The 19th annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books will be held at USC’s Bovard Auditorium on Saturday, April 12, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday, April 13, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
More than 150,000 people attend this celebration of ideas, creativity, and the written word each year. Alongside numerous authors and performers, the festival will have art and photo installations, live music and readings, cooking demonstrations, film screenings, aisles of booksellers and exhibitors, as well as plenty of surprises.
Finalists for the 34th Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, which will be presented Friday, April 11, at 7:30 p.m., include Ruth Ozeki (“A Tale for the Time Being”) for fiction; Mei-mei Berssenbrugge (“Hello, the Roses”) and Lynn Xu (“Debts & Lessons”) for poetry; and Gene Luen Yang (“Boxers & Saints”) for young adult literature.
Vendors will include Buddha’s Light Publishing, East West Discovery Press, Heyday Books, Kinokuniya Bookstore, Seoul Selection, Takeya, and The Korea Foundation. (See full schedule for Kinokuniya booth below.)
Naomi Hirahara, author of the Mas Arai mysteries and the just-launched Officer Ellie Rush mystery series, will appear on April 12 at the Kinokuniya booth from 12:30 to 2 p.m. and the Mysterious Galaxy booth at 3 p.m., and on April 13 at the Mystery Ink booth from 3 to 4 p.m. and the Sisters in Crime booth at 4 p.m.
Festival After Dark (April 12 at 8 p.m.), an evening of comedy, conversation and songs, will feature comedian Margaret Cho, indie rockers Superchunk and Okkervil River frontman Will Sheff.
Stage presentations will include:
• Cooking Stage — Roy Choi (“L.A. Son: My Life, My City, My Food”), April 12 at 12:30 p.m.
• Poetry Stage — Tung-Hui Hu (“Greenhouses, Lighthouses”), April 12 at 10:30 a.m.; Mei-mei Berssenbrugge (“Hello, the Roses”), April 12 at 12 p.m.; Garrett Hongo (“Coral Road: Poems”), at 12:30 p.m; Lynn Xu (“Debts & Lessons”), April 12 at 3 p.m.
• Norris Theater — “Young Adult Fiction: Writing Culture & Identity” with Cynthia Kadohata (“The Thing About Luck”), Gene Luen Yang (“Boxers & Saints”) and Maurene Goo (“Since You Asked …”), April 12 at 3 p.m.
• Davidson Continuing Education Center — “Nonfiction: What Shapes Us” with Erika Hayasaki (“The Death Class”), Geoff Nicholson (“Walking in Ruins”) and Louise Steinman (“The Crooked Mirror”), April 12 at 3:30 p.m.
• Taper Hall — “The Facts of Fiction; The Fiction of Fact” with Ruth Ozeki (“A Tale for the Time Being”) and Geoff Dyer (“Paris Trance”), April 12 at 3:30 p.m.
Admission to most events is free. Indoor Conversations, Book Prizes and Festival After Dark require tickets. For more information, email eventinfo@latimes.com or visit http://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/.
Kinokuniya Schedule
Saturday, April 12
Salina Yoon (“Found,” “Penguin in Love,” “Penguin on Vacation”), 10:30-11:30 a.m.
Sunny Seki (“Tale of the Lucky Cat,” “Last Kappa of Old Japan,” “Yuka Chan and the Daruma Doll”), 10:30 a.m.-12 p.m.
Sandra Tsing Loh (NPR commentator and author of “The Madwoman in the Volvo: My Year of Raging Hormones”), 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Lora Nakamura (“Bonsai Babes: A Love Story”), 12-1:30 p.m.
Ruth Ozeki (“A Tale for the Time Being,” “All Over Creation,” “My Year of Meats”), 12:30-1:30 p.m.
Cynthia Kadohata (“The Thing About Luck,” “Kira Kira,” “Weedflower,” “Cracker,” “A Million Shades of Gray”), 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Jennifer Wood (“Year of the Horse,” “Year of the Dragon,” “Year of the Snake”), 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Romulus Hillsborough (“Samurai Revolution,” “Ryoma,” “Shinsengumi”), 2:30-4 p.m.
Manami Okazaki (“Kokeshi,” “Wabori,” “Kawaii: Japan’s Culture of Cute”), 2:30-4 p.m.
Fumiko Kometani (“Wasabi for Breakfast”), 4-5 p.m.
Wendy Watson (“Personality & Blood Type”), 4-5 p.m.
Mark Edward Harris (“Way of the Japanese Bath,” “South Korea, North Korea”), 5-6 p.m.
Paul Okimoto (“Oh Poston, Why Don’t You Cry for Me?”), 5-6 p.m.
Sunday, April 13
Julliena Okah (“One Life, Many Worlds,” “God’s Majesty in Color & Words”), 10-11 a.m.
Seo Kim (“Cat Person”), 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Michael Chwe (“Jane Austen, Game Theorist”), 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Naomi Hirahara (“Murder on Bamboo Lane,” “Strawberry Yellow,” “1001 Cranes”), 12:30-2 p.m.
Kendall Brown (“Traditions Transfigured: The Noh Masks of Bidou Yamaguchi,” “Quiet Beauty,” “Deco Japan”), 12:30-2 p.m.
Lane Hirabayashi and Marilyn Alquizola (who wrote a new introduction for Carlos Bulosan’s “America Is in the Heart”), 2-3:30 p.m.
Manami Okazaki, 3:30-5 p.m.