La Review Of Books

Leo Braudy talks with host Laurie Winer about his new book Haunted: On Ghosts, Witches, Vampires, Zombies, and Other Monsters of the Natural and Supernatural Worlds; and its relevance for understanding our terrifying new post-election world. Impresario Paul Crewes drops by to recommend Michael Morpurgo's WWII yarn The Amazing Story of Adopho Tips; and we listen to Dorothy Parker's Love Song.

Paul Crewes, the new Artistic Director of the Wallis Annenberg Center in Beverly Hills, joins host Laurie Winer to discuss the tremendous possibilities for theater in Southern California. Also, author Dinah Lenney stops by to recommend two books: Marisa Silver's Little Nothing; and Nancy Reisman's Trompe L'Oeil. The show closes with a reading of Anne Sexton's poem "To a Friend Whose Work has Come to Triumph."

Screenwriter John Romano joins Laurie Winer and co-host Dinah Lenney to talk about his adaptation of Philip Roth's 1997 classic novel American Pastoral about a family torn apart amidst the turmoil of the late 1960s. The film directed by Ewan McGregor, who co-stars alongside Dakota Fanning and Jennifer Connelly, was released this past month. A wide-ranging discussion ensues, addressing Roth's relationship to the "meaning" of the 60s, family suffering, Job's suffering, and ours in the age of Trump. Also, author Simon Reynolds drops by to recommend a biography of Occultist Colin Wilson by renaissance man Gary Lachman; and Linda Balgord reads Mark Strand's Eating Poetry.

Host Evan Kindley talks with Simon Reynolds about his new book "Shock and Awe: Glam Rock and Its Legacy, from the Seventies to the Twenty-first Century." David Bowie may be Glam's greatest superstar, but figures as diverse as Roxy Music, Alice Cooper, and LA's own Sparks are also central to this most colorful and still-influential 1970's pop movement. The LA Times Jill Leovy drops by to recommend anthropologist Hortense Powdermaker's After Freedom, a study of 1920'as Mississippi; and which remains a stunning reminder of the severe oppression suffered by Black Americans under Jim Crow. This week's poetry reading is of Denise Levertov's Psalm Concerning the Castle.

Laurie Winer and co-host Medaya Ocher, managing editor of the LA Review of Books, are joined by Jessica Koslow, chef extraordinaire and creator of Sqirl, one of LA's most popular restaurants — on the occasion of the publication of Jessica's first cookbook, Everything I Want To Eat. It's the "Comfort Radio" edition of the podcast, as Laurie and Medaya build up an appetite learning the secrets behind Jessica's scrumptious creations. Leslie M.M. Blume drops by to recommend Anita Loos's brilliant comic novel from the 1920s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Judy Kaye reads ee cummings's poem "I thank God for most this amazing."

Legendary publisher and editor Robert Gottlieb talks with Laurie about his new memoir Avid Reader; reflects on his glory days at Knopf and The New Yorker; and expresses confidence about the state of writing today. Tracy Tynan offers PG Wodehouse as comfort reading for these treacherous times. Tom and Laurie launch a new poetry feature with a reading of WB Yeats The Second Coming.

This week Laurie is joined by LARB legal affairs editor Don Franzen to discuss two competing California Ballot Initiatives related to the death penalty: Proposition 62, which would put an end to the death penalty in the state, and Proposition 66, a confusing pro-death-penalty measure, which calls for speeding up executions. Stephen Rohde (from Death Penalty Focus) and legendary former District Attorney of Los Angeles County, Gil Garcetti, contribute to the clarifying conversation.

Despina Stratigakos, author of "Hitler at Home", joins Laurie, and co-host Boris Drayluk, for a wide-ranging discussion about how tasteful interior design operated as propaganda in the Third Reich, the powerful woman at the heart of that effort, Gerdy Troost, and the lessons learned for our own celebrity-saturated politics. Also, Nicholson Baker, author of Substitute: Going to School With a Thousand Kids, returns to explain his mysterious relationship to classic Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov's "Speak, Memory".

Celebrated costume designer and author, Tracy Tynan, joins Tom and Laurie to talk about her new memoir, "Wear and Tear: The Threads of My Life". The daughter of a legendary couple from London during the Swinging '60s - famed theater critic and playwright Kenneth Tynan ("Oh! Calcutta!") and actress turned author Elaine Dundy ("The Dud Avocado") - Tynan spins tales of a daringly dysfunctional, but beautifully dressed, nuclear family. LARB editor (and new father) Evan Kindley drops by to recommend "Child, the Family and the Outside World" by British Developmental Psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott, a pioneer in "object relations theory". Produced by Alan Minsky

Novelist Nicholson Baker joins Tom, Laurie, and Evan Kindley to discuss his new book, "Substitute: Going to School with a Thousand Kids," the story of Baker's time as a substitute teacher in the Maine public school system. This morphs into a fascinating discussion of pedagogy in light of the everyday realities of contemporary American public schooling and the issues modern schoolteachers confront to teach children.

Ron Arias, author of the acclaimed novel The Road to Tamazunchale, joins Tom and Laurie to discuss his new collection The Wetback and Other Stories; as well as his career in journalism and his encounters with Jorge Luis Borges and Ernest Hemingway. Also, Janice Littlejohn returns to recommend Monica Coleman's Bipolar Faith: A Black Woman's Journey with Depression and Faith.

This week Tom and Laurie talk with Lesley MM Blume about her new book 'Everybody Behaves Badly: The True Story Behind Hemingway’s Masterpiece The Sun Also Rises.' Laura Albert is back on the show after last week's brilliant interview to recommend Annie Proulx’s 'Barkskins.' Plus, Janet Fitch’s reading from her novel 'Paint it Black.'

Hosts Laurie Winer and Tom Lutz talk with Laura Albert on the eve of the cinematic debut of the documentary film about her, "Author: The JT Leroy Story." The conversation covers the story of the Albert's bestselling books, which she wrote under the pseudonym - or rather, through her avatar - "JT Leroy." It's one of the most fascinating, and controversial, tales in recent American letters.

LARB's Senior Editors Janice Littlejohn and Evan Kindley join Tom and Laurie for a pair of wide ranging conversations. First, Janice discusses the documentary film she is producing on women horn players; and then two recent articles she wrote: one about representation of people of color in Hollywood films (with a focus on a project in development about the Persian poet Rumi with Leonardo DiCaprio slated to play the muslim scholar); the second about the relationship of people of mixed race to Black American political and cultural discourse. Then, Evan Kindley discusses his book, Questionairre, a delightful study of the history of the form from its origins to its most popular contemporary incarnation - as irresistible click bait.

Political Journalist Walter Shapiro joins Seth and Tom to discuss his new book Hustling Hitler: The Jewish Vaudvillian Who Fooled thew Fuhrer; it's about Walter's Great Uncle Freeman Bernstein - one of the legendary grifters of his time. Then David Ulin discusses the satirical novel he co-authored with Paul Kolsby in the 1990s, Ear to the Ground. Recently published in book form for the first time; Ear to the Ground originally appeared in weekly serial installments in the LA Reader.

Author and Slate Editor Jessica Winter joins Seth and Laurie to discuss her novel Brake In Case Of Emergency; and all the delicious subjects that arise from writing a scathing, yet loving, satire of an all women's workplace. Plus, Jessica's reflections on Election 2016.

Laurie, Seth, and Tom talk with LA Times reporter Jill leovy about her fascinating and best-selling book on a murder case in South Los Angeles, Ghettocide. The conversation goes in-depth into some of the hottest political issues of 2016: race, policing, and our society's unequal distribution of resources. Also, Seth and Laurie address another source of political trauma, Donald Trump, in the wake of both major party conventions

Radio Hour: DNC, Kid's Corner, and Meghan Daum by LA Review of Books

This week's episode features Margaret Wappler who joins the show to talk about her new novel 'Neon Green.' Plus, your hosts discuss the Hulk Hogan lawsuit against Gawker and Peter Thiel's role in it.

This week, Seth, Laurie and Tom talk about one of Seth’s favorite topics: bullshit. The conversation ranges across a few recent newsmakers, including Jared Kushner, son-in-law of Donald Trump and owner of the New York Observer; Gay Talese, acclaimed journalist and author of the debatably non-fiction book 'The Voyeur’s Motel'; and Jonah Lehrer, former writer for The New Yorker at the center of several plagiarism scandals.