Entertainment

At L.A. Times Book Prizes ceremony, winners advocate for hope in the face of uncertainty

Published

8 months ago

April 26, 2025

At L.A. Times Book Prizes ceremony, winners advocate for hope in the face of uncertainty

It was a night of literary excellence at the 45th Los Angeles Times Book Prizes ceremony Friday night at USC’s Bovard Auditorium.

As winners in 12 competitive categories and three special prizes took the stage, many addressed the fraught political climate in the U.S. as well as L.A. rebuilding after January’s devastating firestorms.

Writers also addressed the dire need to use their voice to reflect the present moment — from poetry winner Remica Bingham-Risher contemplating the abuse her grandmothers endured (in another time and place, their narrative would have been hers, she said), to current interest winner Jesse Katz urging the audience to recognize the individuality of often-stigmatized MacArthur Park residents.

Pico Iyer — who has written 15 books translated into 23 languages — accepted the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement, which honors a writer with a substantial connection to the American West. The author’s latest novel, “Aflame: Learning From Silence,” recounts his mother’s home in Santa Monica burning during a wildfire in 1990. The book was published on Jan. 14, in the immediate aftermath of the Palisades and Eaton fires.

“I know that many people in this room have been through tremendous losses in the last few months,” he said sharing that he lost handwritten drafts for three books in progress in the 1990 fire. “What initially presented itself mostly as loss began to open doors … and make possible many things that might have never happened otherwise. I really hope that might be the case for some of you.”

“Writing still seems the deepest way of inhabiting another soul and the very best way, therefore, of rescuing us from black and white,” he added.

Investigative journalist Emily Witt accepted the Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose for her memoir “Health and Safety: A Breakdown,” about her exploration of New York’s nightlife scene.

In her acceptance speech, Witt cited Isherwood’s writing about pre-WWII Berlin as a major influence. Like his milieu, she said the characters of her memoir, which takes place in Brooklyn from 2016 to 2020, lived in acute awareness of the “ideological bankruptcy” of their time.

Celebrated L.A.-born poet Amanda Gorman accepted the Innovator’s Award for bringing “books, publishing and storytelling into the future.”

Amanda Gorman received the Innovator’s Award at the L.A. Time Book Prizes.

(Varon Panganiban)

“Love is no silent harbor, no haven,” Gorman recited. “Still, it is the roaring thing that tugs away from the very shores we clutch. There is no better compass than this compassion.”

Iyer and Gorman will speak Saturday at the Festival of Books about their respective books.

The biography prize went to Laura Beers for “Orwell’s Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-First Century.” The book, written on the 75th anniversary of “1984,” explores George Orwell’s prescient and radical teachings. Beers, who was surprised by the win, said the world “seems to become slightly more Orwellian with each passing day.”

Journalist Rebecca Boyle won the science and technology award for “Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are,” which traces the moon’s role in our biological and cultural evolution.

“The moon, my subject, does remind us that there are cycles,” she said while accepting the prize. “Inherent in the meaning of a cycle or a phase is a return. Things go away and they come back. Fascism went away and now is back. Authoritarianism went away, we thought, and now it is back. But there’s a flip side to that. Every phase that leaves brings something new. There’s also hope and renewal. And I think part of our job — the most important job we have as writers — is to remind us of the positive phases, the return of good, the return of new cycles and hope.”

In her closing remarks, she quoted Pope Francis, whose funeral is tomorrow: “Hope is a gift and a task.”

Kim Johnson, whose “The Color of a Lie” won the award for young-adult literature, said she set her book, about a white-passing Black teen, in 1955 Levittown, Penn., after her first novel was banned in Bucks County, where Levittown is located.

“Writers write in a lot of spaces where we’re doing resistance,” she said. “I’m thinking about reckoning, trying to untangle the roots of racism and systemic factors in this country that are so embedded and baked in our society.”

Achievement in audiobook production went to Dominic Hoffman (narrator) and Linda Korn (producer) for “James: A Novel.” Presented in collaboration with Audible, the award — the ceremony’s newest — honors performance, production and innovation in storytelling.

Jiaming Tang took home the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction for “Cinema Love.” The decades-spanning epic follows gay Chinese immigrants. The novel also has won the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction and the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ+ Fiction.

Jesse Katz’s “The Rent Collectors: Exploitation, Murder, and Redemption in Immigrant L.A.” won the award for current interest. The book explores the exploitation of undocumented Angelenos by both gang overlords and local law enforcement.

The fiction award went to Jennine Capó Crucet for “Say Hello to My Little Friend.” Brimming with dark humor, the novel follows a failed Pitbull impersonator’s encounter with a captive orca at the Miami Seaquarium.

Danielle Trussoni’s “The Puzzle Box” received the award for mystery/thriller. The second of Trussoni’s Mike Brink series, the book follows a puzzle master invited to Tokyo to try his hand opening the legendary Dragon Box, which contains a priceless Imperial secret.

The ceremony, which opened with remarks by Times Executive Editor Terry Tang and was emceed by Times columnist LZ Granderson (who also provided updates from the Lakers playoff game), serves as a kickoff to this weekend’s Festival of Books.

“In a world that is now feeling so confusing and distressed, this weekend gives all of us a chance to find a sense of unity, purpose and support,” Tang said.

The 30th annual celebration brings more than 550 storytellers to the USC campus across seven outdoor stages and 15 indoor venues. While some panels are ticketed, general admission to the festival is free.

Saturday’s events include conversations and panels with Amor Towles, Jay Ellis, Claire Hoffman, Stacey Abrams, Joanna “JoJo” Levesque, Griffin Dunne, E.A. Hanks, Rebecca Yarros, Amanda Knox, Rachel Kushner, Krysten Ritter, Max Greenfield and “Giggly Squad” podcast hosts Hannah Berner and Paige DeSorbo, as well as a cooking demo from Roy Choi, a reading by Alison C. Rollins and a performance by singer Aspen Jacobsen.

Sunday’s authors and entertainers include Percival Everett, Jenny Slate, Steve Wasserman, Maureen Dowd, Wilmer Valderrama, Jon M. Chu, Rachel Lindsay, Chelsea Handler, Jennifer Haigh, Gretchen Whitmer, Attica Locke, Janelle Brown, Kristen Ciccarelli and Mike Campbell. A special screening of PBS series “Miss Austen” and an appearance by children’s entertainer Blippi are also among the highlights.

Here’s the full list of finalists and winners for the Book Prizes.

Robert Kirsch Award

Pico Iyer, “Aflame: Learning From Silence”

The Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose

Emily Witt, “Health and Safety: A Breakdown”

Innovator’s Award

Amanda Gorman

The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction

Jiaming Tang, “Cinema Love: A Novel”

Pemi Aguda, “Ghostroots: Stories”

Joseph Earl Thomas, “God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer: A Novel”

Jessica Elisheva Emerson, “Olive Days: A Novel”

Julian Zabalbeascoa, “What We Tried to Bury Grows Here”

Achievement in Audiobook Production, presented by Audible

Matt Bomer (narrator), Kelly Gildea (director, co-producer), Lauren Klein (producer); “Giovanni’s Room: A Novel”

Narrators: Clare Brown, Ayanna Dookie, Korey Jackson, Andrea Jones-Sojola, Brittany Pressley, Emana Rachelle, Malika Samuel, Heather Alicia Simms, Diana Bustelo, Tyla Collier, Alejandra Reynoso, David Sadzin, André Santana, Shaun Taylor-Corbett; Producer: Allison Light; “New Nigeria County”

Narrators: Andrew Garfield, Cynthia Erivo, Andrew Scott, Tom Hardy, Chukwudi Iwuji, Romesh Ranganathan, Natasia Demetriou, Francesca Mills, Alex Lawther, Katie Leung; Producers: Chris Jones, Mariele Runacre-Temple, Robin Morgan-Bentley, Nathan Freeman; “George Orwell’s 1984: An Audible Original adaptation”

Dominic Hoffman (narrator), Linda Korn (producer); “James: A Novel”

Michele Norris With a Full Cast (narrator), Mike Noble (producer); “Our Hidden Conversations: What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity”

Biography

Laura Beers, “Orwell’s Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-First Century”

Cynthia Carr, “Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar”

Alexis Pauline Gumbs, “Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde”

Pamela D. Toler, “The Dragon From Chicago: The Untold Story of an American Reporter in Nazi Germany”

Jessica Goudeau, “We Were Illegal: Uncovering a Texas Family’s Mythmaking and Migration”

Current Interest

Jonathan Blitzer, “Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis”

Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Message”

Jesse Katz, “The Rent Collectors: Exploitation, Murder, and Redemption in Immigrant L.A.”

Robin Wall Kimmerer, “The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World”

Wright Thompson, “The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi”

Fiction

Rita Bullwinkel, “Headshot: A Novel”

Jennine Capó Crucet, “Say Hello to My Little Friend: A Novel”

Percival Everett, “James: A Novel”

Yuri Herrera translated by Lisa Dillman, “Season of the Swamp: A Novel”

Miranda July, “All Fours: A Novel”

Graphic Novel/Comics

Kris Bertin and Alexander Forbes, “Hobtown Mystery Stories Vol. 2: The Cursed Hermit”

Taiyo Matsumoto, “Tokyo These Days, Vol. 1”

Bhanu Pratap, “Cutting Season”

Miroslav Sekulic-Struja, translated by Jenna Allen, “Petar & Liza”

Ram V and Filipe Andrade, “Rare Flavours”

History

Andrea Freeman, “Ruin Their Crops on the Ground: The Politics of Food in the United States, From the Trail of Tears to School Lunch”

Andrew W. Kahrl, “The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America”

Aaron Robertson, “The Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land in America”

Joseph M. Thompson, “Cold War Country: How Nashville’s Music Row and the Pentagon Created the Sound of American Patriotism”

Michael Waters, “The Other Olympians: Fascism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports”

Mystery/Thriller

Christopher Bollen, “Havoc: A Novel”

Michael Connelly, “The Waiting: A Ballard and Bosch Novel”

Attica Locke, “Guide Me Home: A Highway 59 Novel”

Liz Moore, “The God of the Woods: A Novel”

Danielle Trussoni, “The Puzzle Box: A Novel”

Poetry

Remica Bingham-Risher, “Room Swept Home”

Andrea Cohen, “The Sorrow Apartments”

Cindy Juyoung Ok, “Ward Toward”

Pam Rehm, “Inner Verses”

Alison C. Rollins, “Black Bell”

Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction

Jedediah Berry, “The Naming Song”

Lev Grossman, “The Bright Sword: A Novel of King Arthur”

Kelly Link, “The Book of Love”

Jeff VanderMeer, “Absolution: A Southern Reach Novel”

Nghi Vo, “The City in Glass”

Science & Technology

Rebecca Boyle, “Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are”

Ferris Jabr, “Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life”

Daniel Lewis, “Twelve Trees: The Deep Roots of Our Future”

Kyne Santos, “Math in Drag”

Zoë Schlanger, “The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth”

Young-Adult Literature

Traci Chee, “Kindling”

K.A. Cobell, “Looking for Smoke”

Safia Elhillo, “Bright Red Fruit”

Carolina Ixta, “Shut Up, This Is Serious”

Kim Johnson, “The Color of a Lie”

Movie Reviews

Movie Review | Sentimental Value

Published

7 hours ago

December 15, 2025

Press Room

Sentimental Value (Photo – Neon)

Full of clear northern light and personal crisis, Sentimental Value felt almost like a throwback film for me. It explores emotions not as an adjunct to the main, action-driven plot but as the very subject of the movie itself.

Sentimental Value
Directed by Joachim Trier – 2025
Reviewed by Garrett Rowlan

The film stars Stellan Skarsgård as Gustav Borg, a 70-year-old director who returns to Oslo to stir up interest in a film he wants to make, while health and financing in an era dominated by bean counters still allow it. He hopes to film at the family house and cast his daughter Nora, a renowned stage actress in her own right, as the lead. However, Nora struggles with intense stage fright and other personal issues. She rejects the role, disdaining the father who abandoned the family when he left her and her sister Agnes as children. In response, Gustav lures a “name” American actress, Rachel Keys (Elle Fanning), to play the part.

Sentimental Value, written by director Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt, delves into sibling dynamics, the healing power of art, and how family trauma can be passed down through generations. Yet the film also has moments of sly humor, such as when the often oblivious Gustav gives his nine-year-old grandson a birthday DVD copy of Gaspar Noé’s dreaded Irreversible, something intense and highly inappropriate.

For me, the film harkens back to the works of Ingmar Bergman. The three sisters (with Elle Fanning playing a kind of surrogate sister) reminded me of the three siblings in Bergman’s 1972 Cries and Whispers. In another sequence, the shot composition of Gustav and his two daughters, their faces blending, recalls the iconic fusion of Liv Ullmann and Bibi Andersson’s faces in Persona.

It’s the acting that truly carries the film. Special mention goes to Renate Reinsve, who portrays the troubled yet talented Nora, and Stellan Skarsgård as Gustav, an actor unafraid to take on unlikable characters (I still remember him shooting a dog in the original Insomnia). In both cases, the subtle play of emotions—especially when those emotions are constrained—across the actors’ faces is a joy to watch. Elle Fanning and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas (who plays Agnes, the other sister with her own set of issues) are both excellent.

It’s hardly a Christmas movie, but more deeply, it’s a winter film, full of emotions set in a cold climate.

> Playing at Landmark Pasadena Playhouse, Laemmle Glendale, and AMC The Americana at Brand 18.

Entertainment

Appreciation: Rob Reiner’s humanity was a signature of his TV work, in front of and behind the camera

Published

9 hours ago

December 15, 2025

Press Room

Appreciation: Rob Reiner’s humanity was a signature of his TV work, in front of and behind the camera

Rob Reiner was a movie director who began as an actor who wanted to direct movies. The bridge between these careers was “This Is Spinal Tap” in 1984, his first proper film, in which he also acted. His original inclination, based on the music documentaries he had studied, had been not to appear onscreen, but he decided there was practical value in greeting the audience with a face familiar from eight seasons of “All in the Family” as Archie Bunker’s left-wing son-in-law, Michael “Meathead” Stivic.

Reiner’s television career began at 21, partnered with Steve Martin, writing for “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.” As an actor, his early years were characterized by the small parts and guest shots that describe the early career of many performers we come to know well. He played multiple characters on episodes of “That Girl” and “Gomer Pyle, USMC,” a delivery boy on “Batman,” and appeared on “The Andy Griffith Show” and “Room 222.” His last such role, in 1971, the same year “All in the Family” premiered, was on “The Partridge Family” as a tender-hearted, poetry-writing, tattooed biker who becomes attached to Susan Dey‘s character and somewhat improbably takes her to a school dance. It’s a performance that prefigures the tenderness and humanity that would become a signature of his work as a writer, director and performer — and, seemingly, a person.

On “All in the Family,” in his jeans and work shirt, with a drooping mustache that seemed to accentuate a note of sadness, Reiner largely played the straight man, an irritant to Carroll O’Connor’s Archie Bunker, teeing up the issue-oriented dialectic. Once in a while he’d be given a broad comic meal to chew, as when wife Gloria (Sally Struthers) goes into labor while they’re out for dinner, and he accelerates into classic expectant-father sitcom panic. But minus the “Meathead” material, “All in the Family” is as much a social drama as it is a comedy, with Mike and Gloria struggling with money, living with her parents, new parenthood, and a relationship that blows hot and cold until it finally blows out for good. He’s not a Comic Creation, like Archie or Edith with their malaprops and mispronunciations, or even Gloria, but his importance to the storytelling was certified by two supporting actor Emmys.

Rob Reiner, Sally Struthers, Caroll O’Connor and Jean Stapleton in a scene from Norman Lear’s television series “All in the Family.”

(Bettmann Archive via Getty Image)

What Reiner carried from “Family” into his later appearances was a sort of bigness. He could seem loud — and loudness is something Norman Lear’s shows reveled in — even when he’s speaking quietly. Physically he occupied a lot of space, more as time went on, and beginning perhaps with “Spinal Tap,” in which he played director Marty DiBergi, he transformed tonally into a sort of gentle Jewish Buddha. In the 2020 miniseries “Hollywood,” Ryan Murphy’s alternate history of the 1930s picture business, the studio head he plays is not the desk-banger of cliche, but he is a man with an appetite. (“Get me some brisket and some of those cheesy potatoes and a lemon meringue pie,” he tells a commissary waiter — against doctor’s orders, having just emerged from a heart attack-induced coma. “One meal’s not going to kill me.”) He’s the boss, but, in a scene as lovely as it is historically unlikely, he allows his wife (Patti LuPone), who has been running things during his absence, to also be the boss.

Reiner left “All in the Family” in 1978, after its eighth season to explore life outside Michael Stivic. (In 1976, while still starring on “Family,” he tested those waters, appearing on an episode of “The Rockford Files” as a narcissistic third-rate football player.) “Free Country,” which he co-created with frequent writing partner Phil Mishkin, about a family of Lithuanian immigrants in the early 1900s, aired five episodes that summer. The same year, ABC broadcast the Reiner-Mishkin-penned TV movie “More Than Friends” (available on Apple TV) in which Reiner co-starred with then-wife Penny Marshall. Directed by James Burrows, whose dance card would fill up with “Taxi,” “Cheers” and “3rd Rock From the Sun,” it’s in some respects a dry run for Reiner’s “When Harry Met Sally…,” tracking a not-quite-romantic but ultimately destined relationship across time.

Future Spinal Tap lead singer Michael McKean appears there as a protest singer, while the 1982 CBS TV movie “Million Dollar Infield,” written again with Mishkin, features Reiner alongside future Spinal Tap lead guitarist Christopher Guest and bassist Harry Shearer; it’s a story of baseball, families and therapy. Co-star Bruno Kirby the year before had co-written and starred in Reiner’s directorial debut, “Tommy Rispoli: A Man and His Music,” a short film that aired on the long-gone subscription service On TV as part of the “Likely Stories” anthology. Kirby’s character, a Frank Sinatra-loving limo driver (driving Reiner as himself), found its way into “This Is Spinal Tap,” though here he is the center of a Reineresque love story.

After “Spinal Tap,” as Reiner’s directing career went from strength to strength, he continued to act in other people’s pictures (“Sleepless in Seattle,” “Primary Colors,” “Bullets Over Broadway” and “The Wolf of Wall Street,” to name but a few) and some of his his own, up to this year’s “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues.” On television, he mostly played himself, which is to say versions of himself, on shows including “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and, of all things, “Hannah Montana,” with a few notable exceptions.

A bald man in a brown blazer standing next to a woman in glasses and an orange top looking at a woman, seen from behind.

The most notable of these, to my mind, is “New Girl,” in which Reiner appeared in 10 episodes threaded through five of the series’ seven seasons, as Bob Day, the father of Zooey Deschanel’s Jess. Jamie Lee Curtis, married to Guest in the real world, played his ex-wife, Joan, with Kaitlin Olson as his new, much younger partner, Ashley, who had been in high school with Jess. He’s positively delightful here, whether being overprotective of Deschanel or suffering her ministrations, dancing around Curtis, or fencing with Jake Johnson’s Nick. Improvisational rhythms characterize his performance, whether he’s sticking to the script or not. Most recently, he recurred in the fourth season of “The Bear,” which has also featured Curtis, mentoring sandwich genius Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson); their scenes feel very much like what taking a meeting with Reiner might be like.

Coincidentally, I have had Reiner in my ear over the past couple of weeks, listening to the audiobook version of “A Fine Line: Between Stupid and Clever,” which he narrates with contributions from McKean, Shearer and Guest. A story of friendship and creativity and ridiculousness, all around a wonderful thing that grew bigger over the years, Reiner’s happy reading throws this tragedy into sharper relief. I have a DVD on the way, though I don’t know when I’ll be up to watching it. I only know I will.

Movie Reviews

No More Time – Review | Pandemic Indie Thriller | Heaven of Horror

Published

19 hours ago

December 15, 2025

Press Room

No More Time – Review | Pandemic Indie Thriller | Heaven of Horror

Where is the dog?

You can call me one-track-minded or say that I focus on the wrong things, but do not include an element that I am then expected to forget. Especially if that “element” is an animal – and a dog, even.

In No More Time, we meet a couple, and it takes quite some time before we suddenly see that they have a dog with them. It appears in a scene suddenly, because their sweet little dog has a purpose: A “meet-cute” with a girl who wants to pet their dog.

After that, the dog is rarely in the movie or mentioned. Sure, we see it in the background once or twice, but when something strange (or noisy) happens, it’s never around. This completely ruins the illusion for me. Part of the brilliance of having an animal with you during an apocalyptic event is that it can help you.

And yet, in No More Time, this is never truly utilized. It feels like a strange afterthought for that one scene with the girl to work, but as a dog lover, I am now invested in the dog. Not unlike in I Am Legend or Darryl’s dog in The Walking Dead. As such, this completely ruined the overall experience for me.

If it were just me, I could (sort of) live with it. But there’s a reason why an entire website is named after people demanding to know whether the dog dies, before they’ll decide if they’ll watch a movie.