Lit City: The Everything Guide to Literary Los Angeles

Books are a paradox: We read and write alone, shutting out the world. But no literature would exist without interaction and geography. We’ll be reminded of this next week, converging for the first time in three years on the USC campus for the largest book festival in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s the perfect time for a guide to literary Los Angeles.

Explore 65 of L.A. County’s most exciting indie bookstores (give or take a Barnes & Noble and a library). Meet authors emerging from the pandemic to dine, drink and gossip. Examine historic hotspots of literary culture, from Watts to the Brentwood Country Mart. Discover how L.A. taught writers to blast through genre boundaries and readers to venture outdoors. And hear from authors, book-buyers and store owners about the people, places and passages that inspire them most. Then head for The Times’ Festival of Books. We’ll see you there.