LA Review of Books

Lynn Comella, author Vibrator Nation: How Feminist Sex-Toy Stores Changed the Business of Pleasure, joins co-hosts Eric Newman and Sarah Mesle, to discuss how a handful of Feminist entrepreneurs in the 1970s helped women in America and around the world take greater control of their own bodies and pleasure. The discussion couldn't be more timely in a month when our society is beginning to confront the patriarchal power relations that emboldens sexual predators. Vibrator Nation tells the history of women putting women's liberation in the hands of women! Also, author Dan Lopez drops by to recommend Katherine Heiny's new novel Standard Deviation.

Author Nathan Englander joins co-hosts Medaya Ocher and Eric Newman to discuss his ambitious new novel Dinner at the Center of the Earth, which is set inside the Israel/Palestine conflagration. In an energetic conversation, teeming with wit, Nathan also shares the despair he felt while living in Israel in 2000 at the collapse of the peace talks and beginning of the second intifada; and explains why he mixed the surreal and all-too-real in a work that strives to do nothing less than bring the two sides together to recognize their shared humanity, need for cooperation, and desire for peace. Also, Medaya recommends Rachel Cusk’s divinely drafted novel Outline.

This week’s show is a doubleheader. In game one, Award-winning poet & Mancunian Adam O’Riordan joins co-hosts Eric Newman and Boris Dralyuk, as well as author David Shook, to discuss the Manchester writing school, it’s partnership with LARB, the tradition of English letters in Southern California – and how to strengthen Los Angeles’ literary ties across the pond. In the nightcap, Eric, Boris, and David are joined by Amanda de la Garza, curator of an exhibit of contemporary Oaxacan murals at the Downtown LA Library entitled “Visualizing Language: Oaxaca in LA” to discuss the powerful resonance of indigenous language, art, and tradition in an era of mass migration from Oaxaca to Los Angeles. Also, author Karen Tei Yamashita returns to recommend Pankaj Mishra’s From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia; as well as his most recent book, Age of Anger: A History of the Present.

Artist, architect, and activist Ai Weiwei joins co-hosts Eric Newman and Medaya Ocher to discuss his new feature-length film Human Flow; and the on-going global refugee crisis that it documents. The conversation weaves through matters central to 21st Century humanity: digital technology, globalization, national identity, economic inequality, climate catastrophes, demagogues, and threats to liberty - as well as more eternal themes like war, beauty, human vulnerability, and how we bear witness to the mystery of existence.

Karen Tei Yamashita, one of the most celebrated American novelists of her generation, turns historian/archeologist with Letters to Memory, an investigation into the lived experience of the World War Two Japanese Internment Camps, as revealed by the words and images from her family's archive. Karen joins co-hosts Eric Newman and Medaya Ocher to discuss how this striking new work came to be, her political motivations, and the importance of bringing forward the tremendous impact this horrible episode in American history had on people, families, and communities. Also, author Chiara Barzini returns to recommend Leonard Michaels' Slyvia, a tragic tale of a sexually charged romance in early '60s Manhattan.

A LARB Radio Double-Header! First, Author, Academic, and OC resident Andrew Tonkovich joins co-hosts Eric Newman and Medaya Ocher to talk about the all-but-unknown, but surprisingly excellent, literary tradition of Orange County. Andrew and his wife, poet Lisa Alvarez, have compiled a collection of stories, essays, and memoirs about (or reflective of) LA County's more right-wing neighbor - and the list of contributors is as impressive as the content itself. Andrew talks about some of his favorite entries; as well as the promising political evolution of a longtime GOP bastion that voted against Trump. Then, in the 2nd half of the show, author Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow joins Eric and Medaya to reminisce about the glory days of the Sony Walkman from the late 70s through to the 90s. Rebecca has written a short history/memoir entitled Personal Stereo, as part of Bloomsbury's charming Object Lesson series, about the device that revolutionized our listening habits.

Award-winning Italian screenwriter and English Language Novelist Chiara Barzini joins co-hosts Medaya Ocher and Eric Newman to talk about Things that Happened Before the Earthquake, which tells the story of an adolescent girl who moves with her family from Rome to LA in the early '90s. The conversation centers on the experience of moving to a massive, mythical city without a center; the turmoil of the Rodney King era; and the nuances of a coming-of-age immigrant tale. Also, Natalie Graham returns to recommend Play Dead, a collection of poems by Francine Harris.

Cave Canem award winning poet Natalie J Graham talks with hosts Eric Newman and Medaya Ocher about her collection Begin with a Failed Body. The discussion opens about failure, imperfect bodies, and fallible memories; detours through hip-hop and black culinary traditions; and weaves through history to hope and pleasure. Also, LARB's Boris Dralyuk drops to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution by recommending a collection of stories written in the wake of 1917: Russian Emigre Short Stories from Bunin to Yanovsky, edited by Bryan Karetnyk.

Director Peter Bratt and the subject of his new Documentary, Dolores Huerta, talk with co-hosts Eric Newman and Medaya Ocher about the making of the film Dolores; but in the hands of Dolores Huerta, every moment is an organizing moment - and the conversation flows across the central political issues of our time, much as the film tackles those from the past half-century and beyond. The message remains the same: everyone can take action to improve our lives and society, here's how you do it! Also, Medaya recommend's NYRB's re-issue of David Plante's classic (and controversial) Difficult Women: A Memoir of Three, which contains literary portraits of Jean Rhys, Sonia Orwell, and Germaine Greer.

Who is Donald Trump, and what does he stand for? Do we know? Does he himself know? Or is he caught in that precarious state of disorientation that characterizes our current political predicament. The public discourse is heated, the language inflammatory. Philosopher Hans Sluga of the University of California, Berkeley, brings a cool head and rational thinking to his interview about our 45th president, Donald Trump, with Entitled Opinions host Robert Harrison. Trump has been a real estate developer, a reality TV star, a prolific tweeter, a politician, and has changed his party affiliation seven or eight times. Is he a fascist? Sluga, author of Wittgenstein and Heidegger’s Crisis, warns against easy tags: “We’ve drained this word of much of its specific meaning.” Fascism, he says, “is a form of statism quite different from what we have in America today.” Is he a populist? That’s not clear, either. “Plutocrat,” the term Aristotle used to describe the rule of the rich, might be a more precise characterization. Sluga says we might turn to the world of real estate to understand Trump’s worldview.