Events
Andy Cohen with RuPaul
in conversation with RuPaul
discussing his upcoming book,
Superficial: More Adventures from the Andy Cohen Diaries
Barnum Hall
Santa Monica High School
600 Olympic Blvd,
Santa Monica, CA 90405
ONLINE TICKET SALES HAVE ENDED.
A Limited number of tickets available at the door.
$40 General Admission Seat + 1 copy of Superficial
$50 Reserved Section Seat + 1 copy of Superficial
$75 Premium section Seat
– Includes 2 books: Superficial + The Andy Cohen Diaries (paperback)
– also includes a Live Talks Los Angeles tote bag per order
Superficial is the star-studded and sidesplitting follow up to The Andy Cohen Diaries.
Andy Cohen is the host and executive producer of Watch What Happens: Live. He is the executive producer of The Real Housewives franchise and hosts Bravo’s highly rated reunion specials. He tours nationally with Anderson Cooper on AC2, hosts Then & Now with Andy Cohen on Bravo and Radio Andy on Sirius XM. He has won an Emmy and two Peabody Awards for his work. The author of two New York Times bestsellers, Most Talkative and The Andy Cohen Diaries, he lives in New York City with his dog, Wacha.
On the Andy Cohen Diaries:
“After reading this funny, intimate, candid, honest diary of a year in Andy’s life, I couldn’t help but wonder, ‘Is Andy Cohen…Carrie Bradshaw?’” ―Sarah Jessica Parker
“The funniest thing I’ve done all year is read Andy Cohen’s Diaries. He has more genuinely funny and surprising encounters with celebrities and sublebrities in a day than I do all year. Then my name popped up. Now I just want to sue him.” ―Anderson Cooper
“Andy Cohen’s diaries are the literary equivalent of a Fresca and tequila.” ―Jimmy Fallon
The popular host of Watch What Happens: Live and executive producer of The Real Housewives franchise is back with a follow up to his bestseller, The Andy Cohen Diaries.
Since the publication of his last book, Andy has toured the country with his sidekick Anderson Cooper, hit the radio waves with his own Sirius station, Radio Andy, appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher despite his mother’s conviction he was not intellectually prepared, hosted NBC’s Primetime New Year’s Eve special, guest edited Entertainment Weekly, starred in Bravo’s Then & Now with Andy Cohen, offended celebrities with his ongoing case of foot-in-mouth disease, and welcomed home Teresa “Namaste” Giudice, from a brief stint in jail. Hopping from the Hamptons to the Manhattan dating world, the dog park to the red carpet, Cardinals superfan and mama’s boy Andy Cohen, with Wacha in tow, is the kind of star that fans are dying to be friends with. This book gives them that chance.
If The Andy Cohen Diaries was deemed “the literary equivalent of a Fresca and tequila” by Jimmy Fallon, Superficial is a double: dishier, juicier, and friskier. In this account of his escapades―personal, professional, and behind-the-scenes―Andy tells us not only what goes down, but exactly what he thinks of it.
RuPaul Charles was born and raised in San Diego and moved to Atlanta where he studied theatre at North Atlanta School of Performing Arts. In 1992 RuPaul achieved international fame with the hit song Supermodel (You Better Work) and has recorded a duet with Sir Elton John. He is a singer-songwriter of 13 solo albums including the latest Butch Queen. His books include Lettin’ It All Hang Out and Workin’ It. RuPaul has appeared in over 50 films and television sitcoms in addition to being the host of VH1’s The RuPaul Show and host and executive producer for Logo TV’s RuPaul’s Drag Race, for which he won an Emmy. He currently hosts the podcast What’s the Tee? With Michelle Visage. He splits his time between NYC and LA.
Lisa Napoli with Frank Buckley
8pm
in conversation with Frank Buckley
Ray & Joan: The Man Who Made the McDonald’s Fortune and the Woman Who Gave It All Away
Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90404
RSVP/PURCHASE TICKETS*
General Admission tickets are free – RSVP HERE
$30 Reserved Section Seat + a copy of Ray and Joan
$35 Two Reserved Section Seats + a copy of Ray and Joan
* This event is part of our Newer Voices Series with authors with one or two books. The first 50 tickets purchased are invited to a pre-reception, 6:30-7:30pm.
Lisa Napoli was among the first journalists to cover the digital age as a staff reporter and columnist for The New York Times and its CyberTimes. She then appeared as an on-air technology reporter and columnist for MSNBC and as a host and reporter for public radio’s Marketplace. Her first book, Radio Shangri-La, chronicles her time in and around the Kingdom of Bhutan, where she was invited to help start a radio station at the dawn of democratic rule. For four years, she covered arts and culture for the acclaimed public radio station KCRW. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, she currently lives in Los Angeles, where she leads an award-winning cooking group for homeless women on Skid Row.
Ray and Joan is about many things: mid-20th century US cultural history; post-WW2 emergence of fast food culture; addiction and its impact on the family; addiction treatment (the early days of, in particular;) philanthropy that precedes the grandeur of Buffett and Gates; the no-nukes movement of the 80s; the San Diego Padres; the mass media’s influence on all of the above, and, most importantly of all, the complexity of marriage.
When Lisa went to cover the fate of a crumbling peace sculpture in front of the Santa Monica courthouse for radio station KCRW, she didn’t know she’d spend the next five years tracking down the story of Joan Kroc, one of the greatest and little known philanthropists of the twentieth century. The heiress to the McDonald’s fortune had anonymously funded the 26-foot tall mushroom cloud by Paul Conrad, titled Chain Reaction, at the height of the no-nukes movement. Lisa knew just two things about Joan: that she had given a landmark posthumous gift to NPR, and that at one point she’d run the baseball team she’d inherited from her late husband. But she found it curious that a woman who lived in San Diego would come to fund a polarizing artwork nowhere near her home. When Lisa went in search of a biography, she couldn’t find one—so she decided to write one. Soon, she disccovered: why no book yet existed about Joan; that writing about Joan meant writing about Ray, and learning about the roots of the fortune that the third wife of the founding chairman of McDonald’s ultimately gave away.
Frank Buckley is an anchor of KTLA Morning News. Frank joined KTLA in June 2005 from CNN where he had been a national correspondent. Frank is also host of the “Frank Buckley Interviews” podcast.
Frank’s reporting experiences have taken him around the world and have included assignments covering the U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, politics for CNN, frequent reporting from the White House during George W. Bush’s presidency, natural disasters in Japan, the Los Angeles riots, the Hong Kong handover, the OJ Simpson trial and countless other stories in Southern California and across the U.S.
Prior to KTLA and CNN, Frank reported for Los Angeles station KCAL-TV, WXII-TV in Winston-Salem, N.C., and at KESQ-TV in Palm Springs. He has also written for the Los Angeles Times and the Detroit News.
Mark Oldman — Wine tasting & Talk
How to Drink Like a Billionaire:
Mastering Wine with Joie de Vivre
William Turner Gallery
Bergamot Station Arts Center
2525 Michigan Avenue,
Santa Monica, CA 90404
PURCHASE TICKETS
$50 Reserved Section seat + Book
$30 General Admission Seat
* includes wine tasting
Taste six billionaire-worthy wines at this special wine event with one of America’s most popular wine experts. Oldman will show you how to drink like the 1% – without spending like one.
Mark Oldman is one the country’s leading wine personalities. Bon Appètit described his style as “winespeak without the geek.” Twice the winner of the Georges Duboeuf Best Wine Book of the Year Award, his books—Oldman’s Guide to Outsmarting Wine and Oldman’s Brave New World of Wine—have been called the “perfect book” by the Wall Street Journal and the “perfect primer” by The New Yorker. Oldman’s appearances at the country’s top gastronomic festivals are considered must-see events in the world of food and wine. He has been the wine expert for Pottery Barn, lead judge in the PBS television series “The Winemakers,” and the wine correspondent for the Food Network. Keenly interested in innovating in the areas of education and consumer advocacy, Oldman also founded and ran the career portal Vault.com for a decade until its successful sale to a private equity firm.
“How to Drink Like a Billionaire is not just the best guide for drinking wine stylishly, but Mark Oldman offers his readers a comprehensive yet fun approach to one of our favorite topics. It’s colorful, charismatic and innovative from beginning to end!”— Marcus Samuelsson, chef, restaurateur, and author
Jade Chang with Carolyn Kellogg
in conversation with Carolyn Kellogg
William Turner Gallery
Bergamot Station Arts Center
2525 Michigan Avenue,
Santa Monica, CA 90404
This event is part of our Newer Voices Series.
General Admission tickets are complimentary, but we encourage you to support these newer authors and purchase their books.
PURCHASE TICKETS
Comp General Admission Tickets RSVP HERE
$30 Reserved Seat + Book
$35 Two Reserved Section Seats + 1 book
Debut novelist Jade Chang has worked as an arts and culture journalist and editor for publications like the BBC, Metropolis, Glamour, and The Los Angeles Times Magazine. She was recently an editor at Goodreads. Her first paying job after college was as a researcher for the J. Peterman catalog. (Yes, where Elaine worked on Seinfeld—it’s real!). Jade is the recipient of a Sundance Arts Journalist fellowship, the AIGA/Winterhouse Design Criticism Award, and a Squaw Valley Writers Workshop scholarship.
Fresh, energetic, and completely hilarious, The Wangs vs. the World is my favorite debut of the year.
—Jami Attenberg, author of Saint Mazie and The Middlesteins
A Chinese-American family tumbles from riches to rags in Chang’s jam-packed, high-energy debut….Switching among the points of view of all the Wangs and several supporting players, racing back and forth in time and across the country and the world, dropping into Chinese, stuffing in stand-up routines and savvy details on finance, journalism, the beauty industry, and the art world, this debut novelist holds nothing back. Head-spinning fun—Kirkus Reviews
The Wangs vs. the World is a hilarious debut novel about a wealthy but fractured Chinese immigrant family that had it all, only to lose every last cent—and about the road trip they take across America that binds them back together.
Charles Wang is mad at America. A brash, lovable immigrant businessman who built a cosmetics empire and made a fortune, he’s just been ruined by the financial crisis. Now all Charles wants is to get his kids safely stowed away so that he can go to China and attempt to reclaim his family’s ancestral lands—and his pride.
Charles pulls Andrew, his aspiring comedian son, and Grace, his style-obsessed daughter, out of schools he can no longer afford. Together with their stepmother, Barbra, they embark on a cross-country road trip from their foreclosed Bel-Air home to the upstate New York hideout of the eldest daughter, disgraced art world it-girl Saina. But with his son waylaid by a temptress in New Orleans, his wife ready to defect for a set of 1,000-thread-count sheets, and an epic smash-up in North Carolina, Charles may have to choose between the old world and the new, between keeping his family intact and finally fulfilling his dream of starting anew in China.
Outrageously funny and full of charm, The Wangs vs. the World is an entirely fresh look at what it means to belong in America—and how going from glorious riches to (still name-brand) rags brings one family together in a way money never could.
Carolyn Kellogg is book editor of the Los Angeles Times. She is a recipient of the paper’s editorial award and she is a vice president of the board of the National Book Critics Circle. Kellogg has served as editor of LAist.com, web editor of Marketplace and has been widely published. She has an MFA in creative writing and a bachelor’s degree from USC.
Shep Gordon with Alice Cooper
in conversation with Alice Cooper
discussing his memoir,
They Call Me Supermensch:
A Backstage Pass to the Amazing Worlds
of Film, Food, and Rock’n’Roll
The Bootleg Theatre
2220 Beverly Blvd,
Los Angeles, CA 90057
PURCHASE TICKETS — SOLD OUT
This event will be live streamed into our Facebook Page.
$43 General Admission seating + Book*
$53 Reserved Section seating + Book*
$20 General Admission Seating (on sale Oct 14, 10am)
$95 Pre-Reception**(6:30-7:30pm)+ Reserved Section seating + Book*
* All persons buying the book get a photo op with Shep Gordon and Alice Cooper
** Please note Alice Cooper will not be at reception, but reception ticket holders are first in line to get your books signed and for the photo op.
Books will be picked up at the event when you check in, and signed immediately after the talk
Shep Gordon — in his storied career as a talent manager, agent, and producer — has worked with, and befriended, some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry, from Alice Cooper to Bette Davis, Raquel Welch to Groucho Marx, Blondie to Jimi Hendrix, Sylvester Stallone to Salvador Dalí, Luther Vandross to Teddy Pendergrass. He is also credited with inventing the “celebrity chef,” and has worked with Nobu Matsuhisa, Emeril Lagasse, Wolfgang Puck, Roger Vergé, and many others.
“Reality has never seemed to important in the 50 years Shep and I have been working together. When we need something to happen, Shep just works his magic to simply MAKE it a reality. I’m still not sure how he does it—he just has that natural ability to create scenarios and relationships that help to get you where you need to go.” –Alice Cooper
“The amazing, incredible, unlikely-but-true story of the man who’s done everything, been everywhere, and was at seemingly every important moment in musical and culinary history. He’s a one-man history of cool. And through it all, he’s somehow managed to remain a mensch. Shep Gordon is a legend.”–Anthony Bourdain
Supermensch is an eye-popping peek into entertainment industry from the magnetic force who has worked with an impeccable roster of stars throughout his storied career.
In this engaging memoir, the charismatic entertainment legend recalls his life, from his humble beginnings as a “shy, no self-esteem, Jewish nebbisher kid with no ambition” in Oceanside, Long Island, to his unexpected rise as one of the most influential and respected personalities in show business, revered for his kindness, charisma—and fondness for a good time.
Gordon shares riotous anecdotes and outrageous accounts of his free-wheeling, globe-trotting experiences with some of the biggest celebrities of the past five decades, including his first meeting with Janice Joplin in 1968, when the raspy singer punched him in the face. They Call Me Supermensch is a sincere, hilarious behind-the-scenes look at the worlds of music and entertainment from the consummate Hollywood insider.
Alice Cooper pioneered a grandly theatrical brand of hard rock that was designed to shock. Drawing equally from horror movies, vaudeville, and garage rock, the group created a stage show that featured electric chairs, guillotines, fake blood and boa constrictors. He continues to tour regularly, performing shows worldwide with the dark and horror-themed theatrics that he’s best known for.
Alice has been touring consistently, year in and year out, averaging over 80 concerts annually, both within the USA and internationally, with his band which features the three guitar attack of guitarists Ryan Roxie, Nita Strauss, and Tommy Henriksen, plus the rhythm section of drummer Glen Sobel and longtime bassist Chuck Garric.
Carole Bayer Sager with Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds
8pm
in conversation with Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds
discussing her memoir,
They’re Playing Our Song
Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90404
PURCHASE TICKETS
$45 General Admission seat + a copy of Sager’s book
$50 Reserved Section Seat + a copy of Sager’s book
$20 General Admission seat
$38 Book only purchase (includes tax, handling and shipping anywhere in the US)
—Steve Martin
Interviewing Carole on the Live Talks stage is her friend, musical powerhouse and 11-time Grammy Award winner Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds, who’s written and produced more than 26 number-one hits. His triple-platinum breakthrough album, Tender Lover, launched him into international superstardom in 1989. Last year’s Return of the Tender Lover was his first solo album in seven years.