For years I have wanted to attend the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, which is easily the largest -- and best -- book festival on the West Coast. Each year more than 100,000 people go to the UCLA campus to hear more than 450 authors talk about a range of topics.
It has always seemed to far to travel for a weekend. But when I published Towers of Gold, one of the goals I set for myself was to appear at the festival. Well, I am delighted that the organizers asked me, and once the invitation was extended I had no difficulty committing to the 300-mile journey south.
I will be appearing on a panel Saturday at 3:30 pm titled History:Unknown Los Angeles. The authors DJ Waldie and Chip Jacobs will join me. Bill Deverell, my old Stanford buddy who is now a professor of history at USC and the head of the USC -Huntington Institute for the Study of California and the West, will moderate.
Each of us wrote about a "hidden" history of Los Angeles. Jacobs wrote Smogtown, which explores the impact of pollution on the environment. Waldie wrote a memoir about growing up in an LA suburb. I wrote about the early days of LA, the city's most successful banker, and the role Jews played in the state's development.
Come join us.
I will be doing other events in Los Angeles as well:
April 24 (Friday)
7:00 p.m.
Jonathan Club
545 S. Figueroa St.
Los Angeles, CA
April 25 (Saturday)
3:30 p.m.
Los Angeles Festival of Books
Panel: History: Unknown Los Angeles
With William Deverell, D. J. Waldie, and Chip Jacobs
Haines Hall 39
University of California at Los Angeles
April 26 (Sunday)
3:00 p.m.
Jewish Historical Society of Southern California
Hellman's old Farmers and Merchants Bank
411 S. Main Street
Los Angeles, CA
April 27 (Monday)
6:30 – 8:00 p.m.
Julie Robinson Literary Affairs
Westwood Public Library
246 Glendon Avenue
Los Angeles, CA
April 28 (Tuesday)
6:00 p.m.
USC Jewish Alumni Association
Hillel
330 South Hoover Street
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA
They are all going to be fun, but I am particularly excited about the Sunday event. I will be talking in the bank building that Isaias Hellman built in 1905. When I was in LA in December I got to tour the Farmers and Merchants Bank Building, but I think it will be exciting to actually give a speech there. It's at Fourth and Main in downtown Los Angeles.
The Farmers and Merchants Bank Building at 411 S. Main Street.
