ALOUD @ Los Angeles Public Library
829 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 month ago - ★★★★★ - 49 ratingsALOUD 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.
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace
January 13, 2011 03:00 - 1 hour - 72.9 MBA Palestinian doctor's response to the tragedy of losing four family members to an Israeli shelling has won him humanitarian awards around the world. Rather than revenge, he calls for people in the region to come together in understanding, respect, and peace.
NPR at 40: What is the Future of Public Radio?
January 12, 2011 03:00 - 1 hour - 64.6 MBNews and stories from NPR have helped shape our world. Join two veteran journalists to explore how public radio might respond to tectonic shifts in the media landscape.
Interfaith Sing ALOUD
December 16, 2010 03:00 - 59 minutes - 54.4 MBFrom 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 faith and folk traditions, with perhaps some surprising new lyrics set to familiar tunes. No singing experience necessary, a willingness to participate is the only requirement. Appropriate for all ages. Let us Sing!
Sacred Activism: Putting Spiritual Knowledge into Action
December 08, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 62.4 MBHarvey, 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 action.\" He discusses his dramatic life conversion from mysticism to mystic activism with the Rector of Pasadena's All Saint's Church-known for its focus on social justice initiatives.
Finding God in the City of Angels: Film Excerpts and Discussion
December 03, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 62.7 MBFilmmakers Jessum and Joseph explore the meaning and value of inter-faith dialogue with selected representatives of the more than 40 devotional communities in Los Angeles profiled in their award-winning new documentary.
An Evening with Salman Rushdie
December 01, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 74.8 MBIn 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, the real and the imagined, freedom and authority. Join us for an evening with one of the world's most celebrated authors.
Franklin and Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage
November 30, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 66.8 MBIn a groundbreaking new account, Rowley describes the remarkable courage and lack of convention-private and public-that kept FDR and Eleanor together.
Ziggurat
November 23, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 73.4 MBBalakian's new collection of poems explore the aftermath of 9/11 through layered perspectives of myth, history, and personal memory; a panoramic work of contemporary witness in a new age of American uncertainty.
Phantom Noise: An evening with Solider-Poet Brain Turner
November 19, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 68.7 MBTurner'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 lyric power and compassion.
Cleopatra: A Life
November 17, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 58.3 MBA Pulitzer-Prize willing biographer boldly separates fact from fiction to rescue the queen from her own hazy legend, subtly and originally probing classical sources to yield a fresh, thrilling account of a remarkable woman.
Tablet and Pen: Literary Landscapes from the Middle East
November 10, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 68.1 MBThis long-awaited work, assembled by Reza Aslan, features literature from countries as diverse as Morocco and Iran, Turkey and Pakistan, many presented in English for the first time. Celebrate this landmark publication with a stellar cast who will read from a diverse selection of authors- from Khalil Gibran to Naguib Mahfouz, from Orhan Pamuk to the grand dame of Urdu fiction, Ismat Chughtai.
Must you Go? My Life with Harold Pinter
November 09, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 63.9 MBThe 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-three years of marriage.
Great House: A Novel
November 03, 2010 03:00 - 59 minutes - 54.3 MBThe 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 the lives it passes through.
Los Angeles in Maps: A Multi-media Conversation
October 29, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 69.4 MBA 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. Often imagined of as a kind of paradise, the actual reality of the city is far more complex. Join us for cartographic history of the City of Angels from the colonial era to the present, with Creason, author and LAPL map librarian and Waldie, cultural critic and author of Holy Land.
Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work
October 27, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 65.5 MBDanticat, the acclaimed Haitian-American novelist, tells the stories of artists who create despite, or because of, the horrors that drove them from their homelands and that continue to haunt them.
Writing in Latino: A National Conversation/ Escribir en Latino: Una Conversacion Nacional
October 22, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 66.7 MBWhat is Latino literature? Who writes it? Who reads it? Explore a rich literary tradition of five centuries of writing from two continents and 10 countries, from letters to the Spanish crown, to U.S. urbanites who grow up speaking Spanglish. Join this national conversation about the contribution of Latino writing to American culture.
The Turquoise Ledge
October 21, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 73.4 MBOne of the most gifted and best known Native American writers today offers this highly original self-portrait, steeped in Native American storytelling traditions, that weaves together family/personal memoir with an accounting of the creatures and landscapes that inform her vision of the world.
Chacona, Lamento, Walking Blues: Bass Lines of Music History
October 20, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 73.6 MBThe New Yorker music critic leads an audio tour of several hundred years of music history, from Renaissance lute songs to Led Zeppelin, showing how certain motifs of celebration and lament recur in many different contexts and cultures.
Blood Dark Track
October 15, 2010 03:00 - 59 minutes - 54.3 MBO'Neill, a former barrister and PEN/Faulkner award-winning author of the novel Netherland has written a brilliant inquiry propelled by the unexplained incarcerations of both his grandfathers (one Irish, one Turkish) during the Second World War.
By Nightfall
October 13, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 57.9 MBSet 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 meaning of beauty and the place of love in our lives.
The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen
October 08, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 70.9 MBAppiah, a leading philosopher (\"America's Socrates\") and a professor at Princeton University, demonstrates that honor is the driving force in the struggle against man's inhumanity to man.
Gay, Straight and the Reason Why
October 06, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 68.7 MBWhat causes a child to grow up gay or straight or bisexual? Neuroscientist LeVay summarizes where the quest for a biological explanation of sexual orientation stands today, taking us on a tour of laboratories that specialize in genetics, endocrinology, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, evolutionary psychology and more.
National Lampoon: Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead
October 05, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 81 MBJoin us for a mind-boggling multi-media tour through the early days of an institution whose alumni left their fingerprints all over popular culture: Animal House, Caddyshack, Saturday Night Live, Ghostbusters, SCTV, Spinal Tap, In Living Color, Ren & Stimpy, and The Simpsons. Long before there was The Onion and Comedy Central, there was the National Lampoon.
The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam
October 01, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 70.2 MBMore than half of the worlds' 1.3 billion Muslims live along the tenth parallel, as do roughly sixty percent of the world's 2 billion Christians. Griswold, award-winning poet and investigative journalist, traveled for seven years on the tenth parallel, examining the complex relationship of religion, land, oil; local conflicts and global ideology; politics and contemporary martyrdom, both Islamic and Christian.
A World Without Islam?
September 29, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 77.1 MBJoin us for an illuminating journey through history, geopolitics, and religion to investigate whether Islam is indeed the cause of some of today's most important international crises and how we might move conversations beyond religious and ideological divides.
Common as Air: Revolution, Art, and Ownership
September 24, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 60.3 MBHyde--MacArthur Fellow and author of the ground breaking study of art and commerce The Gift--offers a stirring defense of our cultural commons, that vast store of art and ideas we inherited from the past which continues to enrich the present.
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
September 23, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 71.1 MBA Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter chronicles a watershed event in American history-- the decades-long migration of African Americans from the South to the North and West--through the stories of three individuals and their families.
My Hollywood
September 22, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 58.2 MBThe new novel by the celebrated author of Anywhere But Here tells the story of two women whose lives entwine and unfold behind the glittery surface of Hollywood.
An Evening with Jonathan Franzen
September 17, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 73.3 MBIn Freedom, his first novel since The Corrections Franzen comically and tragically captures the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the temptations and burdens of liberty, and the heavy weight of empire.
Making Our Democray Work: A Judge's View
September 16, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 73.6 MBFascinating stories of key Supreme Court decisions, told from a unique perspective, illuminate this original and accessible theory of the United States Supreme Court's responsibility and integrity.
Drugs, a Daughter, and Death: Mark Twain's Final Years
July 28, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 64.7 MBTrombley, the preeminent Twain scholar at work today (and the president of Pitzer College), cracks open the enduring mystery of Mark Twain's final decade to reveal the true story of Isabel Lyon, the \"forgotten woman\" who haunts the official Twain narrative.
Reweaving the Social Fabric of Skid Row
July 23, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 83.7 MBA panel discussion and conversation about a public art theater project that chronicles the emergence of a permanent community and culture in what has been perceived as a transient Skid Row. Join the social and artistic visionaries who have contributed to reweaving the social fabric of Skid Row.
Sing ALOUD
July 21, 2010 03:00 - 46 minutes - 43 MBJoin us in a celebration and exploration of traditional American vocal music, drawn from several rich sources of community singing- from 19th century Sacred Harp shape note hymnals, to songs from the oral tradition of the Appalachian mountains, to glee club-style rounds. No prior singing experience or musical knowledge necessary. All voices and ages are welcome-the only requirement is a willingness to sing.
Hamlet's Blackberry
July 16, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 70.8 MBHow do the technologies we use every day affect our state(s) of mind? One of the country's leading commentators on the information culture ponders the conundrum of connectedness, and offers a new philosophy of life in a world of screens.
Performance/Anxiety
July 14, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 68.4 MBTwo L.A.-native novelists read and discuss fiction, theatre, magic spells, cats, MFAs, and some other stuff.
Truth in Fiction: Navigating History
July 09, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 69.2 MBTwo brilliant young writers-both daughters of the 1960s and '70s civil rights, black power and feminist political movements-read and discuss the inspiriation for their fiction.
Newer Poets XV
July 01, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 78.9 MBIntroducing six accomplished poets from the Los Angeles literary world in a lively showcase of poetic voices and styles.
Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace
June 30, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 67.6 MBThe author of Love and Other Impossible Pursuits offers a sane and bracingly honest perspective on the challenges of motherhood.
The Black Body
June 24, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 71.3 MBBlack, white and biracial contributors to a brave and unprecedented anthology take on the challenge of interpreting the black body's dramatic role in American culture. What does it mean to have, or love, a black body?
Inventing L.A.: The Chandlers and Their Times
June 23, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 57.8 MBA book and a documentary film chronicle how a family built a paper to greatness and how the confluence of a family feud and a cultural-economic cataclysm changed media history.
James Workman: Heart of Dryness: How the Last Bushmen Can Help Us Endure the Coming Age of Permanent Drought
June 18, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 57.7 MBWorkman, a skilled storyteller, uncovers the universal politics of water and draws wisdom from tragedy in the Kalahari desert-opening our eyes to the ongoing struggle to secure water for life on earth.
John Ashbery's Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror
June 16, 2010 03:00 - 59 minutes - 54.8 MBA staged reading of John Ashbery's great, dense work-one of the defining poems of the 20th century. Six readers, accompanied by projected text and image, illuminate and bring to life Ashbery's tonal shifts and juxtapositions. Directed by Jim Paul with technical direction by Beth Thielen.
Timur and the Dime Museum
June 11, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 71.9 MBOperatic Vaudeville with a Bohemian Attitude Blending a tenor's haunting vocals with cabaret-inspired reinventions of songs both old and new. Featuring selections by Russian Gypsy songwriter Vadim Kozin from the 1930s to songs by Radiohead and David Bowie, this eclectic performance will provide the eyes and ears with beautiful and slightly dark entertainment.
Advancing Urban Agriculture in Los Angeles
June 04, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 79.4 MBThis panel of experts will present and analyze the urban agriculture programs emerging in Los Angeles, with a focus on key topics such as policies, challenges, trends and the programs currently in place.
That Old Cape Magic
June 03, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 68.9 MBThe Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls and Nobody's Fool offers a novel of deep introspection and great comedy-the story of a marriage and of all the other ties that bind.
WAR
May 27, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 79.4 MBThe author of A Perfect Storm turns his empathetic eye to a single platoon through a 15-month tour of duty in the most dangerous outpost in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley.
Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective
May 26, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 62.7 MBA deft and exhaustively researched account of a near-forgotten chapter of Newton's extraordinary life. Levenson, a documentary filmmaker and head of the Graduate Program in Science Writing at MIT, allows us to see how Newton's amazing mind worked when dealing with practical rather than theoretical questions.
Crossing the Mandelbaum Gate: Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978
May 18, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 72.4 MBMelding memoir and history, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author fuses his early life in Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Egypt with an account of the American experience in the Middle East offering intimate insights into the Arab-Israeli tragedy.
Tattoos on the Heart: Stories of Hope and Compassion
May 14, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 76.1 MBFather Greg (affectionately known as G-dog), pastor of Dolores Mission in Boyle Heights since 1986, has made it his mission to help at-risk youth. His remedy for what he calls \"a global sense of failure\" is radical and simple: boundless, restorative love. His book, filled with sparkling humor and generosity, gives a window on gangs in the context of spirituality.
An evening with Isabel Allende
May 11, 2010 03:00 - 1 hour - 70 MBIn her new novel, Island Beneath the Sea, the master storyteller introduces yet another unforgettable woman-a slave and concubine determined to claim her own destiny against impossible odds.