ALOUD @ Los Angeles Public Library
Activity Overview
Episode publication activity over the past year
Episodes
"The Man in the Empty Boat", A Special One Man Performance
23 Mar 2012
Contributed by Lukas
As he approached midlife, bestselling author and Los Angeles local Mark Salzman (Iron and Silk, The Soloist, Lying Awake) confronted a year of catastr...
Eisenhower: The White House Years
21 Mar 2012
Contributed by Lukas
There may be more to \"Like Ike\" than we realize. Veteran journalist and editor-at-large of the Los Angeles Times, Jim Newton offers a bold reapprais...
From the Outside Looking In: Writers Finding Their Place in Los Angeles
16 Mar 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Literary Los Angeles has always existed apart from our country's publishing capital--3,000 miles apart, to be exact. What does this distance offer wri...
The Rocket's Red Glare: Politics in Art and Poetry
14 Mar 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In an election year driven by worldwide public demonstrations, congressional stagecraft and conflicting narratives, rhetoric, aesthetics and politics ...
Thinking the Twentieth Century
07 Mar 2012
Contributed by Lukas
What is the power of historical perspective? How can we learn from the past to reform our society of the future? The late historian Tony Judt reframed...
Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone
29 Feb 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Independents unite! In a powerful assessment of an unprecedented social change, a renowned sociologist chronicles the biggest demographic shift since ...
An Evening with Philip Levine, U.S. Poet Laureate
24 Feb 2012
Contributed by Lukas
The 18th Poet Laureate reads from his work and discusses life, literature, and his time in the Golden State. Presented in collaboration with th...
From Exile to Home: Los Angeles Literary Life 1945 to 1980
22 Feb 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In the years since World War II, the literature of Los Angeles, like much about the city, has shifted, becoming less a literature of exile than one of...
Two Novelists on Memory, Identity, and Place
17 Feb 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Percival Everett's Assumption, a baffling murder mystery and Steve Erickson's These Dreams of You, an enigmatic search for an adopted black daughter's...
Keeping Your Brain Healthy: Preventing Alzheimer's
14 Feb 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Take control of your brain, come learn from the authors of Memory Bible about cutting-edge research on this devastating brain disease and the progress...
The Obamas
09 Feb 2012
Contributed by Lukas
The Washington correspondent for the New York Times leads us on a tour deep inside the White House as the Obamas grapple with their new roles, raise c...
An Evening with Wael Ghonim, "Revolution 2.0: The Power of the People is Greater Than the People in Power"
07 Feb 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Wael Ghonim was a little-known 30-year-old Google exec when he launched a Facebook campaign to protest the death of an Egyptian man at the hands of se...
Changing Lives: Gustavo Dudamel, El Sistema, and the Transformative Power of Music
03 Feb 2012
Contributed by Lukas
El Sistema, the music education program that nurtured Gustavo Dudamel's musical talent, now reaches children in Los Angeles and cities around the worl...
The Man Within My Head
01 Feb 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In his new memoir, Pico Iyer, one of our most astute observers of inner journeys, chronicles his obsession with the writer Graham Greene, what it mean...
The Barbarian Nurseries: A Novel
27 Jan 2012
Contributed by Lukas
A live-in maid in the conflicted Torres-Thompson household is accused of kidnapping the family's children, when in fact, she is taking them by bus...
Why Mahler? How One Man and Ten Symphonies Changed Our World
24 Jan 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In his new biography, Lebrecht explores the life of the composer who straddled two musical worlds- born into the age of high romanticism and most prol...
Ayad Akhtar and Amy Waldman: Two Novelists on The Lives of American Muslims Before and After 9/11
19 Jan 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Akhtar's American Dervish and Waldman's The Submission, both explore the lives of American Muslims, one in pre-9/11 suburbia and the other in post-9/1...
An Odyssey Through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing
18 Jan 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Acclaimed journalist and poet Luis J. Rodríguez, who chronicled his harrowing journey from gang member to a revered figure of Chicano literature, dis...
Dark Carols: A Christmas Cycle (World Premiere)
07 Dec 2011
Contributed by Lukas
An original song cycle exploring the regrets, fears, and remembered losses that arise in this fell season. This year, the unsung and the unsaid, the ...
Queen of America: A Novel
02 Dec 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Award-winning novelist Luis Alberto Urrea explores the intrepid life of his great-aunt, a healer and \"Saint of Cabora\" who flees to Arizona when she...
It Chooses You
30 Nov 2011
Contributed by Lukas
In procrastination mode while finishing the screenplay for her second film, Miranda July obsessively read the Pennysaver. Who was the person selling C...
Physics on the Fringe: Smoke Rings, Circlons, and Alternative Theories of Everything
22 Nov 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Challenging our concept of what science is; how it works; and who it is for, outsider physicist Jim Carter discusses with science writer Margaret Wert...
An Evening with Joan Didion
17 Nov 2011
Contributed by Lukas
A literary icon for Los Angeles and a cultural visionary for the rest of America, the acclaimed author of The White Album, The Year of Magical Thinkin...
The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick
15 Nov 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Philip K. Dick dedicated his life to questioning the nature of reality and perception, the malleability of space and time, and the relationship betwee...
From Tijuana to Gaza to Bosnia: Rethinking Borders in a 21st Century World
09 Nov 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Artists, scholars, and cultural activists from Europe, Mexico, and the United States convene in Los Angeles-home to migrants, refugees, and exiles fro...
What It's Like to Go to War
04 Nov 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Having spent the last 40 years examining his experiences in Vietnam, Marlantes, the decorated war veteran and bestselling author (Matterhorn: A Novel ...
Hollywood Left and Right
03 Nov 2011
Contributed by Lukas
From Chaplin to Schwarzenegger, movie stars have played a leading role in shaping the course of American politics. Join us for a conversation about ho...
Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race, and Finding Home
28 Oct 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Twenty years after her testimony in the Clarence Thomas confirmation mesmerized the nation, Hill shifts her focus from the public forum to the private...
Zone One: A Novel
27 Oct 2011
Contributed by Lukas
In MacArthur Award-winning Whitehead's satiric take on the post-apocalyptic horror novel, a plague has sorted humanity into two types: the infected an...
Becoming Dr. Q: My Journey from Migrant Farm Worker to Brain Surgeon
21 Oct 2011
Contributed by Lukas
How did a 19-year-old undocumented migrant worker toiling in the tomato fields of central California become an internationally renowned neurosurgeon? ...
¡REVOLUCIÓN! An Internationalist Homage to the Mexican Revolution
16 Oct 2011
Contributed by Lukas
From the Russian steppes to Spanish and French anthems for love, liberty and freedom, ¡REVOLUCIÓN! looks at a pivotal historic event-- the M...
Feeding on Dreams: Confessions of An Unrepentant Exile
13 Oct 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Dorfman, one of Latin America's great writers and ally to President Allende, fled Chile in the wake of the military coup in 1973. His passionate memoi...
The Forgotten Waltz
12 Oct 2011
Contributed by Lukas
The Irish author of The Gathering (Man Booker Prize) discusses her new novel-set in suburban Dublin with an unforgettably spirited heroine- that explo...
From Nickerson Gardens to National: An End in Sight to Violence in Inner-City America?
07 Oct 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Award-winning criminologist Kennedy, who orchestrated the \"Boston Miracle\", a revolutionary method for gang intervention in the mid-1990s, writes ab...
Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War
04 Oct 2011
Contributed by Lukas
In a personal account of the communal power of women to change history, the founder of the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace chronicles the unthi...
Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America
28 Sep 2011
Contributed by Lukas
In a provocative and controversial history, Winkler, a constitutional lawyer, disputes that guns--not abortion, race, or religion--are at the heart of...
1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created
27 Sep 2011
Contributed by Lukas
From the best-selling author of 1491-a study of the pre-Columbian Americas- comes a deeply engaging new history that explores the most momentous biolo...
The Dolphin in the Mirror: Exploring Dolphin Minds and Saving Dolphin Lives
21 Sep 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Reiss, a leading expert on dolphins (adviser for the Oscar-winning film, The Cove), offers both a scientific revelation and an emotional eye-opener in...
One Day It'll All Make Sense
17 Sep 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Common, the Grammy award-winning hip-hop artist and actor was born Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr. on Chicago's rough South Side. In his soulfully candid memo...
Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness
16 Sep 2011
Contributed by Lukas
In this sequel to Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, Alexandra Fuller returns to Africa and her unforgettable family in a multilayered narrative that...
Conscious Capitalism: Start Something That Matters
08 Sep 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Mycoskie, the man behind TOMS Shoes and Goldhirsh, founder of GOOD, discuss alternatives for creating work that simultaneously fulfills our hunger for...
Leo Braudy: The Hollywood Sign
22 Jul 2011
Contributed by Lukas
It took fifty years and more before a former real-estate billboard atop Mt. Lee became the world-wide symbol of Hollywood. How did it happen? A master...
Fire Monks: Wildfires in California
20 Jul 2011
Contributed by Lukas
When a massive wildfire blazed across California in June 2008, five monks risked their lives to save Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. Pyne-- wildfire e...
L.A. Crime Writers: "We Murder, so You Don't Have To..."
15 Jul 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Four veteran Los Angeles crime writers discuss the genre they love and the stories that keep them up at night. Paula L. Woods (Charlotte Justice myste...
Cannibal Island: An Artist Lecture with Short Films, Curious Images and Free Conundrums
13 Jul 2011
Contributed by Lukas
McMillen--part sculptor, installation artist, printmaker, cultural anthropologist and L.A. native-- has been creating environmental installations with...
Newer Poets XVI: A Reading
08 Jul 2011
Contributed by Lukas
In this popular, long-running event, six talented Los Angeles poets present short readings of their work. Hosted by Suzanne Lummis, Los Angeles Poet...
Huxley on Huxley: Panel Discussion and Film Excerpts
22 Jun 2011
Contributed by Lukas
The Hollywood home of Laura and Aldous Huxley, psychedelic pioneer and author of Brave New World, was a hotspot for the West Coast artistic avant-gard...
Alina Simone: A Tragic-comic Journey Through the Indie Rock World
17 Jun 2011
Contributed by Lukas
In her wickedly bittersweet and hilarious novel You Must Go and Win, the Ukrainian-born, critically acclaimed singer traces her bizarre journey throug...
We Are Here: We Could Be Everywhere
15 Jun 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Are the media arts a sensitizing force? What is media art's capacity to respond to political conditions? Cultural practitioners and scholars explore...
Catastrophe, Survival, Music and Renewal: New Orleans Culture Post-Katrina
07 Jun 2011
Contributed by Lukas
HBO's Treme (from the creators of The Wire) is set in the aftermath of the greatest man-made disaster in American history. Join us for a discussion of...
Adam Hochschild, "To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918"
03 Jun 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Hochschild (King Leopold's Ghost), one of America's best narrative historians, examines one of the greatest and most puzzling examples of civi...
Melissa Faye Greene, "No Biking in the House Without a Helmet"
01 Jun 2011
Contributed by Lukas
In the eight years after her four children left home, Melissa Greene and her husband adopted five children from orphanages in Bulgaria and Ethiopia. S...
Gary Snyder, "Song of the Turkey Buzzard: The Poetry of Lew Welch"
27 May 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Join Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Snyder and friends for an evening of spoken word to celebrate the work of Beat poet Lew Welch, on the 40th anniversar...
John Sayles, "Some Time in the Sun"
20 May 2011
Contributed by Lukas
In his monumental new novel, Sayles-the great indy filmmaker-travels from the Yukon gold fields, to New York's bustling Newspaper Row, to Wilmingt...
Francisco Goldman, "Say Her Name"
18 May 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Written in the aftermath of his wife's death, Goldman's tale weighs the unexpected gift of love against the blinding grief of loss.
Gary Shteyngart, "Super Sad True Love Story"
13 May 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Shteyngart, one of the New Yorker's "Best Under 40" novelists, offers a devilishly funny cyber-apocalyptic vision of an America future t...
Jamaica Kincaid, "See, Now, Then"
27 Apr 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Kincaid, former New Yorker staff writer and author of more than ten books, is known for her candid and emotionally-charged writing. She reads from her...
The Origins of Political Order: A Conversation
22 Apr 2011
Contributed by Lukas
How did tribal order and society evolve into the political institutions of today? Drawing on a vast body of knowledge-- two celebrated scholars discus...
Jacques D'Amboise, "I Was a Dancer"
21 Apr 2011
Contributed by Lukas
One of America's most celebrated classical dancers writes of his years with Balanchine, Robbins, LeClercq, and Farrell-the irresistible story of a...
Joyce Carol Oates, "A Widow's Story"
15 Apr 2011
Contributed by Lukas
An intimate work by one of America's great writers chronicles the unexpected death of her husband of forty-eight years and its wrenching, surprisi...
Rebecca Skloot, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks"
13 Apr 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Skloot's stunning narrative about the use and misuse of medical authority delves into the life of a poor Southern tobacco farmer named Henrietta L...
The Use and Abuse of Literature
07 Apr 2011
Contributed by Lukas
What is literature? How might we restore it to the center of our lives? Garber, Harvard English professor and Ulin, book critic for the Los Angeles Ti...
The Nature of Observation
06 Apr 2011
Contributed by Lukas
How does a poet view time, the slant of light on a windowsill? How might a theoretical cosmologist approach those same phenomena? Hirshfield and Carro...
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, "The Dressmaker of Khair Khana"
30 Mar 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Lemmon, a former ABC news reporter, tells the remarkable true story of an unlikely entrepreneur who, against all odds, saved her family and inspired h...
David Brooks, "The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement"
25 Mar 2011
Contributed by Lukas
The New York Times columnist uses revolutionary discoveries in neuroscience and cognition to paint a surprisingly moving picture of how we can educate...
Art Collectives and the Current State of Literary Culture
23 Mar 2011
Contributed by Lukas
A reading and panel discussion Moderated by Susan Salter Reynolds, L.A. Times book reviewerWith Chuck Rosenthal, Alicia Partnoy, Ramón Garcia, & ...
Colin Thubron, "Climbing Through Memory and Magic in Tibet"
18 Mar 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Two of the world's most respected travel writers discuss pilgrimages to exceptional places, mining one's personal history, and the holiest mou...
Annie Murphy Paul, "Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives"
16 Mar 2011
Contributed by Lukas
What makes us who we are? An award-winning science journalist and a leading scientific investigator delve into the rich history of ideas about how we&...
Shepard Fairey, "MAYDAY: The Politics of Street Art"
08 Mar 2011
Contributed by Lukas
The Los Angeles-based artist and designer behind the ubiquitous Obey Giant stencil and the now legendary Obama HOPE poster, talks about his life, his ...
Joan Schenkar and Kathleen Chalfant,"The Talented Miss Highsmith"
02 Mar 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Patricia Highsmith's dazzling, dangerous novels entered the American consciousness in classic films such as Strangers on a Train and The Talented ...
Destiny and Desire: A Novel
25 Feb 2011
Contributed by Lukas
One of literature's masters offers a wild, riveting saga that explores passion, magic and corruption in modern Mexico, mixing ancient mythologies with...
How the West Was Lost
23 Feb 2011
Contributed by Lukas
One of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people and best-selling author of Dead Aid reveals the economic myopia of the West and the radical solutio...
The Short Sory and the Art of Not Knowing
17 Feb 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Two brilliant young writers (among the New Yorker's \"Twenty Under Forty\" noted fiction writers) read and discuss their work and the ro...
Irrepressible: The Life and Times of Jessica Mitford
11 Feb 2011
Contributed by Lukas
She eloped with Winston Churchill's nephew, severing her ties to privilege. She fought in the Spanish Civil War and joined the Freedom Riders in Montg...
Is There a Conservative Assault on the Supreme Court?
09 Feb 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Chemerinsky-- founding dean at U.C. Irvine School of Law-- and Eastman-- Kennedy Chair in Law at Chapman University-- debate whether the country's hig...
What's the Matter with Capitalism?
04 Feb 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Barnes, successful entrepreneur (Working Assets Long Distance) and Appleby, eminent historian (The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism) dis...
I Love a Broad Margin to My Life
26 Jan 2011
Contributed by Lukas
In a voice that is humble, elegiac, and practical, the award-winning author of The Woman Warrior contemplates the meaning of family, the politics of w...
The Tell-Tale Brain
21 Jan 2011
Contributed by Lukas
From autism to basic self-awareness, \"the Marco Polo of neuroscience\" traces the strange links between neurology and behavior, probing the mystery o...
The Imperfectionists
19 Jan 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Rachman's witty novel-- about the the ragtag staff of an English language newspaper in Rome facing financial oblivion-- is based on his own experienc...
I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace
13 Jan 2011
Contributed by Lukas
A Palestinian doctor's response to the tragedy of losing four family members to an Israeli shelling has won him humanitarian awards around the world. ...
NPR at 40: What is the Future of Public Radio?
12 Jan 2011
Contributed by Lukas
News and stories from NPR have helped shape our world. Join two veteran journalists to explore how public radio might respond to tectonic shifts in th...
Interfaith Sing ALOUD
16 Dec 2010
Contributed by Lukas
From Auld Lang Syne to Henei Ma Tov, from Sanskrit devotionals to gospel spirituals, join us for an evening of songs new and old drawn from various fa...
Sacred Activism: Putting Spiritual Knowledge into Action
08 Dec 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Harvey, a poetic and passionate mystic and writer, suggests that what unites all religions \"is a truth that the service of God is putting love into a...
Finding God in the City of Angels: Film Excerpts and Discussion
03 Dec 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Filmmakers Jessum and Joseph explore the meaning and value of inter-faith dialogue with selected representatives of the more than 40 devotional commun...
An Evening with Salman Rushdie
01 Dec 2010
Contributed by Lukas
In his new Novel, Luka and the Fire of Life, written for his youngest son, Rushdie explores the relationships between fathers and sons, life and death...
Franklin and Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage
30 Nov 2010
Contributed by Lukas
In a groundbreaking new account, Rowley describes the remarkable courage and lack of convention-private and public-that kept FDR and Eleanor together.
Ziggurat
23 Nov 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Balakian's new collection of poems explore the aftermath of 9/11 through layered perspectives of myth, history, and personal memory; a panoramic work ...
Phantom Noise: An evening with Solider-Poet Brain Turner
19 Nov 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Turner's poems reflect his experiences as a soldier--seven years in the US Army, including a year as infantry team leader in Iraq--with penetrating ly...
Cleopatra: A Life
17 Nov 2010
Contributed by Lukas
A Pulitzer-Prize willing biographer boldly separates fact from fiction to rescue the queen from her own hazy legend, subtly and originally probing cla...
Tablet and Pen: Literary Landscapes from the Middle East
10 Nov 2010
Contributed by Lukas
This long-awaited work, assembled by Reza Aslan, features literature from countries as diverse as Morocco and Iran, Turkey and Pakistan, many presente...
Must you Go? My Life with Harold Pinter
09 Nov 2010
Contributed by Lukas
The acclaimed historian offers a love story, an intimate account of the life of a major artist, and an exercise in self-revelation, based on thirty-th...
Great House: A Novel
03 Nov 2010
Contributed by Lukas
The author of the bestseller The History of Love offers a soaring novel about a stolen desk that contains the secrets, and becomes the obsession of th...
Los Angeles in Maps: A Multi-media Conversation
29 Oct 2010
Contributed by Lukas
A land of palm trees and movie stars, sunshine and glamour, Los Angeles inhabits a place of the mind as much as it does a physical geographic space. ...
Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work
27 Oct 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Danticat, the acclaimed Haitian-American novelist, tells the stories of artists who create despite, or because of, the horrors that drove them from th...
Writing in Latino: A National Conversation/ Escribir en Latino: Una Conversacion Nacional
22 Oct 2010
Contributed by Lukas
What is Latino literature? Who writes it? Who reads it? Explore a rich literary tradition of five centuries of writing from two continents and 10 coun...
The Turquoise Ledge
21 Oct 2010
Contributed by Lukas
One of the most gifted and best known Native American writers today offers this highly original self-portrait, steeped in Native American storytelling...
Chacona, Lamento, Walking Blues: Bass Lines of Music History
20 Oct 2010
Contributed by Lukas
The New Yorker music critic leads an audio tour of several hundred years of music history, from Renaissance lute songs to Led Zeppelin, showing how ce...
Blood Dark Track
15 Oct 2010
Contributed by Lukas
O'Neill, a former barrister and PEN/Faulkner award-winning author of the novel Netherland has written a brilliant inquiry propelled by the unexplained...
By Nightfall
13 Oct 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Set among the mid-forties denizens of Manhattan's SoHo-the new novel by the Pulitzer-Prize winning author of The Hours takes a deep look at the meanin...
The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen
08 Oct 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Appiah, a leading philosopher (\"America's Socrates\") and a professor at Princeton University, demonstrates that honor is the driving force in the st...