'Hood #33: LA Times Festival of Books in University Park (USC)

Even though LA has a rep as being comprised of mostly uncultured beach bimbos, one weekend a year we show off our intellectual side with a huge book festival, held at USC (which is in the neighborhood of University Park).

Getting to USC is an easy trip on the Metro Expo Line, which is what I took to get there today.

As luck would have it, the event opens with a few numbers by the Trojan Marching Band which got me into that bookish collegiate spirit.

I'd bought tickets for several panels and interviews.  The first was with four authors writing women's fiction, three of whom I've read: Gigi Levangie (Starter Wife), Jane Green (Jemima J, Beach House), Lian Dolan (Helen of Pasadena) and Lacy Crawford (Early Decision).  It was like watching a bunch of my girlfriends sitting on a stage gabbing about this & that. Entertaining.

The next session was a "conversation" with Barbara Ehrenreich, who was talking about her new book Living with a Wild God.  She pulled in a crowd.  I know her from her nonfiction book Nickel & Dimed in which she spent a year living on minimum wage.  Smart, funny lady.

I blew off the rest of the sessions (so much for my intellectual side) and instead met up with a couple friends for lunch at the Moreton Fig, a cafe on campus named for the incredibly gorgeous giant fig tree whose fruit pelted customers throughout the afternoon.