using as his template Christopher Marlowe’s 16th century play “Doctor Faustus.” Knausgaard sets his story in mid-1980s London, where two aspiring photographers named Kristian and Hans try to find their footing in the art world.
I spoke to the Norwegian writer about the devil, photography and Radiohead.
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✍️ Author Chat
Your novel’s plot and characters are based on Christopher Marlowe’s 16th century play “Doctor Faustus,” which is about a scholar who sells his soul to the devil. Was this something you’ve been thinking about for a while?
I read Thomas Mann’s novel “Doctor Faustus” when I was 19 and it made a big impression on me. It’s been with me ever since then. The devil theme has hovered over some novels I’ve written, so it remained, and then I wanted to set this novel in London, where I now live, and where Marlowe was murdered. I wanted all of this in the background, but I didn’t know how to use it. That came during the writing.
The two young artists in “The School of Night” are photographers, an art form that has long been associated with the occult and summoning the unseen world. One thinks of the spirit photography trend of the 19th century in England.
I wrote about the first photograph in the novel, shot by Daguerre in 1848. I have it on my wall in my office. It’s a Paris street, which I find very unsettling and spooky, because even though it’s daytime there are no people on the street because the exposure was too slow to capture them. There’s just this lone figure, in the center of the frame who looks like the devil. I find it intriguing that the devil might have been present when the first photograph was taken.
Karl Ove Knausgaard, one of Europe’s most acclaimed contemporary novelists, sets his newest novel, “The School of Night,” in mid-1980s London.
(Solve Sundsbo for D2)
I think one of the reasons for the enduring appeal of the Faust legend is, if given the chance, most people would sell their souls for success, especially artists.
I think you’re right. And it is also a way of explaining something that is really mysterious, how a kind of normal, maybe even mediocre person could achieve something great overnight. When I was 19, I could have cut off my left arm to just have a book published. And when I wrote “My Struggle,” I was so frustrated in my writing, I was willing to go to extremes, to just make something happen. And then I didn’t think much about that when I wrote “The School of Night.” But it’s all kind of obvious to me afterwards that I use that feeling of doing something I really shouldn’t, and I could have stopped, but I still did it.
To your point: Kristian, your protagonist, has an artistic breakthrough when he photographs a dead cat that he has boiled. I guess my question is: A boiled cat?
Oh, that’s just due to the way I write. I never know what’s going to happen in a book. He’s starting to think about inner structures that keep up life somehow. And then, he thinks, how could he take photos of that? Well, maybe a cat. And then you have to practically get a cat. And then it’s like 25 pages of me describing how to boil a cat. I never planned it, you know.
Do you not outline your novels beforehand?
No, never, I’ve never done that. I do really try to be present and see what happens there. And then there will always be consequences of the choices you make, and that will eventually be the novel. And in this case, the character is different from me, so his choices will be different, and that creates a different trajectory, really.
Your characters are music obsessives in ways that only men in their 20s can be: curating their record collections, and so on.
When I was young, music really meant almost everything to me. When I was 15, I went to a local newspaper and asked to review records for them. And I had my own radio show. I’m not obsessed anymore, but I did see Radiohead at the O2 Arena recently. They are the last band I really wanted to see, and it was absolutely fantastic. I had tears running down my cheeks.
(This Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)
📰 The Week(s) in Books
George Saunders’ new novel might be the dark humor read you need right now, writes Robert Allen Papinchak.
(Los Angeles Times photo illustration; cover from Riverhead Books)
George Saunders has published a new novel called “Vigil,” and Robert Allen Papinchak is besotted by it, calling it a “virtuoso achievement, an immersive experience for the reader.”
Nathan Smith had a Zoom chat with author Martha Ackmann about her new Dolly Parton biography, “Ain’t Nobody’s Fool,” and got the lowdown on how Parton’s fixation with over-the-top wigs began. “Her promotions man happened to be dating an actress who had a big part in the television series ‘Mr. Ed,’ ” Ackmann tells Smith. “This actress took her around, showed her L.A. and they went to the Max Factor store and tried on wigs.”
In an excerpt from this new book, “Football,” Chuck Klosterman makes a case for America’s favorite sport as best viewed in the privacy of our living rooms. “It’s not just that you can see a game better when you watch it on television,” he writes. “Television is the only way you can see it at all.”
Finally, Bethanne Patrick gives us the lowdown on the must-read books of February.
📖 Bookstore Faves
Fear not, grown-ups: Our kids are not digital zombies just yet. In fact, children’s bookstores are thriving in Los Angeles. Children’s Book World is the largest independent bookstore of its kind in the city, with over 80,000 titles for sale. The store is a wonderland of printed matter for kids, with readings, book clubs and even musical performances. I spoke with the store’s manager Brien Lopez to get the lowdown on what our kids are reading.
What’s selling right now?
T.Z. Layton’s “The Academy” series, which is about a global soccer competition for tweens, is one of our best sellers. This series has lots of boys who were not avid readers becoming strong fiction readers because they are about a subject they love and they are really fun reads.
What kind of YA books are popular right now?
For our particular store we sell lots of sunshine romance particularly targeted to new teens like Lynn Painter’s books, as well as both mysteries and suspense thrillers like Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ “Inheritance Games” series. Dystopian sci fi is also popular, like Soyoung Park’s “Snowglobe” duology.
Who are the popular authors?
We just had a 2,000-person event with Dav Pilkey for his new “Dog Man” book and how he gets kids excited about books and reading just can’t be underestimated. We also had big events with beloved authors Katherine Applegate, Stuart Gibbs and Max Brallier. Middle grade fiction and graphic novels are very popular at our store.
Are kids still interested in books, despite all the distractions in their lives?
Kids definitely are interested in books if they are allowed to read about subjects they enjoy and books they love. The moment you tell a child there is a good book versus a bad book to read you have stopped that kid’s reading journey in its tracks. Let kids read the books they love and they will do it for a lifetime.
Children’s Book World in Los Angeles is located at 10580 1/2 W. Pico Blvd.
(Please note: The Times may earn a commission through links to Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.)
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