Authors will be library’s dinner guests of honor

GUESS who’s coming to dinner? Depending on where you are in L.A. on Monday night, it could be comics master Stan Lee, novelist T.C. Boyle, former Disney chief Michael Eisner, sportswriter Frank Deford or former Watergate figure John Dean.

They are but a handful of the 54 authors who will be invited into private Southern California homes for an evening of discourse and dining to benefit the Los Angeles Public Library. Held every two years since 1997 by the nonprofit Library Foundation of Los Angeles, the Literary Odyssey Dinners raise funds by presenting well-known writers in intimate settings.

Frequently, the hosts are as notable as the writers. Lee, for example, will be a guest at the Bel-Air abode of author Judith Krantz and her husband, producer Steve Krantz; urban scholar and commentator Joel Kotkin will be at the Venice home of architect Steven Ehrlich and author Nancy Griffin.

Other writers slated to participate include A. Scott Berg, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Connelly, Richard Schickel, Lisa See, Kevin Starr and Times film critic Kenneth Turan.

Such star power comes at a price: Tickets start at $350, for which you get one of six dinners of your choosing. Upping that to $800 will guarantee you first or second choice. Paying $2,500 assures you of your first or second choice, plus gets you into a Sunday night event with all the authors and hosts at the Central Library downtown. Proceeds will be used to improve the library system’s technology, and organizers say they expect to bring in about $500,000 this year.

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-- Scott Sandell

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Literary Odyssey Dinners, various locations, 7 p.m. Monday. $350 to $2,500. (323) 466-8977