ALOUD @ Los Angeles Public Library
823 episodes - English - Latest episode: 3 months 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.
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Episodes
Fledgling
November 03, 2005 03:00 - 1 hour - 63.7 MBButler, one of the world's great science fiction writers, explores the limits of "otherness" in her new novel-the story of a young, amnesiac girl whose alarmingly unhuman needs and abilities lead her to a startling conclusion.
Jane Smiley: Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel
September 23, 2005 03:00 - 56 minutes - 51.9 MBTwo great writers celebrate the novel—from the 1,000 year-old Tale of Genji to Zadie Smith’s recent bestseller White Teeth; from classics to little-known gems.
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
June 19, 2005 03:00 - 1 hour - 61.6 MBWhile he can remember the plot of every book he's ever read, the hero of Eco's raucous new novel no longer knows his own name.
An evening with poet W.S.Merwin
April 05, 2005 03:00 - 1 hour - 55.8 MBIn a career spanning five decades, W.S. Merwin, lauded poet, translator, and environmental activist, has become one of the most widely read poets in America.
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy and the End of the Republic
February 19, 2004 03:00 - 1 hour - 62.3 MBThe author of the prophetic national bestseller \"Blowback,\" offers a vivid look at the new caste of professional warriors who have infiltrated multiple branches of government, for whom the manipulation of the military budget is of vital interest. In conversation with journalist WARREN OLNEY (\"To the Point\").
A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Story of Forgiveness
January 31, 2003 03:00 - 57 minutes - 52.5 MBA psychologist on South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission asks, "What does it mean when we discover than the incarnation of evil is as frighteningly human as we are?" In Conversation with Louise Steinman
War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals
October 10, 2002 03:00 - 1 hour - 38 MBAn in-depth look at the impact of Vietnam on post-Cold War U.S. foreign policy by a distinguished Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.
Ursula K. Le Guin: The Telling
September 27, 2000 03:00 - 51.8 MBIn this recording from ALOUD's early years, Ursula K. Le Guin reads and discusses her 2000 science fiction novel The Telling, the first follow-up to the Hainish Cycle since 1974's The Dispossessed. The work explores themes of memory and forgetting in the context of political and religious conflicts between a corporate, totalitarian government and the indigenous resistance. The story hinges on the preservation and protection of ancient traditions of storytelling, locally referred to as "the Te...
Poetry Reading
May 08, 2000 03:00 - 1 hour - 79.6 MBThis podcast, taken from the ALOUD archive, is a discussion from 2000's \"Words In the World\" series; a curated series of artists whose stories, essays, poems, novels, and films illuminated a global culture in crisis and celebration, extending their imaginations into the vast territory of the heart and the world.
Robert Pinsky: What Shall We Teach the Young?
December 13, 1999 03:00 - 1 hour - 55.6 MBRobert Pinsky answers the question, "What Shall We Teach the Young?," touching on art and poetry.This program was presented by ALOUD's The Big Questions Series.
Why Choose to Love?
December 06, 1999 03:00 - 1 hour - 73.9 MBThis podcast, taken from the ALOUD archive, is a discussion from 1999's \"The Big Questions\" series. A celebration of writing, reading, and public debate, \"The Big Questions\" features visionary thinkers in the arts, sciences, and humanities who are asking new questions, challenging accepted theories, and reframing ancient dialects.
John Updike, LAPL Literary Awards 1999
May 01, 1999 03:00 - 20 minutes - 14.9 MBThe great American writer John Updike received the Los Angeles Public Library's Literary Award in 1999. The award, given annually, is granted to a writer for his or her contribution to literature. Updike joins past winners Norman Mailer, Harper Lee, Susan Sontag, and Seamus Heaney in receiving this honor. The following recording is taken from his acceptance speech at the Library Foundation of Los Angeles' Annual Awards dinner.
Are You Somebody?
February 06, 1999 03:00 - 1 hour - 56.9 MBA novel about of a woman who refused to shrink from a life alone, and who comes to terms with the love she learns to share with both men and women.
Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book
February 16, 1998 03:00 - 1 hour - 103 MBThis podcast, taken from the ALOUD archive, is a discussion from 1998's \"Racing Towards the Millenium: Voices From the American West,\" a predecessor to ALOUD.
Bernard Cooper
June 02, 1997 03:00 - 1 hour - 123 MBBernard Cooper writes eloquently about the difficult landscape of memory as it pertains to sexuality, loss, AIDS, and family. He is the author of the collection of memoirs Maps to Anywhere, the novel A Year of Rhymes, and a recent collection of memoirs, Truth Serum. He received the 1991 PEN/Ernest Hemingway Award and a 1995 O. Henry Prize. He has taught at Antioch/Los Angeles, for the Masters of Professional Writing program at USC, at the UCLA Writer’s Program, and he has been a core faculty ...
Kathleen Norris
May 19, 1997 03:00 - 1 hour - 127 MBKathleen Norris is the author of the 1993 bestseller Dakota: A Spiritual Geography. Her newest book, The Cloister Walk, is structured around two nine-month residencies at a Benedictine monastery. In it, she links the disparate worlds of 4th-century desert monks and modern-day Benedictines to epiphanies in the tiny South Dakota town where she and her husband moved in 1974. Renowned author Dr. Robert Coles lauded Norris's work in The New York Times Book Review: "Her writing is personal and epig...
Dagoberto Gilb
May 05, 1997 03:00 - 117 MBDagoberto Gilb, of Anglo and Mexican heritage, calls both El Paso and Los Angeles home and is a union carpenter with a degree in philosophy. Gilb's rich experiences translate into stories that range the width of his native desert lands. He has been called "a powerful, necessary voice in American literature whose emergence defies any pigeon-holing." He is a winner of the James D. Phelan Award in Literature, the Whiting Award, the Dobie-Paisano Fellowship from the Texas Institute of Letters, an...
Terry Tempest Williams
April 28, 1997 03:00 - 1 hour - 87.6 MBTerry Tempest Williams is one of the most knowledgeable and elegant voices of the American West. She brings to her writing, in the words of the poet W.S. Merwin, "the dedicated observation of a naturalist and the abiding innocence and excitement of an open heart." Williams is a Naturalist-In-Residence at the Utah Museum of Natural History in Salt Lake City. A member of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Williams is committed to protecting Americas Red Rock Desert. She is a recipient of a ...
Anne Lamott
April 14, 1997 03:00 - 1 hour - 109 MBAnne Lamott is the author of five novels, most recently Crooked Little Heart (1997). In addition, she wrote the bestseller Operating Instructions (1993), a highly personal account of life as a single mother during her son's first year; and Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, "a candidly drawn map of a writer's home terrain: dazzling peaks and weird, dark cellars." Lamott has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and has taught writing at U.C. Davis and at many writing conferen...
Ivan Doig
March 24, 1997 03:00 - 1 hour - 94.1 MBIvan Doig has described the Pacific Northwest in a number of well-known nonfiction books and novels, including Bucking the Sun (1996), Heart Earth (1993), Winter Brothers (1980), This House of Sky (1984), and the trilogy English Creek (1984), Dancing at the Rascal Fair (1987), and Ride with Me, Mariah Montana (1990). Born in White Sulpher Springs, Montana, Doig has been a ranch hand, newspaperman, magazine editor, and writer. Doig received the Distinguished Achievement Award of the Western Li...
City of Refuge: The Exiled Writer in Los Angeles
March 10, 1997 03:00 - 1 hour - 107 MBThis program includes readings and discussions among writers in exile from their native countries. Majid Naficy, an Iranian poet who fled Khomeini's regime at great risk, has lived in Los Angeles since 1985. He has published three collections of poems and holds a doctorate in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures from UCLA. Chinese novelist Anchee Min was born in Shanghai in 1957. At seventeen, she was sent to a labor collective, where talent scouts discovered her and recruited her to work as a...
Sherman Alexie
February 24, 1997 03:00 - 1 hour - 95.3 MBIn 1997, Sherman Alexie had just been named one of America's "Best Young Novelists" by GRANTA Magazine and had won the American Book Award. Alexie's work resonates with the collision between white and Native American cultures and while his subjects are serious, Alexie himself is often scathingly funny. In his work Indian Killer, Alexie creates a rich, panoramic portrayal of contemporary Seattle using a mystery story to tell some uncomfortable truths about Indian-white relations and racism in ...
David Mas Masumoto
February 03, 1997 03:00 - 47 minutes - 65.1 MBDavid Mas Masumoto is a third-generation Japanese-American peach and grape farmer. His book Epitaph for a Peach: Four Seasons on My Family Farm is a chronicle of family, farm travails, and his struggle to market an old variety of peach. In addition to being a writer and farmer, Masumoto is a farm activist and a member of the California Council for the Humanities. His book was awarded the Julia Child Cookbook Award for best book in the Literary Food Writing category. He lives in Del Rey, Calif...