Skylight Books Celebrates Charles Bukowski's Birthday, 8/16

Skylight Books (1818 N. Vermont in Los Feliz) will celebrate what would have been the 94th birthday of literary legend Charles Bukowski (born August 16, 1920). Skylight Books, recently named one of the best bookstores in America by USA Today, will throw a party on Saturday, August 16 at 5pm.

The evening will feature writers Jerry Stahl, Richard Lange, and Dan Fante, reading excerpts of their favorite Bukowski works. A birthday cake and tasty beverages will also be served, thanks to sponsor, Ecco, who just published new editions of three of Bukowski's most popular novels.

Charles Bukowski is one of America's best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in 1920 in Andernach, Germany, to an American soldier father and a German mother, and brought to the United States at the age of three. He was raised in Los Angeles and lived there for fifty years. He published his first story in 1944 when he was twenty-four and began writing poetry at the age of thirty-five. He died in San Pedro, California, on March 9, 1994, at the age of seventy-three, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp.

Jerry Stahl is the author of the narcotic memoir Permanent Midnight and Perv-a Love Story, both Los Angeles Times bestsellers, as well as the acclaimed novels Pain Killers, Plainclothes Naked, and I, Fatty. He has written extensively for film and television.

Richard Lange is the author of the story collection Dead Boys, which received an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the novels This Wicked World and Angel Baby. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and his fiction has appeared in Best American Mystery Stories 2004 and 2011. He lives in Los Angeles.

Dan Fante is the author of the memoir Fante, the novels 86'd, Chump Change, Mooch, and Spitting Off Tall Buildings, and several books of poetry, short stories, and plays. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and son.

The event is on August 16 at 5pm. It's free and open to the public.

Skylight Books is located at 1818 N. Vermont in Los Feliz (cross is Franklin), 323-660-1175.