What would bring “Breaking Bad” evil star Bryan Cranston together with long-time Cheech and Chong stoner comic Cheech Marin?
Despite their on-screen weirdness, they both love literature.
The Los Angeles Times Thursday announced the lineup for the 22nd annual Festival of Books, the nation’s largest literary festival, which takes place April 22-23 at USC.
Educational activist Rueben Martinez, western novelist Thomas McGuane and 11 literary works published in the last year will be honored with the 37th annual Book Prizes on April 21 as the weekend festival kicks off.
Martinez will receive the Innovator’s Award for his work that honors the contribution of Latino writers.
“We are thrilled to recognize Rueben Martinez with the 2016 Innovator’s Award for his contribution to the literary life of Southern California,” Times book editor Carolyn Kellogg said. “By sharing books in his barbershop in Santa Ana he showed how books can be celebrated anywhere, and how essential they are to all our lives. Rueben is a dedicated advocate for the love of literature wherever it might take hold.”
Martinez’s passion for reading inspired him to open a bookstore in his Santa Ana barbershop in the early 1990s. It evolved into a nationally renowned center of Chicano/Latino literature and art, and lives on Thursday through a learning center that houses Martinez’s book collection at Chapman University, where Martinez is a Presidential Fellow.
McGuane will get the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement in writing about the American west. The Montana resident has written 10 novels, three collections of short stories, and authored the screenplay for 1976’s “The Missouri Breaks,” starring Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson.
As for the festival itself, more than 500 authors and celebrities are scheduled to appear, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Margaret Atwood, T.C. Boyle, Michael Connelly, Bryan Cranston, Ayesha Curry, Roxane Gay, Dave Grohl, Virginia Grohl, Chris Hayes, Tippi Hedren, Marlon James, Clinton Kelly, Rep. John Lewis, Cheech Marin, Danica McKellar, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Joyce Carol Oates, Kelly Oxford, Chuck Palahniuk, George Saunders, Scott Simon, Nancy Silverton, Angie Thomas, Stephen Tobolowsky and Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, with more to be announced soon.
The weekend will also feature live music, art installations, cooking demonstrations and children’s events.
Most festival events are free to the public, but passes that provide reservations for up to 20 events, and tickets to the Book Prizes events, can be found at www.events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks.
— City News Service