By Kat Stoeffel 4/11/12 5:42pm

off the record

No Strings Attached to Amazon’s Gift to Los Angeles Review of Books

Shortly after Amazon yanked 5,000 Independent Publishers Group titles off its virtual shelves in a contract dispute, the retail giant offered an olive branch of sorts to the world of letters: a $25,000 grant to the Los Angeles Review of Books, the non-profit online literary review that planted a flag in the scorched earth of Sunday books supplements in 2011.

“It’s a pittance for them,” said Steve Wasserman, former editor of the shuttered Los Angeles Times Book Review, who nonetheless applauded Amazon’s recognition of LARB.

“Criticism is the oxygen of literature,” he said. “I’m happy to see the establishment of something of really grand ambition.” Read More

By Celia Mcgee 1/26/98 12:00am

Dunne In: Society Scrivener Throws Fit Over Harsh Review

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to Los Angeles, another soap opera of revenge and recrimination has overtaken the city. This time, a feud of Spellingesque proportions-a serial drama of tarnished reputations, an atavistic confrontation between high and low culture-involves a world usually studiously ignored there: publishing. And at the red-hot Read More

By Todd Gitlin 10/27/97 12:00am

No Cream for Shelby Coffey At the Los Angeles Times

Newspaper insiders everywhere are buzzing about the recent resignation of Los Angeles Times editor Shelby Coffey III. “A Growing Clash of Visions at the Los Angeles Times ,” declared the headline in our hometown New York Times on Oct. 13, putting the matter mildly. Mr. Coffey’s is the second elevated head in a month’s time Read More