As part of the Echo Park shop hop—an early holiday neighborhood extravaganza along Sunset Blvd., during which local shops and galleries welcome shoppers with a music, art, and retail specials—Stories Books and Café welcomes Paul Koudounaris, author of The Empire of Death (Thames and Hudson: 2011). Dr. Koudounaris will be showing original photos from his book, and also offering a slideshow and discussion of some of the historic, bone-decorated sites he visited in compiling his unique tome of macabre art, which entered the UK Amazon lists as the best seller among religious history and social and cultural anthropology books. For five years the author traveled the world to document the decoration of religious shrines with human bones, chronicling incredible sites, many of which are not open to the public and have never before been photographed. Among other tribulations, in the course of completing his research, he was pursued by malevolent spirits, handcuffed to a table in a striptease bar by a prurient monk, forced to undergo a religious pilgrimage and exorcism, and arrested by the Austrian police, and fantastical travel anecdotes combined with his slideshow of extraordinary images promises to provide the fodder for a memorable event.

Date: Dec. 10, 2011

Time: 7:00

Address: Stories Books and Café, 1716 West Sunset Blvd • Los Angeles (Echo Park) 90026• CA
[213] 413-3733

The photos from the Empire of Death will be up at Stories through January 10.