Los Angeles Times Festival of Books April 25 & 26

Los Angeles doesn’t exactly have a reputation as a literary town, but for two days every April, it is transformed into the nation’s epicenter of letters when the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books crops up at UCLA. According to the LA Times website, “The Festival is a free public event, and includes exciting author events, storytelling, cooking demonstrations and poetry readings. The Festival of Books also includes nearly 300 exhibitor booths representing booksellers, publishers, literacy and cultural organizations.” This year’s author list includes a mix of writers, including Aimee Bender, Mary Higgins Clark, T.C. Boyle, Ray Bradbury, Mary Gaitskill, Antonya Nelson, Robert Pinsky, Marilynne Robinson, Gore Vidal, Wells Tower, and some 450 others.  But the best part of the Festival of Books is that, unlike pretty much everything else in L.A., the event is free. For more information, the website is http://www.latimes.com/extras/festivalofbooks/index.html.