Author L.J. Smith, who created the “Vampire Diaries” book series that inspired the CW drama of the same name and contributed to pop culture’s obsession with vampires, has died.

Smith died March 8 in a hospital in Walnut Creek, California, The Times confirmed. A statement shared to Smith’s website says she died “peacefully” after “...Read more

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, March 22, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2025 Circana.

(Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2025, PWxyz LLC.)

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. "The Writer" ...Read more

“There isn’t a train I wouldn’t take, No matter where it’s going.”

That dandy epigraph, from Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem “Travel,” begins Emma Donoghue’s entertaining new novel. “The Paris Express” gets much of its momentum from the relentless energy of a train. Both the epigraph and Donoghue’s book beautifully ...Read more

Twelve years ago, Nigerian American writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie published her third novel, “Americanah,” which cemented her reputation as an international literary star.

Since then, she has published an epistolary book on feminism, a delightful children’s book and a number of shorter pieces, perhaps the most memorable of them dealing ...Read more

In September 1966, John Lennon, who had just finished what would be the Beatles’ last world tour, visited an exhibition, “Unfinished Paintings and Objects.” Featuring the work of Japanese-born American artist Yoko Ono, it was scheduled to open in London the next day.

Spying a stand with a note saying “Apple,” Lennon took a bite. When ...Read more

ANAHEIM, Calif. — As Michael Hiltzik considered writing a new chronicle of California, he examined the region’s past five centuries in search of a fresh perspective.

“I pitched it as a look at what California had taught the world and the rest of the nation and why it remains such a focus of attention and curiosity around the world,” he ...Read more

California is renowned for its cornucopia of blessings: vaunted universities, Malibu volleyball, Michelin-starred restaurants, Lake Tahoe. It’s also notorious for biblical plagues: droughts, runaway wildfires, tremors jarring the San Andreas fault.

A woman I knew during my MFA days, a Los Angeles native, once workshopped a pair of companion ...Read more

Even though Chris Bohjalian’s “The Jackal’s Mistress” is not shampoo, the plot does have the kind of rhythm conjured by the three words found on pretty much all bottles of the stuff: lather, rinse, repeat. Also like those words, his latest is pleasing in its directness but simultaneously lacks a certain depth.

That doesn’t mean the ...Read more

CHICAGO — If you’re a music fan of a certain age, “Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival,” a new oral history of the 34-year-old bacchanal, assembled from hundreds of interviews by music writers Tom Beaujour and Richard Bienstock, will swing from bittersweetly nostalgic to hedonistic to coldly ...Read more

Just published by Rizzoli New York, “Cinema Her Way: Visionary Female Directors in Their Own Words” is a beautiful 20-way conversation on the topic of filmmakers whose often brilliant careers did not and do not come easily. The reasons for that have everything to do with the words “her” and “female” in the book’s title.

The ...Read more

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, March 15, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2025 Circana.

(Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2025, PWxyz LLC.)

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. "Onyx Storm (...Read more

If I told you “Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One” is about a clown, would that keep you from reading the book, not to mention this review?

If the answer is in the affirmative, you wouldn’t be alone. A lot of people hate clowns. I hate clowns. I mean, come on. Sad clowns? What’s the point?

Now, what if I told you a magician graces ...Read more

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Sonya Walger hadn’t yet unpacked her family’s evacuation go-bag from December’s Franklin fire; it lay unused by the front door. Then, on Jan. 6, hurricane-force winds began punishing her Malibu neighborhood.

That night, the one before the Palisades wildfire, felt different, she says.

“I’d had a bad feeling,” ...Read more

Lawrence Wright likes Big Subjects. Whether in nonfiction or novels, he tackles the 300-pounder fearlessly.

That was true in his excellent “Going Clear,” an exhaustively reported takedown of L. Ron Hubbard and his Church of Scientology. (Read it — you will never be able to enjoy Tom Cruise in a movie again.) “The End of October” is ...Read more

A creepy song on a car radio led directly to Dennis E. Staples' second novel, “Passing Through a Prairie Country.” He was driving from MSP airport to his then-home in Bemidji, Minnesota.

“By the time I hit 20 or 40 miles out of Bemidji, it was dusk and I didn’t at the time have an advanced car so it was just whatever would come in on ...Read more

The crime-fighters-but-make-them-older trend continues with Deanna Raybourn’s “Kills Well With Others.”

The sequel to “Killers of a Certain Age” could repurpose that title because the quartet of sixtyish hitwomen from “Certain” is back in “Kills Well With Others.” And, as they say in movie trailers, this time it’s personal. ...Read more

Karen Russell’s “The Antidote,” her first novel since Pulitzer Prize finalist “Swamplandia,” does not make it easy on reviewers.

This is partly a factor of the Dust Bowl-era novel’s structure, which is divided into chapters narrated by about 10 characters (including a scarecrow and, in one chapter, a cat). Their voices are not as ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- If you’re looking for a copy of a Neil Gaiman novel, don’t bother checking at Avant Garden Books & Coffee in Anoka, Minnesota. The store has removed Gaiman from its shelves.

Gaiman is one of several authors who have been in the news recently for reasons other than their writing. Last month, lawsuits were filed against Gaiman ...Read more