Spring arts preview 2014: Books

Michael Lewis in conversation with Malcolm Gladwell This is a powerhouse pairing: Michael Lewis, the author of “Moneyball” and “Liar’s Poker,” among others, sits down with the New Yorker’s Malcolm Gladwell to discuss his new book “Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt.” Lewis is one of our most insightful financial journalists, and Gladwell is a master at the art of making connections. Get your tickets now, before this one sells out. Live Talks Los Angeles, Alex Theatre, 216 N. Brand Blvd, Glendale, $22, www.livetalksla.org. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times; Bill Wadman / Little, Brown and Company)

March 13, 2014 11:45 AM PT

Spring is a great season for literature; the days get longer, which makes it seem as if there’s more time to read. So here are five new titles and two book events to anticipate, a sampling of what the season has in store. [Spring arts preview 2014] — By David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times Book Critic

“Casebook: A Novel” by Mona Simpson (Alfred A. Knopf: 320 pp., $25.95) Mona Simpson has always written movingly about young characters, from the protagonists of her early stories “Lawns” and “Approximations” to Ann in her debut novel “Anywhere But Here.” That makes “Casebook” a return of sorts: narrated by a boy who begins spying on his parents, only to discover more about them, and the family, than he ever thought he would. And yet, “Casebook” is a departure also — looser, edgier, with a vivid conditionality. “I was a snoop,” her narrator, Miles Adler-Rich, tells us, “but a peculiar kind. I only discovered what I most didn’t want to know.” (Random House; Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Books