
ALOUD @ Los Angeles Public Library
ALOUD 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.
Latest episodes

Jan 29, 2015 • 1h 23min
Guantánamo Diary
Though never charged with a crime, Mohamedou Ould Slahi has been imprisoned at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp since 2002. His deeply personal diary—an unprecedented publishing event as the first ever book published by a still-imprisoned detainee—is a terrifying (and darkly humorous) chronicle of a vivid miscarriage of justice. To discuss the book and the case, longtime human rights activist and editor of Slahi’s book, Larry Siems, joins Slahi’s lawyer, Nancy Hollander, whose practice is devoted to criminal cases, including that of Chelsea E. Manning, involving national security issues.

Jan 24, 2015 • 1h 28min
Silver Screen Fiend: Learning About Life From an Addiction to Film
Oswalt—comedian, actor, social media genius—illuminates the story of his early days of the comedy scene in Los Angeles and his unshakeable addiction to the New Beverly Cinema. From Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast to Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, the bestselling author of Zombie Spaceship Wasteland chronicles his coming of age from fledgling stand-up at the Largo to self-assured sitcom actor. Oswalt’s witty prose proves that funny is just as fit for the page as it is the stage.

Jan 22, 2015 • 1h 15min
Who We Be: Race and Image at the Twilight of the Obama Era
In the waning days of the Obama era, artists and young people are shaping our discussion about race through activism, social media, film, and art. Author Jeff Chang’s newest book Who We Be: The Colorization of America remixes comic strips and contemporary art, campus protests, and corporate marketing campaigns for a fresh look at America’s racial divide. Director Justin Simien's Dear White People film taps into the unease of "post-racial" hype among college students of color. Join Chang and Simien in a talk about how art and writing are speaking to this moment and what happens next when the Obamas leave, and the White House goes back to being a white house.

Jan 16, 2015 • 1h 5min
On Such a Full Sea: A Novel
Lee, a deeply influential writer about race, class, and immigrant life in America sets his gripping and fiercely imagined new novel in a chilling dystopia, where abandoned post-industrial cities have been converted into forced labor colonies populated with immigrant workers. The fate of the world may lay in the hands of one nervy girl named Fan, a beautiful fish tank diver, who jolts the labor colony by running away. Join Lee and the story-bending author Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe for a conversation on alternate realities and the power of a riveting story to change the way we see the world.

Jan 14, 2015 • 1h 17min
Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class
When artists and artisans can’t make a living, we all pay the price. Scott Timberg’s original and important new book, Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class, examines the roots of a creative crisis that has put booksellers, indie musicians, architects and graphic designers out of work and struggling to afford healthcare, stable housing and educational opportunities for their kids. This panel of creative thinkers and doers convenes to examine this urgent issue and explore what we can do to change course.

Dec 2, 2014 • 1h 12min
An Evening with Carlos Santana
One of the most influential and celebrated musicians of our time, Carlos Santana, will sit down with L.A.'s own Cheech Marin to share the story of his life—from his humble childhood in Mexico to his emergence in the 1960s rock underground in San Francisco and the explosion of his musical career. In his new memoir The Universal Tone, Santana’s authentic voice and the unparalleled story is delivered with a level of passion and soul equal to the legendary charge of his guitar. From collaborations with other greats like Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock to Juanes, Pitbull and Lila Downs, hear the remarkable life story from a musician Rolling Stone has rated as one of the greatest guitarists of all time.

Nov 21, 2014 • 1h 12min
The Future of the Religious Past: Assessing The Norton Anthology of World Religions
The comprehensive new Norton Anthology of World Religions, under the editorial direction of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jack Miles, assembles primary texts from six major world religions in the religious equivalent of a giant "family album." Miles questions whether religion can be defined, and considers how, sometimes, the supposedly ancient turns out to be quite recent, and the truly ancient turns out to be surprisingly modern. Three religious traditions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—loom especially large in the lives of Americans; listen in on a discussion that promises to unveil many other surprises as these three religious "cousins" flip through the album together.

Nov 14, 2014 • 0sec
33 Artists in 3 Acts
In her new book, Thornton, best-selling author of Seven Days in the Art World, uses a structure of richly linked, cinematic scenes that allow us access to understanding a dazzling range of artists—including Cindy Sherman, Gabriel Orozco, Marina Abramović, Ai Weiwei, and Christian Marclay, among many others. In this conversation with the Hammer’s Allison Agsten, Thornton discusses her research—how she rummaged through artists’ bank accounts, bedrooms, and studios and witnessed their crises and triumphs—as well as the wildly different answers—and non-answers—she received to the question, “What is an artist?”

Nov 13, 2014 • 1h 10min
The Secret History of Wonder Woman
In her years of research, Lepore—Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer—has uncovered an astonishing trove of documents, including the never-before-seen private papers of Wonder Woman’s creator, William Moulton Marston. Marston, who also invented the lie detector—lived a life of secrets, only to spill them onto the pages of Wonder Woman comics. Lepore discusses this riveting story about the most popular female superhero of all time, illustrating a crucial history of twentieth century feminism.

Nov 7, 2014 • 1h 9min
An Evening with Colm Tóibín and Rachel Kushner
From Madame Bovary to Hedda Gabler, some of literature’s most passionate heroines find themselves under the fire of their times. In Tóibín’s The Testament of Mary, the Irish novelist took on nothing less than the mother of Christ. In his masterful new novel, Nora Webster, he portrays a fiercely compelling young Irish widow and mother of four navigating grief and fear and struggling for hope. Rachel Kushner (The Flamethrowers) joins Tóibín for a discussion about creating characters that erupt off the page in novels where the political and the personal are locked in a deep and fascinating embrace.