Everyone has their neighborhood bookstore or their local library they call home. Maybe both even. I know I do - in TWO different cities. World of Books if a bi-weekly feature that allows me - and any of YOU - to share the bookstores and libraries you love so much. If you want to be featured on World of Books too, make sure to go HERE and fill out the contact form!
This week on
WORLD OF BOOKS I bring you
Gillian. She wishes to tell you about the bookish places she loves in Los Angeles, California.
I'm so excited to be contributing to Gaby's BRILLIANT World of Books feature, because Gaby is a) my uber blogging buddy and b) I love my home town. I've lived in Los Angeles all twenty-two years of my life (except for the brief and misguided Ohio chapter... sorry, Ohio). I love my city. I love all the vastly different neighborhoods, the sun, the smell of the ocean, the palm trees, the people... and the bookish places. Of which there are many.
Let me take you on a tour of my favorite bookish places in La La Land, aka the places I go to buy books, read books, or just be surrounded by books as I work on
my blog or contemplate the vagaries of the universe.
The prettiest library in all the land, and the one I used to frequent most often, before I moved to the Brentwood/Santa Monica area last August. I LOVE this library. It is huge, and quiet, and has EXCELLENT PARKING (which is the most important factor for a Los Angeleno--parking and whether I will have to take the freeway/cross under the freeway). The massive quiet study room has these beautiful wooden tables with lamps on them where you can just work away all day. LOOK:
Like, don't you want to live there? The outside of the library is even prettier, and its part of the City Hall/police station complex that's been around since like the thirties, which is as old as things in LA usually get.
This library ALSO has a bookstore and a coffee and fudge shop attached to it. IT'S PERFECT.
My favorite bookstore of all. It's in Hollywood, which I feel fancy just typing, right on Sunset Boulevard. My dad first introduced me to this place a couple years ago, and now I'm completely obsessed with it. It has the least convenient little parking lot in possibly the whole world. It's on this AWFUL hill and is slanted at like 45 degrees (can you tell that parking is a big deal in Los Angeles?). Obviously, this is all entirely worth it for the awesomeness that awaits inside.
It's got all these bookish nooks and crannies everywhere, and twisty turny ends, and LADDERS. BOOK LADDERS. Like Belle herself is about to go swinging by, talking about "Far-off places, daring sword fights, magic spells, a prince in disguise!" Awesome authors do signings here (there's a Rainbow Rowell one that I DESPERATELY wish to go to). They've got cool book swag there, like t-shirts (of which I have... five), matchbooks, and calendars. It is, basically, heaven.
Lots of tables, free wi-fi, great breakfast and coffee, OH, AND A WALL FULL OF BOOKS. They don't call it the Novel Cafe for nothing, folks. My favorite one is the one on Main Street, in Santa Monica (which has the worst parking on planet Earth), but they've got them all over town, from Westwood to Venice to Downtown. Here's a photo from the one in Westwood:
I know, I'm featuring a chain bookstore (the... only chain bookstore?). And there are a lot of excellent B&N's around (there's one in my hood, just down the road, that is PARTICULARLY awesome). But this specific B&N has hosted many an awesome YA gathering, it's the size of a cathedral, it's in the heart of one of
the best outdoor malls/Farmer's Market in all of Southern California, it has a coffee shop inside it, and it makes my soul happy every time I enter is. SEE WHY:
This is also where all the celebrities do their book signings. If HUGE FAMOUS AUTHORS, or actors with cookbooks, or singers and athletes with memoirs, are doing a signing in LA, this is often where they come.
Thanks for taking a book tour of LA with me, and thanks, Gaby, for letting me visit your blog! Sadly, I had to leave out a few places (such as
the Literati Cafe, which is also awesome), but if you ever get to visit LA, now you've got a flew places all over this huge city where you can start!
Holy crap that B&N is humongous and looks amazingly awesome! So many authors go to LA, it makes me so jealous! Next time I'm in LA, I'm definitely checking out Book Soup because that place looks amazing. I've had a small obsession with book ladders ever since Beauty & the Beast so you can bet I'll be climbing those. Or... unless they don't want you climbing those, in which case I'd still love to browse. =)
ReplyDeleteSo many fun bookish places!
Oh wow!!!! What amazing places you have for books!!!! I'm kind of obsessed with tall shelves of books in stores. And, call me weird, I like having to climb to get a book. This is dedication! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing such fun places!
NICE! I'd love to visit LA someday, and thanks to you Gillian, I'll know some places to go. That B&N looks epic, but I love the indie places, too. I WANT a book lader, just sayin'.
ReplyDeleteOMG I've been to that B&N at the Grove; it seriously is book heaven. And I totally know what you mean, Gillian about the parking here. It seriously is a pain. Great post, and yay for California girls! :)
ReplyDeleteIt was a lot of fun seeing all the bookish places that I will need to visit when I visit LA! I adore the Beverly Hills Public Library best of all; it's the kind of library I would fall completely in love with and just want to stay at all the time. It's PERFECTION.
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