Flexible Planet Blog

LA Times Festival of Books This Weekend (4/26 & 4/27)

Once again, the LA Times Festival of Books invades UCLA campus. This annual event offers books, panels, book signings, staged performances and readings, and thousands of books. Hundreds of publishers will be selling books on every subject, including travel and languages. The panels range from fiction to poetry to science and then some.

Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be a travel panel this year. The only recognizable travel writer on the list is Pico Iyer, and he’ll be on the panel entitled “Nonfiction: Blurring Boundaries.” Whether or not this will have much to do with travel is unknown, but I’m sure Pico will have something informative and engaging to say. That’s what he does. That's how he rolls. (Did I sound hip right there? No?)

When Authors Go Bad--Lonely Planet Author Lied About Book

When it rains, it pours…

This morning, I was searching for new and soon-to-be-released travel books on Amazon in order to present timely book reviews on this blog, and I came across Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?: A Swashbuckling Tale of High Adventures, Questionable Ethics, and Professional Hedonism by Thomas Kohnstamm. Perfect, I thought, not released yet. I can be one of the first to get it and review it. So I added it to my cart. I even clicked on the author’s name to see what else he had written. Several books, including some Lonely Planet guidebooks. OK, a credible writer, I suppose.

Pico Iyer 2-fer at UCSB

Veteran travel writer and part-time Santa Barbarian Pico Iyer makes his rounds in May for UCSB’s Arts & Lectures series with two events:

#1 Salman Rushdie in conversation with Pico Iyer

May 4th 4 p.m. at Campbell Hall

$25 / $15 for UCSB students

Not so much a travel writing event, but Iyer fans will enjoy the discussion between the two authors. Surely they’ll be discussing Salman (The Satanic Verses) Rushdie’s recent release, Shalimar the Clown as well as his forthcoming novel The Enchantress of Florence, and perhaps some of Pico’s works as well. If you’re looking for intelligent, well-thought-out conversation, make sure to be there.