Times columnist to speak in La Cañada

It is time to head to the nearest library or bookstore. The La Cañada Flintridge OneCityOneBook committee has confirmed that Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez will attend its city-wide book discussion on Oct. 25. Lopez’s nonfiction work, “The Soloist,” was announced as the OneCityOneBook 2009 book selection in May.

“The Soloist” grew out of a 2005 encounter between Lopez and Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, a middle-aged schizophrenic living on the streets of downtown Los Angeles. Through months of investigation, which unfolded in Lopez’s twice-weekly newspaper column, the journalist learned that Ayers was once a promising classical musician and a former Julliard School student who suffered through years of unsuccessful psychiatric treatment before landing on Skid Row. The book, which was made into a movie in 2008, details the plight of poverty and homelessness which so many mentally ill individuals suffer.

Mathew Rose, a research librarian at the La Cañada Flintridge Library and a member of the OneCityOneBook committee, said Lopez’s book was selected because of its powerful story line, and because it fosters discussion about critical issues in the local community.

“We thoroughly enjoyed the book as a committee, and personally I really enjoyed it,” Rose said. “It was a great, inspirational story and it got into many issues that are pertinent to our city, and our community.”

Committee member Kay Bahrami said it was easy to reach a consensus on Lopez’s book, but it a little bit more challenging to secure his visit.

“He is very busy,” Bahrami said. “And the book was very popular last spring He was going to Tokyo, and he was going here and he was going there. He had been at Vroman’s [Bookstore] earlier in the year, and one of our members happened to talk to him, and asked him if he could do this. He said, ‘Yes, contact me later.’ We contacted him and it was his super busy season, so it took a little while to settle that yes, he was coming.”

Many La Cañadans follow Lopez closely in the Los Angeles Times, Bahrami said, and now they will have the opportunity to meet him in person.

“It is just nice to have real readers, who a lot of these people are, get to meet an author and get to hear him and find out why he writes and why he does what he does,” Bahrami said.