OC Bookly

OC Bookly in Little Armenia and West Covina: Not Orange County. Elsewhere. (But Close!)

By Andrew Tonkovich Sun., May 20 2012 at 8:00 AM
Categories: OC Bookly
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This modest blog's ostensible focus is OC reading, writing, literary people and generally what the highly-opinionated Mr. Bib deems bookly about our benighted, beatific and beloved county but, of course, no county is an island entire of itself, every county is a piece of the continent, a part of the main and, well, you know the rest. So, I'm asking you bibliogals and bibliofellas to stretch your literary geographical reach just a bit as I talk pretty this morning about two novels which are still in the neighborhood, up the road apiece, in the County of Los Angeles, where a sometimes parallel and often familiar, and certainly connected, story unfolds.
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OC Bookly

UC Irvine MFA Writers: Your Clip-and-Save Review

By Andrew Tonkovich Sun., May 13 2012 at 8:00 AM
Categories: OC Bookly
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The end of the academic year approaches, which finids Mr. Bib looking forward to the arrival of annual literary journals sponsored by local colleges and universities. Alas, The Ear, Irvine Valley College's magazine is long gone as, it appears, is Orange Coast Review, out of OCC. Still UC Riverside publishes the terrific Crate, and University of Redlands does The Redlands Review. I am probably forgetting somebody. Sorry.

One of the best institutionally-sponsored regional journals of writing, photography and graphic art is UC Irvine's own Faultline, edited this year by Jon Keeperman. Mr. K. tells me the spring issue will be out and for sale at a reading celebration on Thursday, May 31 at UCI's bookstore, managed by the heroic Matt Astrella.
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OC Bookly

Reading, Writing and Registering: Mr. Bib Goes All Civic on You!

By Andrew Tonkovich Sun., May 6 2012 at 8:00 AM
Categories: OC Bookly

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With springtime arrive the starter tomato plants at Home Depot, the County worker with frisky young mosquito fish for the bathtub pond, the cheerful UPS man with delivering new books, and the democratic parade that is the renewed political season, with signature gathering and voter registration and the chance for the Bibliofella to sit at a card table encouraging, reminding, teaching and cheerleading for participation in civic life.

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OC Bookly

Best of the LA Times Book Fest: New California and Old, and Bruce, too!

By Andrew Tonkovich Sun., Apr. 29 2012 at 8:00 AM
Categories: OC Bookly
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Mr. Bib caught up with friends, and met new ones, at last weekend's Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at USC. I'd like nothing better than to do that every weekend. Imagine: a world where the value of literacy, poetry, science, the arts, civic participation is assume, despite or in opposition to the occasional weird cult or huckster, awful gene fiction or corporate media goofs trying go all populist and, somehow, literary, on everybody. And at USC, where the school mascot is a prophylactic. Fight on!

Funny story, with apologies to those who've heard it before. For years, Santa Monica Review's booth was immediately next to the L. Ron Hubbard double-wide trailer of a tent.
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The Hilarious Haters

Ron Paul Supporters Invade LA Times Festival of Books, Make Asses of Themselves

By Michael Chin Tue., Apr. 24 2012 at 3:45 PM
Categories: Elections, OC Bookly, The Hilarious Haters
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Just like their candidate, Ron Paul supporters don't seem to know the meaning of the words "sit down."

It took an auditorium full of annoyed bookish types to start yelling this command during the Q&A session of the Narrating Disaster panel at this past weekend's Los Angeles Times Festival of Books for not one, but two avid Ron Paul supporters who began shouting accusatory remarks at no one in particular.

It all started because Robert Scheer was on the panel, nestled between Amy Wilentz, the author of several books, and Joel Achenbach, who recently wrote the book A Hole in the Bottom of the Sea about the BP Oil Spill. For more detail about just how out of place Scheer was at this table, you might want to ask Wilentz, who didn't care to hide her sentiments on that subject. Suffice it to say that the only disaster Scheer seemed to have narrated was the absurdly tenacious political campaign of Ron Paul.
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Tags:

amy wilentz, barry siegel, joel achenbach, la times festival of books, ron paul
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OC Bookly

OC Bookly at the LA Times Festival of Books

By Andrew Tonkovich Sun., Apr. 22 2012 at 8:00 AM
Categories: OC Bookly
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I've attended nearly all of the previous 16 years of the annual Los Angeles Times books festivals, this one again on the campus of USC. There was that one year I missed, when the bibliochild was born and some friends, fellow writers and Santa Monica Review volunteers staffed the SMR booth, distributing free copies of the magazine. This year the whole family is here: my now nine-year-old little reader and his mother, the lovely literary wifey, sharing the newest volume with anybody who wants a copy, which features work by established and new writers. Among those in the spring 2012 issue are UCI creative writing alums Michelle Chihara and Benjamin T. Miller, and frequent contributor Rhoda Huffey (The Hallelujah Side).
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Gimme That OC Religion

Lake Forest Writer Published in L. Ron Hubbard Anthology

By Josh Dulaney Tue., Apr. 17 2012 at 10:00 AM
Categories: Gimme That OC Religion, OC Bookly
A Lake Forest writer was among 12 winning writers and 12 winning illustrators honored Sunday night during the 28th annual L. Ron Hubbard Achievement Awards at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Hollywood.

Scott Barnes' story "Insect Sculptor" was recognized during the event's L. Ron Hubbard Writers and Illustrators of the Future Contests, and he saw the story published in the "L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume XXVIII", which will be released soon.More >>

Tags:

L. Ron Hubbard, Scott Barned, Writing
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OC Bookly

Mi Taco es su Taco: How Mexican Food Conquered America

By Andrew Tonkovich Sun., Apr. 15 2012 at 8:00 AM
Categories: OC Bookly
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OC Weekly staff at work.
I finally visited the snazzy corporate offices of the OC Weekly last week, to interview my editor, Gustavo "¡Ask a Mexican!" Arellano. Despite writing for years for the county's favorite alt-weekly, I'd conducted only an email relationship with the staff and editors. I arrived in person to tape my conversation with Arellano for Bibliocracy, the excellent literary arts radio program Wednesday nights on KPFK, and to gaze with envy on what seems like the exciting life of the newsroom. 
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OC Bookly

What's Good for the Michigander: UCI Librarian Catherine Palmer on Bender, Trollope & Egan Not-so-Much

By Andrew Tonkovich Sun., Apr. 8 2012 at 8:00 AM
Categories: OC Bookly
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Praise the spells and bless the charms, I find April in my arms. It's official National Poetry Month and this, week National Library Week. Good times! I'm reading my OC Weekly editor's new book, an unlikely and yet terrific tribute to tacos by the Studs Terkel of food, Mr. Gustavo "Ask a Mexican" Arellano: Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America. Nice to see a comment from Bonnie Jo Campbell herself (!) after last week's recommendation by hipster librarian Brian the W. This week I'm sharing more recommendations from my favorite civil servants, local OC librarians I've queried about what they're reading. Weirdly, as last week's featured librarian, Catherine Palmer (Education & Outreach Head Librarian at UCI ) also hails from Michigan.
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Chronicle a Mexican

[UPDATED: Cover Story This Week is Intro to Book!] Gustavo to Have Book Signing for Taco USA at the Fullerton Public Library April 12!

By Gustavo Arellano Fri., Apr. 6 2012 at 11:00 AM
Categories: Chronicle a Mexican, OC Bookly
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UPDATE: The cover story this week is the introduction to my Taco USA, to whet appetites so ustedes can go to any number of my book signings. It starts in outer space then descends into the hilarious hell that was my 2010 debate in Denver with Tom Tancredo. AND there's an extra bonus: an adapted excerpt from the book on how Doritos were invented in Disneyland by Mexicans. Man, is there anything we can't do except have small families and graduate from high school? See you next week!
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