Are you going to the LA Book Festival?

It’s time for the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, and now that the brou-ha-ha has died down over the festival’s defection last year from the west side to the east, we can get down to what the festival was created to honor: writing, publishing, literature, and the fact that LA isn’t, in fact, just about movies.

Tom Lutz of the Los Angeles Review of Books will be in the mob scene this weekend, sifting through the packed two-day schedule of offerings. He talked to us on All Things Considered about how the festival will be a “noir-lover’s paradise,” and one panel in particular he’s excited about seeing, titled, “Does this book make me look fat?” (It’s about humor writing, featuring, among others, the great Merrill Markoe.)

We also discussed what purpose a book festival serves in this age of the increasingly-popular e-reader. A recent Pew study showed that almost half of all Americans read a book on a digital device over the last year. Tom says that means the zeal for reading is greater than ever.

Warren Olney will be there on Sunday moderating a panel called “Going Under? Broken Government” and KCRW’s Bookworm Michael Silverblatt will be there, too, interviewing author Susan Orlean.

Check out the full schedule here. Listen to my interview with Tom Lutz, below: