The 2025 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books (LATFOB), held on April 26–27 at the University of Southern California (USC), was a significant cultural event that brought together a diverse array of participants and marked its 30th anniversary with a vibrant celebration of literature, culture, and community. The festival is known for attracting a large crowd each year. For instance, the 2024 festival drew over 150,000 attendees, and the 2025 event featured more than 550 writers, experts, and storytellers, along with hundreds of exhibitors.
The festival featured over 100 ticketed author events, children’s storytelling sessions, poetry readings, book signings, and more than 400 exhibitor booths. Notable participants in the 2025 festival included authors such as Stacey Abrams, Jon M. Chu, Amanda Gorman, Chelsea Handler, Ibram X. Kendi, and Rebecca Yarros, among many others. The festival’s success was also attributed to the generous involvement of volunteers who assisted with various aspects of the event, including welcoming attendees, staffing author events, and supervising book signings.
LATFOB 2025 emphasized accessibility and community involvement. General admission was free, with select programming requiring tickets. The festival’s partnership with the Department of Cultural Affairs ensured that a wide range of activities were available to attendees of all ages and backgrounds, fostering a welcoming environment for literary enthusiasts and families alike.
As LATFOB celebrates three decades of literary celebration, the 2025 festival underscores the importance of storytelling in shaping culture and community. With its diverse programming and commitment to accessibility, the festival continues to be a premier event for book lovers and cultural aficionados. The success of this year’s event sets a promising precedent for future festivals, ensuring that the tradition of literary celebration will continue to thrive in Los Angeles.
LATFOB 2025 provides a unique opportunity to explore new voices, groundbreaking ideas, and thought-provoking works of art. This year, one of the most anticipated entries is “Dreams That Never Were” by Greg Messel, which is being showcased in the Book Gallery. This book offers an intimate look at how the paths we envision for ourselves often diverge, not through failure alone, but through the unpredictable twists of fate. Deeply human and emotionally stirring, Dreams That Never Were invites readers to reflect on their own dreams, the ones achieved—and the ones left behind.
Dreams That Never Were by Messel is a poignant exploration of lost aspirations, untold stories, and the resilience required to live beyond disappointment. Through a series of compelling narratives or a richly woven novel (depending on the exact format), Messel paints an emotional landscape where dreams, both grand and small, confront the harsh realities of life.
Greg Messel grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and now lives on the Puget Sound in Edmonds, Washington with his wife Jean DeFond. “Dreams That Never Were” is his 11th novel and is a historical fiction account of a young reporter caught up in the events surrounding the assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. Greg has also written a series of mystery novels set in San Francisco in the 1950s. He has lived in Oregon, Washington, California, Wyoming, and Utah and has always loved writing, including stints as a reporter, columnist and news editor for a daily newspaper.
He covered Wyoming politics for several years including interviews with people like Alan Simpson and Dick Cheney. Greg won a Wyoming Press Association Award as a columnist and has contributed articles to various magazines. Greg left the newspaper business and worked in Portland, Oregon for Pacificorp as a planning and budgeting manager. He left the corporate world in 2008 and began writing novels full-time.
The story weaves through the lives of characters whose hopes were once bright, but whose realities took them elsewhere. Some characters are on the cusp of greatness only to be sidetracked; others must abandon childhood fantasies for responsibilities they never anticipated. Messel skillfully explores how people adapt, mourn, and find new meaning in the aftermath of unfulfilled dreams. The narrative is at once heartbreaking and inspiring, offering a tapestry of human experiences that highlight both vulnerability and strength. Whether through a young artist, a seasoned dreamer, or a family weighed down by generational expectations, the book captures the universality of unachieved aspirations.
“Dreams That Never Were” is a good book to read because it resonates with something deeply familiar to every reader: the bittersweet realization that not every dream will come true, and that is okay. Messel’s compassionate storytelling turns potential sadness into a celebration of perseverance and transformation. Readers will find solace, inspiration, and perhaps even healing within its pages.
The book serves as a mirror, encouraging readers to honor their own journeys, complete or incomplete. With its beautiful prose, relatable themes, and emotional depth, Dreams That Never Were is a timeless exploration of what it truly means to live a full life, even when the script changes unexpectedly.
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