Celebrate the joy of reading at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, happening April 18–19 at the USC campus.
This FREE, weekend-long event brings together hundreds of authors, poets, storytellers, and book lovers for panels, signings, performances, and family-friendly activities across indoor and outdoor stages.
Wisdom Quarterly joins in to distribute free Buddhist titles at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books 2026 (Book Row behind main stage)
Find LAist.com at two booths, Booth 154 (marketing team) and Booth 723 (education team), connecting with the LA and OC community, giving away free books, and sharing plenty of LAist swag.
Whether one is catching a panel or just exploring the festival for reading material in the company of authors, stop by to say hello and be part of one of the country’s largest celebrations of storytelling. Free, open to the public, with no RSVP required. More
(KCW Attractions) April 28, 2025: LA Times Festival of Books at USC (April 27, 2025) featured TV star Wilmer Valderrama. Who? He's a Hollywood man-about-town (who dated many incredible women to prove his prowess as a super sexy Latin heartthrob, who is now on about writing with an insightful discussion concerning his book, An American Story. Hear his inspiring journey and thoughts on his work. #AnAmericanStory
We often hear said that "Los Angeles has no culture." That may be. But we do have the country's largest book festival.
Who knows who's doing all that reading, but we buy a lot of books and launch more careers than Nashville, Frisco, and even the Empire State, the Big Apple, where allegedly if one can make it there, one can make it anywhere.
How to boil down this mega literary festival full of authors, promoters, publishers, and poets?
To boil down the whole two-day event on the USC campus near the heart of the city (DTLA), there was this former teenage heartthrob named Avan Jogia. His post-teen fans mobbed the Poetry Stage tent to marvel at his ability to write, express emotion, and cuss. It was hot. (It wasn't but if one loves a TV star and sees him in real life, dressed in suit, tie, and checkered Vans, hey, that's something. What is it? An opportunity to sell lots of copies of a personally autographed hardcover poetry book about the darker side, very Emo and slightly Goth, called Autopsy (of an Ex-Teen Heartthrob).
USC encourages responsible graffiti: It's lit
The annual Los Angeles Festival of Books on the USC campus (now in a kind of lockdown status requiring picture ID to enter) is here, hosted by the Los Angeles Times.
It is two full days of authors, book sales, literary performances, networking, seeing and being seen, getting published, and maybe even wrangling a book deal with a major publishing house.
Don't count on it. There's nearly no money on anything but novels that get picked up and converted into something else by the Hollywood Machine, the dream of any serious writer eager to cash in rather than promote the art of communication and literature.
Books, books, read books on Venus and Mars!
There is also a religious section and a massive Buddhist organization giving out FREE sacred Buddhist texts and titles from both the back-to-basics historical Buddha-oriented Theravada tradition and the much larger Amitabha (a Cosmic Buddha) and Guanyin (Goddess of Compassion) emphasizing Mahayana school and its apocryphal writings. A lovely Muslim organization will have literature as in years past. Bring a book bag, enjoy food and live entertainment, and lots of schmoozing and walking around like a college coed. Info: Festival of Books
30 Years of Stories: The L.A. Times Festival of Books Returns
Modern "readers" prefer more pictures, manga, anime, and comics with easy emotional signaling
The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books is marking its 30th anniversary as it returns to USC’s University Park Campus all day on April 26-27, 2025. For three decades, this beloved event has brought together book lovers, authors, and storytellers to celebrate the written word. Join fellow book enthusiasts as USC welcomes the community to its campus for this annual event. Visit the L.A. Times Festival of Books at USC website
Students study, but future cops and cop supporters watch violent football like USC vs. UCLA
.
USC, UCLA criticized over violent response to peaceful campus protests
Like football, police actions are a spectator sport
(KTLA 5) May 3, 2024: Investigations are underway after pro-Palestinian encampments and demonstrations took place at USC and UCLA in late April and early May 2024.
Earlier in the week, LAPD and other police agencies (that will be paid for by UCLA) removed a massive pro-Palestinian encampment at UCLA and 210 people were arrested in the aftermath. Many are criticizing the universities for not stepping in earlier to take action before things escalated to deplorable behavior by hired pro-genocide/pro-Israel thugs in and out of uniform.
KTLA's John Fenoglio reports on May 3.
Violent Jewish extremists: Fights break out at UCLA; bombs thrown at student tents
(FOX 11 Los Angeles) Started streaming 11:00 pm, April 30, 2024: Multiple fights broke out and pro-Israel, pro-genocide counter-protesters threw bombs (fireworks) at student tents in dueling demonstrations between pro-peace pro-Palestine student protesters and anti-peace, pro-genocide Zionist Jewish Israel supporters.
Pro-Palestinian protests and arrests grow on campuses nationwide
(NBC News) April 29, 2024: The protests against Israel and its war crimes, atrocities, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Palestine, both in Gaza and the West Bank, expanded on American campuses from coast to coast. New York's Columbia University and other schools warned those who have set up encampments that they better clear them or face disciplinary action from authorities. Many students remain defiant, with a few being arrested. NBC News' Liz Kreutz reports. NBC News: nbcnews #Protest #College #IsraelHamasWar
Bombs hurled by Jewish domestic terrorists dressed in all black, some holding flag of Israel, attacking UCLA students
Bomb throwing counter-protesters attack UCLA encampment overnight as Jewish violence erupts amid dueling pro-war and pro-Palestine demonstrations
(KTLA 5) May 1, 2024: Police were noticeably absent when violence erupted on the campus of the University of California Los Angeles Tuesday night amid dueling protests over the Israel-Hamas war. Dozens of pro-Israeli protestors, many wearing white masks and flags around their shoulders, arrived around 10:45 p.m. and began attempting to dismantle the encampment, deploying fireworks and what may have been bear spray. At least one person was injured and was seen being carried away.
When we said, "You can't spell 'SUCKS' without 'U-S-C,'" we just meant football, Brothers.
Public school students (UC Berkeley, UCLA, Cal Poly Humboldt) usually hate private school brats (Harvard, Yale, Princeton). But there's one thing we agree on. Israel's crimes are wrong. They are war atrocities, crimes against humanity, and constitute genocide (a textbook case). Columbia U is right, and NYU is public. Whereas the cops of the LAPD and DPS, plus FBI agents in and their undercover operatives and NSA spying apparatus locked down USC (Sparta), Athens is wide open and the only police are undercover. Occupy the War Machine! Say no to America's endless-war economy!
Counter-protesters respond to pro-Palestinian encampment at UCLA
(NBCLA) April 26, 2024: Pro-genocide/pro-Israel counter-protesters who support Israel and its decades of war crimes have responded to the ongoing pro-Palestinian demonstration on the UCLA campus. Jonathan Gonzalez reports for the NBC4 News on April 26, 2024.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators and pro-genocide counter-protesters take over UCLA
We work for you, Bibi. - I know, Joe, but why don't you pull a Kent State on your students?
.
(KTLA 5) April 26, 2024: Pro-Palestinian demonstrators and pro-genocide/pro-Israel/pro-Zionist counter-protesters squared off on the campus of UCLA this week.
A little Jewish force takes down a big giant
Student protests over Israel's war crimes (genocide, scholasticide, murder of journalists) and ethnic cleansing of Gaza and attempted forced relocation of Palestine into the Sinai or the sea are finally being noticed by the mainstream media after fomenting on a large number of college campuses.
Satanic HQ, the unburnable building from Hell
While the peace demonstrations have been largely peaceful, minor altercations have occurred.
The peace activists (called Bruins at UCLA, which is Athens compared to Sparta/USC, who call themselves Trojan), including students and outside participants, are calling for American universities to divest from any war-profiteering interests in Israel.
Oh, to be alive to see this! (We're dead inside).
This is in response to Israel's offensive war crimes against all of Palestine and anyone standing in their way of stealing a country for themselves from other people's land in the wake of the Oct. 7 retaliation for 75 years of violent and racist oppression.
We blew up the hospitals, leveled the schools, killed the journalists, murdered and maimed the civilians, incinerated their children, destroyed their houses, starved them, what does it take for them to get the message?
.
KTLA's Chris Wolfe reports on April 26, 2024.
Details: ktla.com/news/local-news/pro-...
KTLA 5 News, keeping Southern Californians informed since 1947.
As pro-Palestinian protests [and anti-Israeli and Zionist Jewish genocide demonstrations] spread to college campuses across the country, the lives of many students have been upended.
Some have jumped into protesting for the first time, while others are watching on the sidelines, their own thoughts about Israel's war on Gaza and Palestinian civilians is still evolving.
[Israel has already killed or maimed 100,000 Palestinians, mutilating and murdering about 15,000 children. These numbers do not all of the injuries and the devastation to those being ethnically cleansed by bombardment and forced relocation.]
Many say a feeling of unease, and fear, has settled in as bucolic campuses are transformed into an ideological battleground. Some are wary about what students and civil rights leaders have decried as an overly aggressive police response. Others are concerned the protests have emboldened antisemitic viewpoints.
Here are the stories of five students in the middle of a spring of upheaval.
Sofia Ongele
Campus encampment (Jabin Botson/Wash Post)
Protesting isn’t new for Sofia Ongele. She organized her first demonstration at the age of 15 and credits her father and grandparents with instilling her with a sense of social responsibility.
Over the last week, she’s joined fellow Columbia University students at the encampment on the school’s west lawn, participating in pro-Palestinian demonstrations and listening to speakers. Ongele, 23, said she is proud of how students have banded together.
"I love being in and around the encampment,” she said. “I’ve never seen something that is such an outright show of solidarity and mutual aid in my entire life.”
But the increased police presence around campus has been uncomfortable, she said. She described calling the university’s public safety line to ask about a way to navigate campus without encountering riot police, only to have the call abruptly disconnected.
“I don’t feel particularly safe just walking around the area, because of the sheer number of cops,” said Ongele, a senior studying information science.
She said the university’s response feels contradictory.
"The university wants us to learn about protests and social movements – people like MLK did participate in civil disobedience – but not to take that knowledge and apply it to something that really, really matters,” she said.
But the growing wave of demonstrations sparked by the Columbia protests has made her hopeful for college students around the country, who she said now share a common sense of purpose.
"From Ireland to Palestine, occupation is a crime."
House Speaker Mike Johnson addresses Columbia University students, who booed him, Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in NYC (Kevin R. Wexler / NorthJersey.com)
.
The state needs war to make $$$
USA TODAY
Israel's US-funded genocide, which was unleashed on Gaza and the West Bank, spreads unrest on college campuses, Columbia, Berkeley, NYU, Yale, UT Austin, Cal Poly Humboldt.
NEW YORK − Columbia University announced Wednesday (4/24/24) that students had agreed to scale down their protest encampment as peaceful student demonstrators across the nation pressed their demands for an end to Israel's grotesque violence and the civilian casualties it has inflicted on Gaza that have destroyed the American public's historically mindless support for anything Israel wants.
Netanyahu is antisemitic, killing so many Semites
Meanwhile, police gently turned over willing protesters Wednesday to campus security at the USC (University of Southern California) campus, which closed to the public Wednesday amid clashes between authorities and pro-Palestinian student demonstrators at the college and nationwide.
In solidarity with American and Israeli Jews who oppose genocide and Zionism (Shoresh)
Arrests were actively being made on the USC campus Wednesday night, an LAPD spokesperson told USA TODAY. The spokesperson said he could not provide an estimate on how many people were detained.
Columbia student protesters earlier in the day issued a statement saying the school had made a "a written commitment and concession not to call [out] the NYPD or the National Guard," calling the progress "an important victory for students.” More + VIDEOS
It isn't an American movement of "Gentiles." Our friends in Jewish Voice for Peace are here.
.
I'm here to bust heads with impunity
The day began at USC (where officials banned the valedictorian from speaking for fear of what she might say about Israel) with yoga and meditation and a movie screening planned for 9:00 pm. Then police came in and threatened the "sleep-in" peace demonstrators with mass arrests and other police state actions -- secret surveillance by a paramilitary force and spies to infiltrate the peaceful crowd, stooges to instigate and use as a pretext for police violence if called on, broken limbs, loss of civil rights, possible sexual assault and a smaller chance of execution. Fox 11, KTLA, and other news outlets were on sight with a number of non-participating students standing behind the police to see the gore, grenades, and football style police abuse near the world-famous Colisseum, just south of Downtown Los Angeles.
There are simultaneous police abuses and student demonstrations against Israel and for Palestinian lives going on at UT Austin, UC Berkeley, Cal Poly Humboldt, Columbia University, Yale, Boston, Harvard, and NYU.
LAPD and campus cops break up USC pro-Palestine peace demonstration
(FOX 11 Los Angeles) Streamed live April 24, 2024: USC student groups at the University of Southern California gathered Wednesday morning for a tent sleep-in demonstration, with plans to camp out at the school's Alumni Park to advocate for peace in Palestine, criticizing genocidal Israel and contradicting their government in Washington, DC, which is doing all it can to FUND the genocide and U.S. proxy-war in Ukraine. More: foxla.com/news/usc-pro-pa... FOX 11 on YouTube: @foxla
Pro-Palestinian peace demonstrators get harassed by police at USC
(KTLA 5) April 24, 2024: Watch KTLA 5 News live coverage from the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles. KTLA 5 News, keeping Southern Californians informed since 1947.
(FOX 7 Austin) UT Israel protest: Clashes between cops and students
Police arrest 22+ and bring chaos to peaceful anti-genocide demonstration, as protest at UT Austin
(KXAN) April 24, 2024: Pro-Palestinian, anti-genocide American protestors were met with a heavy police paramilitary reaction after UT Austin demanded they cancel their peaceful demonstration. KXAN's Ryan Chandler reports.
(FOX 11 Los Angeles) Araksya tells the back story that led to this moment here: myfoxla.com/story/26235485... FOX 11's Araksya Karapetyan was caught dancing in front of the green screen just before GDLA's Big Deal/No Big Deal segment on Good Day LA. Watch her reaction when she finds out she was on camera. More behind-the-scenes photos of Araksya on Good Day LA here: myfoxla.com/story/18575191...
All materials on this site are submitted by editors and readers. All images, unless otherwise noted, were taken from the Internet and are assumed to be in the public domain.
In the event that there is still a problem, issue, or error with copyrighted material, the break of the copyright is unintentional and noncommercial, and the material will be removed immediately upon presented proof.
Contact us by submitting a comment marked "private."
Do not follow this journal if you are under vinaya or parental restrictions. Secure protection by Sucuri.
Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at creativecommons.org/about/licenses.
%20wiki.jpg)
