With each new “abbriev” and addition to the lexicon of lolspeak, the collective literacy of the country plummets ever so slightly. Children in the year 2025 won’t know who Shakespeare is, but they’ll livetweet their toilet training. Right, everybody? Or maybe reading isn’t dying, and the problem lies with certain folks crying wolf - the same talking heads, by the by, who tried to worry us into water barrel investment prior to Y2K. Either way, those alarm bells are sounding, and Time magazine’s cover story on Jonathan Franzen called “the American literary novelist” a “perennially threatened species.” Uh oh. more ›

Last night's Texas Medal of Arts awards honored former First Lady Laura W. Bush for her work with the Texas Book Festival and the President’s Committee on the Arts in Humanities, filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, and KLRU-TV's Austin City Limits program, among many others. more ›

Supporters of Westbank Community Library gathered this past weekend to break ground on the new library to be named in honor of our current First Lady. When complete, "Laura's Library" will offer stunning views of the surrounding hill country, a fancy courtyard with stone seating carved to resemble books, and, most appropriately, a drive-up book window. More photos are available at the official website. more ›

This weekend, while many of our friends are shaking their fists across town at the Fun Fun Fun Fest, the bookworms among us will climb the Capitol steps to get our “shhh!” on at the Texas Book Festival. We’ve waited all year for this, the biggest literary event in Austin. All the great local writers will be on hand, along with a smattering of nationally recognized authors. For anyone looking for a thorough introduction to... more ›

As it gets closer to Halloween for LAist, a contributer recollects her tale of staring down the serial killer, Richard Ramirez, otherwise known as the Night Stalker. Must think happy thoughts -- okay, free organic chocolate chip cookies for Los Angeles -- now that's a happy thought. Other happy Los Angeles thoughts include an interview with Jack Kehler of The Big Lebowski (he was the Dude's landlord), a beautiful and magical photographic moment in Venice... more ›

Trustees at the Westbank Community Library recently announced that their new branch, scheduled for opening sometime next year, will be named in honor of first lady Laura Bush. more ›

It's just been announced that President Clinton is coming back to Austin. He's scheduled to deliver the convocation address at UT's LBJ School of Public Affairs on May 20. UT President William Powers had this much to say: "The LBJ School was formed as an expression of President Johnson's faith in government to serve democracy by building a more just society. It is fitting that this year's convocation speaker at the LBJ School is a... more ›

Yesterday morning Indiana finally joined the rest of us in our switch to Daylight Savings Time. We still haven't fully switched over and are walking around in a haze today. Jill Carroll came home to the States yesterday. She has spoken out some about her captors in Iraq, saying that they forced her words during captivity. Some Travis County officials think that we should put the toll roads up for a vote. Austin's only... more ›

Last night, first lady Laura Bush was spotting dining at Santa Rita, a relatively new locally-owned eatery. Our sources tell us that she ordered a margarita, but we haven't confirmed that said margarita caused her to smile her famous "i'm on anti-depressants" smile. more ›