5 MORE BEST PLACES IN LA TO READ A BOOK

El Matador State Beach | Photo: Yuri Hasegawa

1) ROMANCE - EL MATADOR

It's easy to daydream of being swept away on a romantic adventure when you're reading a sizzling romance novel at El Matador State Beach. Located about 10 miles northwest of Malibu, this secluded pocket beach has rocky shores, robust waves and some of the clearest water in L.A. But don’t be deterred by the lack of facilities or the rugged path to the shore - once you're there, you’ll find it’s the perfect place to imagine a romantic rendezvous in one of the hidden coves.

2) SCI-FI - ACADEMY MUSEUM

 C-3PO at the Academy Museum
Photo: @paulydavid1, Instagram

Opened in September 2021, the spectacular Academy Museum of Motion Pictures houses more than 13 million objects in a 300,000 square-foot campus designed by Pritzker Prize winning architect Renzo Piano. Pull up a chair in the shadow of the "Death Star" (aka the Sphere Building), nosh on a breakfast burrito from Fanny's, and get lost in Octavia E. Butler's Kindred.

Sci-fi fans will love Inventing Worlds and Characters, located on the third floor of the Stories of Cinema exhibit - get up close to icons like R2-D2, C-3PO, E.T. and artifacts from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, Terminator 2, Jurassic Park and many more.

3) SHAKESPEARE - THE OLD ZOO

 "Twelfth Night" | Photo: Independent Shakespeare Co., Facebook

The Los Angeles Zoo was originally located at a different site and opened in 1912 as the Griffith Park Zoo. The original zoo closed when the Los Angeles Zoo opened in November 1966. Located off Griffith Park Drive, the abandoned Griffith Park Zoo is known today as the Old Zoo, with its cagesROMANCE - EL MATADOR

It's easy to daydream of being swept away on a romantic adventure when you're reading a sizzling romance novel at El Matador State Beach. Located about 10 miles northwest of Malibu, this secluded pocket beach has rocky shores, robust waves and some of the clearest water in L.A. But don’t be deterred by the lack of facilities or the rugged path to the shore - once you're there, you’ll find it’s the perfect place to imagine a romantic rendezvous in one of the hidden coves.

4) SPIRITUALITY - SELF-REALIZATION FELLOWSHIP LAKE SHRINE

Mahatma Gandhi World Peace Memorial at the Self-Realization
 Fellowship Lake Shrine Photo: Yuri Hasegawa

Bring your dog-eared copy of The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success to the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine, which is tucked away on a lush, ten-acre site in the Pacific Palisades a few blocks from the Pacific Ocean. Founded by Paramahansa Yogananda in 1950, the Lake Shrine offers a lakeside Meditation Garden with shrines and waterfalls, a hilltop Temple with weekly services and meditations, a retreat for silent renewal, and an ashram for monks of Self-Realization Fellowship. The Mahatma Gandhi World Peace Memorial is a "wall-less temple" that features a thousand-year-old stone sarcophagus from China, which holds a portion of Gandhi's ashes in a brass and silver coffer. Elvis would make frequent visits to the Lake Shrine and became close with Sri Daya Mata, the worldwide leader of the Self-Realization Fellowship for over 55 years.

5) SPY - WENDE MUSEUM

The Surveillance Project | Photo: Wende Museum

If you're a fan of Ian Fleming or John Le Carre, the perfect reading spot is the courtyard at the Wende Museum, located at the Armory in Culver City. What began as one man's quest to preserve Cold War era artifacts has turned into a full-fledged institution. Around the time the Berlin Wall fell, Justin Jampol was studying Russian and East European history at Oxford. When Communism collapsed, no one seemed to care about the statues, plates, figurines, posters and paintings of the Soviet empire. Jampol was able to scoop up many of them cheaply or for free. The result is a collection of more than 100,000 bits of Cold War ephemera, including Stasi Espionage Equipment, busts of Lenin, track suits from the East German Olympic team, decorative ceramic plates, vinyl recordings, menus from Soviet cruise ships and material from Checkpoint Charlie, the border crossing station between East and West Berlin. and stone caves left nearly intact. There are tables, BBQ grills and a large grass area for picnics - one exhibit area even has tables within the enclosure, without a doubt one of the most unique places in the world for a picnic. Anchorman fans will recognize the stone pens as the setting for the climactic scene with the Kodiak bear.

Founded in 1998, the Independent Shakespeare Co. has presented its summer festival at Griffith Park since 2010. Taking place from June to September, the Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival is performed on a stage that’s built on the slopes of the Old Zoo’s natural amphitheater. Audiences arrive early to picnic and enjoy pre-show performances by local artists, the Salon Series (conversations about the intersection of Shakespeare and contemporary culture), and family-friendly, pre-show workshops about the plays. All of these summer events are entirely free.

* Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board 633 West 5th Street, Suite 1800, Los Angeles, CA 90071, USA info@discoverlosangeles.com