Author of ‘L.A. Coroner’ to Speak at Little Tokyo Library

Join author Anne Soon Choi in her discussion of “L.A. Coroner: Thomas Noguchi and Death in Hollywood” (Third State Books), the first-ever biography of Dr. Thomas Noguchi, former chief medical examiner-coroner of Los Angeles County, who performed the autopsies of Marilyn Monroe, Robert F. Kennedy, Natalie Wood, and hundreds of other notable personalities.

The book event will be held Saturday, Aug. 9, from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Little Tokyo Branch Library, 203 S. Los Angeles St. (at Second Street) in Little Tokyo.

Choi is a historian and professor of Asian American studies and university administrator at CSU Northridge. Her essay “The Japanese American Citizens League, Los Angeles Politics, and the Thomas Noguchi Case,” on which this book is based, won the 2021 Francis Wheat Prize from the Historical Society of Southern California. Choi has previously served on the faculty of Swarthmore College and the University of Kansas and is an Andrew Mellon Fellow and an American Council of Learned Societies Digital Ethnic Studies Fellow. She lives and writes in Los Angeles.

Choi will appear in conversation with Naomi Hirahara, an Edgar Award-winning author of multiple mystery series, including the Mas Arai series, which have been published in Japanese, Korean, and French. A former journalist with The Rafu Shimpo, she has also written nonfiction history books, curated exhibitions, and authored the historical mysteries “Clark and Division” and its USA Today bestselling follow-up, “Evergreen.”

Sponsored by the Little Tokyo Historical Society and the Los Angeles Public Library.

To RSVP, email ltokyo@lapl.org or sign up at the Reference Desk. For ADA accommodations, call (213) 228-7430 at least 72 hours prior to the event.

Articles for you