Next Sunday: Southern California Living

Next Sunday, the Times is launching a new section, Southern California Living. The section, which replaces Life & Style, will offer readers a lively, topical section with a fresh new look. It will be filled with stories, profiles and regular features on topics such as family, philanthropy, working and the Southern California home. There will also be expanded coverage of books and fashion as part of the weekly mix.

Here’s a rundown on what’s coming:

* A page for children called the Kids’ Reading Room that includes a daily serialized story, interactive games and book reviews. Garfield will move from the comics page to this page.

* Page 2, a must-read that offers Irene Lacher’s Out & About column, trends, news and gossip.

* Section Gee!, the place to find Roy Rivenburg’s Off-Kilter column as well as the daily comics, Dear Abby, Ann Landers, Art Buchwald, and Dr. Joyce Brothers. The crossword puzzle and the bridge column will move from the Classified section to Section Gee!

In addition:

* Thursday’s Southern California Living will be called Home and will offer the best of interiors, remodeling and gardening. The Hot Property column will increase to twice a week: Thursday in Home and Sunday in Real Estate.

* Fashion and beauty will move from Thursday to expanded coverage on Friday.

* Out & About moves from Sunday to Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

* Smart Aleck, Charity Scorecard and Involvement Opportunities move to Tuesday.

* There will be daily book reviews and expanded books coverage on Wednesday, including Speed Read, Ink, audio book reviews and author profiles.

* Regular columnist Sandy Banks will run on Sundays and Tuesdays. Chris Erskine’s column will remain on Wednesdays.

* Relationships guru John Gray’s column will appear on Sunday; Elaine St. James’ The Simple Life column moves from the Health section to Sunday.

Southern California Living will be about how we all live our lives in this unique, diverse part of the world. Please look for its debut next Sunday, Nov. 1.