Three Approaches to Writing Biography
Three new biographies-on Frank Oppenheimer, Frank Gehry, and Joseph Papp-offer completely different strategies for revealing complex and accomplished lives.
Mar 26, 2010•1 hr 12 min
ALOUD @ Los Angeles Public Library
ALOUD is the Library Foundation of Los Angeles' award-winning literary series of live conversations, readings and performances at the historic Central Library and locations throughout Los Angeles.
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Episodes
How Many Billboards? Visual Rights to the City
A panel of outdoor media professionals and legal experts focus on the city's recent debate surrounding LED billboards and illegal signage, raising the notion of free speech as it relates to images on the street along the way. Presented in conjunction with the exhibition \"How Many Billboards? Art In Stead\" at The MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House, Feb. 5 - March 12, 2010.
Mar 25, 2010•1 hr 32 min
The Things They Carried
A reading and conversation honoring the 20th anniversary of one of America's most important novels, a book as vitally important for anyone interested in the Vietnam War as it is for those concerned with the craft of storytelling.
Mar 19, 2010•1 hr
So Much For That
This enchanting novel by Shriver, author of the bestseller We Need to Talk about Kevin, is a witty and timely exploration of the failure of our health-care system.
Mar 18, 2010•1 hr 12 min
The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives
Mlodinow - a physicist with the grace of a born storyteller - illuminates the improbable ways that chance and probability affect our daily lives.
Mar 12, 2010•1 hr 16 min
From the Barrio to the 'Burbs: Crossing Borders & Finding Home in the New Los Angeles
In his remarkable and ambitious new memoir, The Opposite Field, Katz tells a story of good love and failed love, of Los Angeles and Portland and Nicaragua and Mexico and a father and son in search of a place to play baseball.
Mar 11, 2010•1 hr 2 min
The Union of their Dreams: Power, Hope and Struggle in Cesar Chavez's Farm Worker Movement
Drawing on a trove of original documents, tapes, and interviews to chronicle the rise of the United Farm Workers during the heady days of civil rights struggles, the antiwar movement, and 60s and 70s student activism, Pawel weaves together a powerful portrait of a people and their movement.
Mar 05, 2010•1 hr 2 min
The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them
Want to know Isaac Babel's secret influence on the making of \"King Kong\"? Literally and metaphorically following the footsteps of her favorite authors, Batuman combines fresh readings of the great Russians, from Pushkin to Tolstoy, along with some sad and funny stories from the people's lives they've influenced-including her own.
Mar 04, 2010•1 hr 10 min
Free Fall: Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy
Nobel Prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz explains the current financial crisis-and the coming global economic order.
Feb 25, 2010•1 hr 19 min
The Great Equations: Breakthroughs in Science from Pythagoras to Heisenberg
Crease, a science historian and philosopher, takes us on a tour of ten of the most important victories in our long struggle to understand the world we live in.
Feb 18, 2010•1 hr 4 min
A Windfall of Musicians: Hitler's Emigres and Exiles in Southern California
Crawford, a musicologist, reveals the uniquely vibrant era when Southern California became a hub of unprecedented musical talent.
Feb 17, 2010•1 hr 6 min
The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050
What will America look like in 2050? Kotkin, a renowned social and economic trend analyst, argues that the key to America's economic recovery is its robust population growth.
Feb 12, 2010•1 hr 6 min
Jesus Was a Liberal
McLennan, Dean for Religious Life at Stanford (and inspiration for Doonesbury's Rev. Scot Sloan) gives voice to millions of liberal Christians and builds solid bridges to all sides of the cultural divide.
Feb 09, 2010•1 hr 15 min
Shush! Growing Up Jewish Under Stalin
Draitser, Professor of Russian at Hunter College (CUNY), resurrects-with great humor-the world of his Jewish childhood in the Soviet Union.
Feb 04, 2010•1 hr 9 min
Parallel Play: Growing Up with Undiagnosed Asperger's
Page, now a Pulitzer-winning music critic, offers a riveting portrayal of what it is like to live in a psychological world that few understand.
Feb 03, 2010•1 hr 15 min
The Swan Thieves: A Novel
In her new novel The Swan Thieves, the author of the bestseller The Historian offers a story of obsession, history's losses, and the power of art to preserve human hope.
Jan 29, 2010•48 min
An Evening with T.C. Boyle
The settings for Boyle's bold new stories range from a California suburb terrorizedby a mountain lion, to Napoleonic France where a feral child is captured naked in the forest. He reads and discusses his new collection, Wild Child as well as his novel The Women about the life of Frank Lloyd Wright.
Jan 27, 2010•1 hr
The Value of Nothing: Markets and Democracy in a Time of Crisis
Patel (author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System) asks us to reconsider how democracy might be the route by which we can reclaim markets so that they work for rather than against social change.
Jan 21, 2010•1 hr 14 min
The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right
Gawande, a bestselling author and surgeon, takes us on an intellectual adventure in which lives are lost and saved and one simple idea makes a tremendous difference.
Jan 15, 2010•1 hr 18 min
Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals
Grandin offers remarkable insights into animal behavior from her unique position at the intersection of autism and science. In her new book, she aims to revolutionize our ideas about what animals want and need-on their terms, not ours.
Jan 13, 2010•59 min
Based on Rumors and Secrets: The World of Palestine, New Mexico
The new play by L.A.'s premiere Chicano performance group, Culture Clash, molds an intensely personal story into galvanizing theatricality. Join us for a discussion of the Culture Clash creative process that mixes humor and cold fact to unforgettable effect.
Dec 15, 2009•1 hr 18 min
POPS: A Life of Louis Armstrong
Drawing on a cache of important new sources unavailable to previous biographers,?The Wall Street Journal's drama critic and arts columnist paints a gripping portrait of Louis Armstrong's world and his music.
Dec 09, 2009•59 min
An Evening with Twyla Tharp
In this audience-collaborative talk, one of America's greatest choreographers shares what she's learned from working with some of the most gifted people on the planet.
Dec 08, 2009•1 hr 19 min
Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy
Griffin inquires into the \"interior life of democracy\" and the divide between theory and practice, continuing the unique \"social autobiography\" she began with A Chorus of Stones: A Private Life of War.
Dec 04, 2009•1 hr 13 min
The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War
From the author of Flags of our Fathers and Flyboys, a startling new look at the events that set the stage for WWII.
Dec 02, 2009•56 min
Lit: A Memoir
A new memoir by the author of The Liar's Club, about getting drunk and getting sober; becoming a mother by letting go of a mother; learning to write by learning to live.
Nov 18, 2009•1 hr 5 min
Everything You Wanted to Know about Polish Theater (But Were Afraid to Ask)
Join us for a fascinating discussion on the Polish theater tradition and what makes Polish theater so vital today.
Nov 17, 2009•1 hr 14 min
Poetry Reading and Panel Discussion
Three distinctive voices in contemporary American poetry read their work and engage in an informal group discussion on their craft.
Nov 13, 2009•1 hr 24 min
Sonata Mulattica
In a lyric narrative inspired by history and imagination, the former U.S. Poet Laureate re-creates the life of a biracial nineteenth-century virtuoso violinist.
Nov 10, 2009•1 hr 22 min
An Evening with Orhan Pamuk Part II
In announcing the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy said of Orhan Pamuk: his \"quest for the melancholic soul of his native city, Istanbul, led him to discover new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures.\" Pamuk reads from his new novel, The Museum of Innocence, and discusses his life and work with Reza Aslan (How to Win a Cosmic War).
Nov 06, 2009•48 min
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