Books are influential. They have the power to make you cry, dream, escape reality and catapult you on new adventures. Books also have the magical ability to bring on smiles and laughs when they’re ...

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. In this special new podcast, Paul goes ...

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. George Schlatter, author of Still Laughing: ...

Welcome to the L.A. Times Book Club newsletter. Hello, fellow readers. I’m culture critic and fervent bookworm Chris Vognar. This week we speak with comedian and first-time author Youngmi Mayer, whose ...

This book arrived at my doorstep the day after a friend of mine died of pancreatic cancer—the third friend in six months to die of the disease. What a laugh, that cancer. My husband winced ...