The Downtown News’ annual Best Of Downtown voting is open. Please remember that we are the absolute best bookstore in downtown when you vote!

Looking for a good book to pick up? We currently have our respective noses in the following.

Peter:

Katie:

Randall:

Kim:

Bianca:

Greg: 

The New Arrivals rack is always waiting for you in the back of the bookstore, by the DBA Pour Over Coffee Bar and the Sell Books counter.  What’s on it? Let’s see what we have here…

Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s The Night Eternal
“It’s been two years since the vampiric virus was unleashed in The Strain, and the entire world now lies on the brink of annihilation…There has been a massive extermination of humans, the best and the brightest, the wealthy and influential, orchestrated by The Master–an ancient vampire possessed of unparalleled powers–who selected survivors based on compliance. The future of humankind lies in the hands of a ragtag band of freedom fighters…Now at this critical hour, there is evidence of a traitor in the midst…” (from jacket copy)

Prophet Of The Ghost Ants by Clark Thomas Carlton
“The setting is the Earth of the far-flung future, when all traces of our civilization have long vanished…Thanks to a perverse turn of evolution…our species adapted by growing smaller with every passing eon, until we stood in parity with the only other ‘higher’ species to survive–insects…Ceaselessly and viciously, humans are stalked by night wasps, lair spiders, and grass roaches, and men are still men…A half-breed slave named Anand, a dung-collector from the middle caste…[dares to hope] and, against all possibility, rises against the hopelessness to lead his people against a genocidal army of men who fight atop fearsome, translucent ghost ants.” (from the book’s official site)

Love Goes To Buildings On Fire: Five Years In New York That Changed Music Forever by Will Hermes
“Punk rock and hip-hop. Disco and salsa. The loft jazz scene and the downtown composers known as Minimalists. In the mid-1970s, New York City was a laboratory where all the major styles of modern music were reinvented—all at once, from one block to the next, by musicians who knew, admired, and borrowed from one another. Crime was everywhere, the government was broke, and the city’s infrastructure was collapsing. But rent was cheap, and the possibilities for musical exploration were limitless.” (from the book’s official site) Discusses Patti Smith, Willie Colon, Grandmaster Flash, David Byrne and The Talking Heads, and more! Also, check out the companion blog for some amazing images.

Nerd Do Well by Simon Pegg
Yes, it’s the Simon Pegg of Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz. Instead of a blurb, watch this book trailer. 

In Other Worlds: SF And The Human Imagination by Margaret Atwood
“In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination is Margaret Atwood’s account of her relationship with the literary form we have come to know as ‘science fiction.’ This relationship has been lifelong, stretching from her days as a child reader in the 1940s, through her time as a graduate student at Harvard, where she worked on the Victorian ancestors of the form, and continuing as a writer and reviewer…She also elucidates the differences — as she sees them — between “science fiction” proper and “speculative fiction,” as well as “sword and sorcery/fantasy” and “slipstream fiction.” (from the author’s site)

The Best American Non-Required Reading 2011, edited by Dave Eggers, introduction by Guillermo del Toro
Includes pieces by Joshua Bearman, Joyce Carol Oates, Neil Gaiman, Anthony Doerr, Sloane Crosley, and more

Best American Essays 2011, edited by Edwidge Danicat
Includes essays by Pico Iyer, Zadie Smith, and Christopher Hitchens, among others.

The 50 Funniest Writers*: An Anthology Humor from Mark Twain to The Onion by Andy Borowitz
“Ever wondered who makes a very funny person laugh? Wonder no more. Brought together in this Library of America collection are America’s fifty funniest writers-according to acclaimed writer and comedian Andy Borowitz. Reaching back to Mark Twain and forward to contemporary masters such as David Sedaris, Nora Ephron, Roy Blount Jr., Ian Frazier, Bernie Mac, Wanda Sykes, and George Saunders, The 50 Funniest American Writers* is an exclusive Who’s Who of the very best American comic writing. Here are Thurber and Perelman, Lenny Bruce and Bruce Jay Friedman, Garrison Keillor, Dave Barry, and Veronica Geng, plus hilarious lesser-known pieces from The New Yorker, Esquire, The Atlantic, National Lampoon, and The Onion.” (from the publisher’s site)

The Last Bookstore is a lover of art.  If you’ve seen the incredible book art at the register or on the walls, you know this to be true.  The second floor is not going to be an exception. Today we snapped a few shots of what’s in the works for the Labyrinth and met some of the guys putting it together–Bean Castañeda, Anthony Mendez, Clemente Macias, and TLB’s own Peter Woods and Marco Castañeda.  It’s pretty amazing to know that the person making your coffee or helping you find a book is also an able woodworker. “We’re all men of many talents,” says Bean.

The guys were in the middle of assembling a book tunnel today.  When finished, it will be long enough to warrant your holding your breath as you walk through and making a wish when you exhale on the other side.

What’s that–an ordinary shelf? Bo-ring….but wait!

Fooled you.  That’s no ordinary shelf, it’s a clandestine portal to a secret room.  If I were eight, my heart would explode with joy at the sight of this Batman-esque design element.

That’s Bean Castaneda, half of the team behind the construction of the book tunnel.  The shelf he’s showing off was actually imagined by Josh Spencer and designed by Scott Craig who runs the record shop at the Last Bookstore.

We’re excited for LitFest Pasadena on May 12, where we’ll be holding down a booth and pressing the flesh.  Stop by and say hello!  A lot of our friends will be in attendance, too–Rare Bird Lit, Red Hen Press, Slake Magazine, Libros Schmibros, and Les Figues Press, just to name a few.

If you need a break from browsing, rest your weary feet and take in one of the excellent panels lined up for the day.  We’re especially looking forward to:

LETTING DOWN OUR HAIR: Reader-Friendly Books from the Ivory Tower
With Daniel Howe, Karen Lystra, Barry Menikoff and Peter Stallybrass
Moderator: Colleen Jaurretche (Libros Schmibros)
Can a book be learned, and yet fun for everyone to read? Come hear Pulitzer-prize winner Daniel Howe, historian-biographer Karen Lystra, and distinguished writer and scholar Peter Stallybrass talk about how to make a great book a great read.

WHERE NEW YORK DOMINATES, L.A. INNOVATES
With Tyson Cornell, Kate Gale, Scott McAuley, Paul Norton, and Laurie Ochoa
Moderator: Colleen Dunn Bates
Six L.A.-based publishers talk about the challenges and rewards of publishing 3,000 miles away from the nation’s literary hub. What makes them uniquely Californian? How are they pushing the boundaries of publishing convention? How are they finding success in an increasingly corporate publishing and bookselling landscape? How can authors work with today’s indie presses?

Mark your calendars!

LitFest Pasadena
May 12, 9:30 am – 5pm
Central Park
between Raymond and Fair Oaks at Del Mar

Our Pinterest boards are a bilbiophile’s dream.  Follow us! We have a board devoted some very rare and unusual first editions and another for shots of awesome books we’ve found on our $1 shelves. The picture above is of the Kansas City Library, whose facade looks like giant books.  This building is included in our “Favorite Places & Spaces” board.

Our fundraiser to build-out the Labyrinth of $1 books has finished!  We raised $4588 through IndieGoGo.com and another couple thousand from customers at the store, in the neighborhood of $7000!  A huge thanks to everyone who supported us by purchasing store credit deals, spreading the word, and leaving awesome comments about us on the fundraiser campaign page (that was my favorite part — even more than the money).

We’ve finished a good portion of the bones of the Labyrinth, and your pledges will help to pay off the credit cards used to finance it.  We didn’t reach our goal of $20,000 (which was a little lofty, we admit!), so the opening of the Labyrinth will most likely be delayed until June while we wait to sell more books to finance the finishing touches.  However, your store credit perks are effective immediately (except for those few of you who chose admittance to the preview sale of the Labyrinth; you get to wait patiently awhile longer).  Just come on in to the store and give your name at the front register to have your store credit gift certificate written or use your credit on the spot.

We continue to be humbled by the loyalty and support of all you book-lovers out there.  See you at the store.
-Josh Spencer, owner

Be the eagle: swoop in on all the great deals offered through our IndieGoGo before it’s too late. Our fundraiser ends this Saturday, 4/21 at 11:59 p.m.  Why wait?

$33 gets you 100 dollar books! There are real gems in there.
Donate $50 and get $80 of store credit on used books, CDs and DVDs.
For $100 you get $100 of store credit on any books, DVDs, CDs in the store–new, used, whatever!

These are only a fraction of the benefits. For a full and enticing list of perks, look here.

IndieGoGo lets us keep all the money we raise, even if we don’t meet our goal. You get your prizes, we keep the money–everbody wins!

Yes, it may seem like the second floor is all we talk about, but it’s kind of like our baby. What do you do with a baby? You document its entire growth process! Take a peek at the video walk-through on our Facebook.

You may already know about our second floor addition that will be devoted entirely to $1 books because you’ve donated to our IndieGoGo campaign to fund the it. (Thanks so much, by the way!)  However, if you haven’t been into the store recently, you probably haven’t seen that the new space is barreling towards completion.  We don’t kid around–just check out the holes in the wall!

That’s right–from the second floor’s one-dollar haven, you’ll be able to look down onto the ground floor and see what’s going on.  Also, if you get turned around in the labyrinth, it’ll be that much easier for the rescue dogs to find you.

The convoluted arrangement of bookcases certainly does invite you to get lost–in a book! The custom design upstairs takes full advantage of the fantastic architectural features of this former bank building, like putting books in an old vault.

Our IndieGoGo fundraiser is on for five more days.  The donor rewards are pretty excellent–they’re basically like an extension of our Groupon deals but better!  If you haven’t cashed in yet, time is running out!