Katie Orphan
Read Me, Los Angeles: Exploring L.A.’s Book Culture
(Prospect Park Books, March 2020)
Los Angeles Times Bestseller
One of Smithsonian Magazine‘s “Ten New Travel Books to Read When You’re Stuck at Home”
Recommended on Entropy Mag‘s list of “Quarantine Reading: Books You Shouldn’t Forget to Buy”
A witty and insightful book on the culture, people, humor, and zeitgeist of L.A.
Read Me, Los Angeles is an illustrated guidebook to all things literary L.A. past and present, featuring interviews with current Los Angeles writers, maps, day trips to follow the paths of your favorite fictional characters from Marlowe to Weetzie Bat, lists to expand your L.A. reading horizons, and a look at where writers have lived and worked in the City of Angels.
Praise for Read Me, Los Angeles
“The book is a chatty guide to literary tourism in the city but it has surprising depth…While Read Me is a light romp, it has the potential to open new doors to familiar territory.”
—Alta Magazine
“She has created a reference guide that is deserving of a spot on the bookshelf of any bookworm.”
—Smithsonian Magazine Online
Katie Orphan shares “The Essential Crime Novels of Los Angeles” for CrimeReads
Katie Orphan spoke to The New York Times on how the pandemic has impacted the release of her debut, READ ME, LOS ANGELES
Read Katie Orphan’s essay “Finding Octavia Butler’s Pasadena” on Lit Hub
Listen to Katie Orphan discuss READ ME, LOS ANGELES on Writer’s Bone
Read Katie Orphan’s interview with Los Angeles Public Library
Katie Orphan is the former manager of The Last Bookstore in downtown Los Angeles, where she worked for a decade. The co-author of The Last Bookstore’s guide to downtown L.A. and the author of the recurring feature “Drinking with the Ghost” for the Los Angeles Review of Books, she’s been a longtime literary explorer. She earned a BA in English literature from Whitworth University and an MA in literature and history from the University of Sheffield, where she focused on travel writing and literary tourism. A board member of the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association, Orphan lives in Los Angeles.