LA Review of Books

This week’s podcast is another Doubleheader, featuring interviews with Carmen Maria Machado and Jenny Zhang recorded at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. First up, co-hosts Eric Newman, Kate Wolf, and Medaya Ocher speak with Carmen Maria Machado about her heralded collection, Her Body and Other Parties, an eclectic set of fictions that both revels in, and challenges, the standard tropes of a wide variety of genres. Carmen also drops hints about what to expect from her upcoming memoir. Then poet, essayist, and storyteller Jenny Zhang stops by to talk about her approach to writing Sour Heart, a collection of coming-of-age stories about the children of recent Chinese immigrants, which also won numerous prestigious awards this past year.

Morgan Jerkins, author of This Will Be My Undoing, talks with co-hosts Eric Newman and Medaya Ocher about tackling the personal as political as a black woman author in these troubled times, nuancing what each of those terms mean. Morgan also talks about the struggle that all writers face – the voices inside our heads telling us that we can’t or shouldn’t – and how she found the balance between acknowledging vulnerability while embracing bravery. Also, Ijeoma Oluo returns to recommend Daniel Jose Older's young adult Shadowshaper series.

Wim Wenders, one of cinema's greatest living directors, drops by to tell co-hosts Medaya Ocher and Kate Wolf the astonishing story behind his new documentary Pope Francis: A Man of His Word. Given unprecedented access, Wenders witnessed the Pope walk the walk in the footsteps of his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi; his revolutionary statements on the environment and the economy flowing from his genuine love for nature and compassion for every individual. Across the interview, Wenders himself reveals a generosity of spirit not unlike his latest leading man. Also, Hanif Abdurraqib returns once more to recommend No More Nice Girls: Countercultural Essays by critic Ellen Willis.

Ijeoma Oluo, author of So You Want to Talk About Race, joined co-hosts Eric Newman and Medaya Ocher for a discussion on race in America at The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Ijeoma begins with the tale of how she became a social media superstar when she bravely highlighted a set of racist posts targeting her, and then exposed Facebook's shameful response (the company temporarily banned Ijeoma). The episode confirmed her status as a prominent truth-telling voice on the digital battlefield that is the national dialogue in the Age of Trump. Few of us ever engage in public exchanges with such high stakes; Ijeoma shares how it has impacted her as a mother, a writer, and a human being. Throughout the interview, her reflections on race, and how best to combat racism, show why she is such a brilliant champion for our time. Also, Hanif Abdurraqib, author of They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, returns to recommend the writings of one of his heroes and predecessors, Lester Bangs, collected in Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung.

This week's LARB Podcast is a master class in 21st Century power relations, as Ryan Holiday discusses his sensational new book Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue with co-hosts Eric Newman and Kate Wolf. Befitting our time, this one episode has more salacious subterfuge than your favorite serial podcast: sex tapes, the blogosphere, rival visions of LGBTQ liberation, free speech wars, the crisis of journalism, and, in the end, the overwhelming force of an oligarch's money. To top it off, Ryan didn't merely have a front row seat, he was a player in the game. Also, to celebrate Mother's Day we asked three of our favorite Moms to recommend books. Heidi Newman chose Nora Ephron's I Feel Bad About My Neck, Dr, Elena Ocher tapped Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, while Kate Wolf selected Ina May Gaskin's Guide to Childbirth.

This week's show features interviews with authors Lynell George and Michelle Dean. First up, Lynell talks with LARB Radio's Janice Rhoshelle Littlejohn about After/Image: Los Angeles Outside the Frame, her new collection of essays about, and photos of, Los Angeles. The conversation, both historical and personal, celebrates LA while mourning the fraying of communities and the decline of human-scale connection as the city grows wealthier and more cosmopolitan. Then, Michelle is joined by co-hosts Eric Newman and Kate Wolf to discuss her book Sharp: The Women Who Made An Art Of Having An Opinion; why the ten literary legends that she profiles constitute a distinct group; and how their power, and ideas, speak to the critical issues of our time.

Hanif Abdurraqib may just be the most poignant raconteur of American culture in the age of Donald Trump. Hanif joins co-hosts Eric Newman and Medaya Ocher to talk about They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, his magisterial collection of essays on the contemporary music scene; and all the pain, pleasure, promise, disappointment, pasts and presents, communities and self that he finds there. The interview, like Hanif's writing, conveys what it feels like to be awake, fully observant inside the whirlwind of America in the late twenty-teens. Also, Francisco Cantu, author of The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border, returns to recommend the work of a number of poets writing about the US-Mexico border, in particular Javier Zamora's collection Unaccompanied.

What if a highly illegal drug could be used, far more successfully than prescribed pharmaceuticals, to help people with depression and bi-polar disorder? Who would be willing not just to experiment on themselves, but also to spread the word? LARB Radio's Medaya Ocher talks with just such a brave soul, Ayelet Waldman, author of A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life. Recorded in front of a full house at Scripps College, it's a fascinating dialogue full of surprises: Ayelet relates her own personal struggles, her frustration with anti-depressants, her traumatizing years as a Federal public defender appalled by the War on Drugs, her full knowledge of the severity of the law she was breaking, the whimsical arrival of a package from Lewis Carroll, the pharmacology of LSD, the precision of micro-dosing, and then, magically, relief. Ayelet acknowledges that her social privilege (as a prosperous white woman, a Harvard Law graduate, married to Michael Chabon, herself a successful mystery writer and novelist) allowed her to take a huge risk, as such she feels compelled to announce her discovery of happier trails ahead.

What motivates a great novelist to write a children's book? Author Junot Diaz joins co-hosts Eric Newman and Kate Wolf to discuss the inspiration behind Islandborn, the story of five year-old Lola learning about her family's history and culture, beautifully illustrated by Leo Espinoza. What follows is a penetrating conversation about the severe under-representation of people of color in children's books, the long-overdue reckoning that needs to happen across society, the genius of diasporic literature, and the healing potential of stories for all ages, about all peoples, that convey universal human experience. Also, Elon Musk's SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket inspired LARB Radio's Dan Lopez to re-read, and highly recommend, Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy

How do cultural practices become established? Why do we live in the way that we do? For generations social scientists, philosophers, and even psychologists have emphasized the centrality of human rationality as the arbiter of cultural development. USC Professor of Neuroscience, Psychology and Philosophy Antonio Damasio suggests otherwise in his latest book, The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures. As Professor Damasio explains to co-hosts Tom Lutz and Eric Newman, his research shows how cultural decisions, and their potential adoption across a given society, is rooted much more in feelings than previously thought. What follows is a fascinating dive into the role emotions and feelings play in all living things on earth: from us (so-called) higher primates to other animals, plants, and all the down way to micro-organisms. Suffice to say, this week's show will challenge, and possibly change, the way you understand, and feel about, the world.