“Building a Second Brain,” a book about creating a productive space for yourself in the digital world, has won acclaim and landed on the Wall Street Journal’s bestsellers list.
There’s a renewed wave of right-wing activists trying to remove books they deem offensive from libraries and schools nationwide, but in Long Beach, there have been just three challenges in the last 15 years.
After six years of business on Second Street and 23 years as a bookstore, Apostrophe Books is set to close February 6, according to the owners, puncturing a hole in the hearts of independent bookstore lovers in Long Beach and beyond.
Samantha Argosino has felt this pang continually when, often finding herself wide awake at 11 while working or reading, wanting to be out—and working or reading. Not necessarily socialize but be around others, to be inspired, to people watch. This is precisely why she is creating the Brass Lamp, what will soon become Long Beach’s first book bar.
For Jeff Slayton, dancing was an escape. As he moved about the stage, he could forget how his father had touched him the night before. He could forget the feeling of his mother’s cold hand slapping him across the face. He could forget about his homosexuality not being accepted and the girlfriend he used as a cover-up. He could forget about everything. Slayton, a Long Beach resident and retired Cal State Long Beach dance professor, documents his life struggles in his powerful autobiography, Dancing Toward Sanity, which was released earlier this year.
Long before the LGBT community reaped the benefits of the Stonewall revolution, there was one place and one place only they could commune: the bar.
