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XColum McCann on 'journeys by heroes'
The author of 'TransAtlantic,' which explores missions by Frederick Douglass, George Mitchell and two pioneering fliers, talks about his inspiration.
Khaled Hosseini sets 'And the Mountains Echoed' against Afghan history
A father's decision to give his 3-year-old daughter to a wealthy family in Kabul begins an almost 60-year Afghan history lesson as recounted by the characters in Khaled Hosseini's newest novel.
'The Sad Passions' paints haunting tale of loss and art
Veronica Gonzalez Peña follows the lives of a middle-class Mexican family that has been shaped by absence, loss, sickness and dead dreams.
'Nothin' but Blues Skies' tells Rust Belt stories
Edward McClelland's book reminds us of what has transpired in the heartland of America over the past 30 years.
George Packer chronicles American boom and bust in 'The Unwinding'
George Packer paints a vivid, novelistic portrait of recent U.S. history through its people.
J.R.R. Tolkien's 'Fall of Arthur' and the path to Middle-Earth
The long unfinished poem edited by J.R.R. Tolkien's son, Christopher, provides fascinating insight into the author's work.
John le Carre's 'A Delicate Truth' isn't gentle with war on terror
The novelist takes on the idea that sins committed in pursuing national goals will be forgiven and forgotten.
Mo Hayder's 'Poppet' takes nuanced, compelling look at evil
Detective Inspector Jack Caffery and Sgt. Flea Marley investigate strange occurrences at a psychiatric hospital and the disappearance of a footballer's wife.
'The Roberts Court' captures an important transformation
Marcia Coyle skillfully reports on the aggressive turn the Supreme Court has taken under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
'Stuck in the Middle' offers a singular perspective on parenting
Author and transgender advocate Jennifer Finney Boylan looks at motherhood, fatherhood and the putative difference in this new memoir.
Jaron Lanier takes a hard look at the wired world
The Writer's Life: The smart, accessible 'Who Owns the Future?' peers critically at the online state of affairs and finds it out of balance.
Was the Revolutionary War a reactionary war? 'Bunker Hill' reconsiders history.
Nathaniel Philbrick's new book gets at the on-the-ground reality of the American Revolution, which the author writes began as 'a profoundly conservative movement.'
'The Cooked Seed' details Anchee Min's fraught immigrant saga
Picking up where 'Red Azalea' left off, 'The Cooked Seed' explores the hardships of her path to American citizenship.
Michelle Tea turns a radical eye on YA in 'Mermaid in Chelsea Creek'
The writer and co-founder of Sister Spit talks about trading memoirs for a young adult fantasy trilogy.
Revisiting Federico Garcia Lorca in a novel -- and in the writer's own voice
Carlos Rojas' inventive novel 'Ingenious Gentleman' and a new edition of the poet-playwright's 'Poet in New York' bring the writer back to life.
Walter Mosley revisits Easy Rawlins' neighborhood
The seemingly dead detective is back in 'Little Green.' In an interview, Mosley discusses his legendary character as he wanders his old Mid-City neighborhood -- also Rawlins' home turf.
Ken Baumann's secret life in books
He's best known for 'The Secret Life of the American Teenager,' but he's also in the literary vanguard as a writer and publisher of Sator Press.
'The Way of the Knife' exposes America's shadow wars
Journalist Mark Mazzetti looks at the U.S.' targeted killings and use of drones in the war on terror. Amid the many details, he raises warnings.
Janet Malcolm's brilliant methods are on show in 'Forty-One False Starts'
The collection of profiles and critical pieces exposes the journalist's subjects and herself.
Flip Wilson, a pioneer in prime time
Kevin Cook's new biography, 'Flip,' looks back at the life of a black TV star who helped break the color line
'The Mothers' follows one couple's attempt to adopt
Jennifer Gilmore's novel traces the ups and downs of one hopeful, frustrated pair.
A teen's quest for self-discovery in 'Maya's Notebook'
In Isabel Allende's latest novel, a troubled young Chilean-American woman flees for her life.
The art of becoming Edna O'Brien
In her memoir 'Country Girl,' the writer recounts her difficult beginnings and escape into writing.
The boy behind Kristallnacht
Jonathan Kirsch takes a deft look at the teen assassin of a Nazi diplomat in 'The Short, Strange Life of Herschel Grynszpan'
A spin through a world where bicycles rule streets
In 'City of Bikes,' American Pete Jordan pays tribute to Amsterdam, where cycling has long been a daily part of life
Sammy Harkham, a city's comics crusader
Toying with high and low art as a comics artist-editor and Family bookstore co-owner, the author has become a significant voice on the L.A. cultural scene.
David Graeber looks at the Occupy movement, from the inside
In 'The Democracy Project,' David Graeber makes a case for revolution and attempts to rehabilitate anarchism.
Margaret Atwood connects across the lines
The 73-year-old author uses technology to her advantage, to engage with the world at large. For this, she's being honored with the Innovator's Award at the 2013 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes.
David Sedaris, my imaginary friend
'Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls' offers fresh tales of the essayist's life and travel travails.
Judy Juanita and her 'Virgin Soul'
The former radical's experiences during the 1960s in San Francisco inform her new novel. She talks hippies, Black Panthers and revolution.
'The Walking' continues the journey of Iranian immigrants
Laleh Khadivi's second novel featuring a Kurdish man who seeks refuge in L.A. covers key points in Iranian American history and is an important addition to the literature of California immigrants.
A Hollywood of the mind
The Writer's Life: Matthew Specktor drives past the boyhood landmarks he repurposed in his L.A.-set novel 'American Dream Machine.' Reality and fiction commingle.
How Prince became royal
Touré explores the pop music artist's ascendance to icon status in 'I Would Die 4 U.'
The misadventures of Kelly Oxford
'Everything is Perfect When You're a Liar,' Twitter superstar Kelly Oxford humorously recounts the humiliations of growing up in Edmonton, Canada.
A book editor unleashes the beast within in Arnon Grunberg's 'Tirza'
Years of quiet sacrifice boil dry as a father in his late 50s fears he's losing everying, including his beloved daughter.
Keeping up with Kevin Starr
The California historian will receive the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement at the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, even as he writes a new volume
The epic life of Símon Bolívar
In a new biography, Marie Arana portrays the South American revolutionary as a courageous and confounding self-creation.
Rachel Kushner lights a fire in 'The Flamethrowers'
A sense of displacement permeates the 'Telex from Cuba' writer's second novel, set amid the social and political unrest of Manhattan and Italy in the 1970s.
Kate Atkinson's 'Life After Life' is a clever creation
The Whitbread-winning author gets to tell one story after another in conjuring up a woman who lives and dies repeatedly, and it's a remarkable conceit.
'A Map of Tulsa' is rich terrain for Benjamin Lytal
The writer's debut novel is a memorable coming-of-age tale about hometown ambivalence and finding a place in the world.
'Follow Her Home' to Marlowe territory
Steph Cha's debut novel begins as an homage to the famous gumshoe and Raymond Chandler before ending up exploring vastly different mean streets of L.A.
'The Burgess Boys' lack compelling main characters
Elizabeth Strout's follow-up to the Pulitzer-winning 'Olive Kitteridge' is weakest where that was strong, although her gift for sketching rich profiles economically is evident in peripheral figures.
Fiction Shelf
Reviewed: 'Innocence' by Louis B. Jones; 'The Dinner' by Herman Koch; 'Life Form' by Amelie Nothomb
Inside 'The Magic Circle,' a fictional game blurs reality and ritual
Playing is both a central activity and a philosophical subject of Jenny Davidson's new novel centered on three intellectually accomplished women.
Joyce Carol Oates is at her gothic best in 'The Accursed'
The novelist haunts Princeton and gives otherworldly forces a palpable reality.
'The Book of My Lives' offers fragments of a writer's life
Aleksandar Hemon's collection of essays suggests a ruthless unwillingness to look away, even in the face of untimely death.
Baseball books cover the bases
New titles about the sport focus on its history, legal status, Jackie Robinson, the DiMaggios and more.
In Barbara Garson's 'Down the Up Escalator,' the 99% make do
The Great Recession may have officially come to an end, but it lives on for many Americans in Garson's new book, 'Down the Up Escalator.'
'The New Mind of the South' visits the modern heart of Dixie
Tracy Thompson's book follows in the footsteps of W.J. Cash's `The Mind of the South' and finds hope in an unlikely place: the past.
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