New book all about reading

Thursday, June 22, 2006 | 7:10 a.m.

Because she grew up in a town where sin is in, one might think that first-time novelist Karen Mack would have based her book about addiction on drinking, drugs, gambling or sex.

Instead, the Las Vegas-native-turned-Los Angeles-TV producer created a character with a less dangerous but equally obsessive habit: reading.

"Literacy and Longing in L.A.," co-written with former Los Angeles Times journalist Jennifer Kaufman, is a typical chick lit novel about sorting out life and love - but with a literary twist. When life gets too tough, main character Dora turns to books to help escape her harsh reality, and the novel includes pages of author references, from Tolstoy to Nora Roberts.

It's a book for book lovers about someone who obsessively loves books. And it's flying off bookstore shelves.

Mack and Kaufman are just wrapping up a West Coast publicity tour, and will read from the book at a signing tonight at 7 at the Clark County Library's Jewel Box Theater, 1401 E. Flamingo Road.

Their novel has been out only three weeks but is already No. 5 on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list. On Monday, it earned a rave review in The New York Times, which said its "fusion of bibliomania and romantic comedy is appealingly offbeat."

Everyone can relate to getting lost in a book, and "Literacy and Longing" appeals to chick lit fans and higher-brow literati, says Suzanne Scott, coordinator for the library's performing arts center.

Books are a therapy tool she can relate to, says Mack, whose father, the late Jerry Mack, was a major Las Vegas developer.

A "book bender" got her through some hefty baby blues about 10 years ago in Sun Valley, Idaho. She and her family had rented a cabin in the mountains, and while everyone else was skiing, Mack was stuck inside, caring for her new baby girl.

Depression set in, until Mack noticed a row of worn, yellowing historical romance novels on the shelf. She picked one up - her first entry into the world of romance novels - and was immediately hooked. She read almost nonstop for the next five days.

"It was like heroin," Mack recalls. "I couldn't get enough of it."

Kaufman says that she got through her own dark times by using books as therapy, too. She and Mack recently hosted a publicity contest through a Seattle newspaper in which they judged essays about how books saved people's lives. One woman wrote that reading Erica Jong's "Fear of Flying" persuaded her to leave her husband.

"It was like that, one essay after another, and it just knocked you over," Kaufman says. "People really look at what they read and use it to analyze their own lives."

Mack and Kaufman met in the 1980s working on a CBS television special, "Best Catches in the World," which Mack produced and Kaufman wrote. It was about single life in America, and was based on a magazine article by Kaufman. The women became fast friends.

Both voracious readers, they came up with the novel's story line together, but Mack always intended for Kaufman to write it. They ended up doing it together, got an agent through Mack's contacts and had four offers to publish it within days of handing over the manuscript.

Mack, a UCLA law school graduate, got her start in television as an entertainment lawyer. She won a Golden Globe as a producer for "One Against the Wind," a 1991 Hallmark Hall of Fame special.

For information about tonight's signing, call 507-3459.