Category Archives: la times

Saturday in the LA Times

In Saturday’s LA Times, I reviewed Benjamin Black’s A Death in Summer. My byline also appeared with a print version of this interview with author Patrick deWitt  — whose novel…

Present!

I don’t think I can come up with all the work I’ve done since February. Recently, I’ve reviewed for the LA Times: The Kid by Sapphire, Bright’s Passage by Josh…

Again, Steve Martin talks about art and it doesn’t suck

On Thursday I went to LACMA to see Steve Martin talk about art. Dave Hickey, his interlocutor, had a hard time keeping up — but who can share a stage…

On Damon Galgut’s In a Strange Room

In today’s LA Times, I review Damon Galgut’s In a Strange Room, beginning: The traveler at the center of Damon Galgut’s new novel “In a Strange Room,” a finalist for…

prizes prizes prizes

Yesterday I wrote about the National Book Award finalists for the LA Times. The day before that, I wrote about the Man Booker Prize for the LA Times. Now, I’m…

On The Lovers

My review of Vendela Vida’s new novel The Lovers is in today’s LA Times. It’s set in Turkey, and follows Yvonne, a 53 year-old widow. While it’s a sleek read,…

Blue penises, brutality and boring sentences

If I had a feeling of deja-vu when I read other pieces about Bret Easton Ellis, who seemed to go through exactly the same routine with each interviewer, people (on…

Changes at the LA Times

For the last five years, David Ulin has been books editor of the LA Times, but that’s going to change. Today he announced that he’ll become the paper’s new full-time…

The Bret Easton Ellis Meets the Press routine

In late May, I went to Bret Easton Ellis’ apartment to talk to him for a feature for the Los Angeles Times (it’s in Sunday’s paper). I’d arranged to be…

Nothing happened: a review

Jake Silverstein, the editor of the award-winning Texas Monthly and a contributing editor at Harper’s, has published his first book, Nothing Happened and Then It Did. Opening with his early…