

ALOUD @ Los Angeles Public Library
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.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jun 27, 2012 • 1h 21min
Radio Ambulante: Stories from the Americas
Lost City Radio novelist Daniel Alarcón and team joins us for a special live presentation of Radio Ambulante - the first ever Spanish-language radio show created to tell the stories of latinoamericanos de todas las Américas. Everyday stories find voice in this multi-national, bilingual production, a collaboration of NPR stations and independent journalists from over nine countries. In a city with a majority Spanish-speaking population, Radio Ambulante introduces Angelenos to the crónicas de nuestro mundo, and examines the role radio and digital media play in keeping storytelling alive.You'll also have the opportunity to meet Sonic Trace: KCRW's new storytelling project that begins in the heart of Los Angeles and crosses into Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Part radio, part video, Sonic Trace maps LA residents' answers to the questions: ¿Por qué te vas? ¿Por qué te quedas? ¿Por qué regresas? Come early on June 26th, and help us trace your story. We'll be there with mic in hand, collecting your stories in English and Spanish.

Jun 22, 2012 • 1h 19min
A New Deal for Los Angeles
In less than a decade, President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal agencies radically transformed Los Angeles as they did other American cities in a successful, but largely forgotten, effort to extricate the nation from the Great Depression. In addition to building the region's cultural infrastructure of schools, libraries, and museums, the Federal Writers Project left us a vivid freeze frame description of what Southern California was like just before World War II. Author David Kipen discusses the recently republished Los Angeles in the 1930s: The WPA Guide to the City of Angels and geographer Gray Brechin shows the public works that revolutionized the lives of millions 75 years ago.

Jun 20, 2012 • 1h 6min
Exit: The Endings That Set Us Free
As a culture, we are often focused on beginnings— the start of things instead of the endings. Acclaimed sociologist and MacArthur prize-winning Harvard professor Lawrence-Lightfoot examines moments that define how we transition through our lives. From looking at an Iranian teenager who leaves the political strife of his native land, to a middle-aged gay man who reflects on his ‘exit’ from the closet, to the director of a hospital ICU who oversees patients facing death, Lawrence-Lightfoot examines new ways of seeing our farewells.

Jun 14, 2012 • 6sec
Tales from the City of Angels: An Evening of Storytelling
Part One: Tales of DesperationM.C.'d by Richard Montoya of Culture ClashJoin in this first-ever edition of live storytelling at ALOUD as six local voices take us through the comedic, tragic, entertaining, and desperate tales of life in the City of Angels.Music by Tom Lutz and Blue TunaIn partnership with the Los Angeles Review of Books

Jun 13, 2012 • 56min
As Texas Goes...: How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda
The popular columnist for the New York Times declares that the proud state of big oil and bigger ambitions matters most in America’s political landscape, that “what happens in Texas doesn’t stay in Texas anymore.” The country’s fundamental divide has long been seen as a war between the Republican heartland and its two liberal coasts. But after visiting Texas, Collins reconsiders where the epicenter of a conservative political agenda resides and how it is sweeping across the country to redefine our national identity.

Jun 7, 2012 • 1h 16min
The Elemental West: Reflections on Moving Water
Two celebrated writers deeply influenced by the riparian and other landscapes of the American West will read from their work and explore how storytelling, in the tradition of Thoreau and Emerson, can give voice to natural resources. Activist and award-winning author Kathleen Dean Moore discusses her newest book Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril and Craig Childs, the author of more than a dozen acclaimed books on nature and science, reflects on expedition adventures from Colorado to Tibet.The Elemental West: Fire, Water, Air, Earth (Program two of four)

Jun 1, 2012 • 1h 15min
An Evening With Novelist Richard Ford
The Washington Post calls Richard Ford, "One of the finest curators of the great American living museum." In his haunting new novel, Canada, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author explores the mysterious and consoling bonds of family in a tale about a young man forced by catastrophic circumstance to reconcile himself to a world that has been rendered unrecognizable.

May 25, 2012 • 0sec
The Outsourced Self: Intimate Life in Market Times
From hired mourners who will scatter your loved one's ashes, to nameologists (who help you name your child)-the sociologist and acclaimed author of The Second Shift draws on original research to reveal the threats inherent in a world in which the most intuitive and emotional of human acts have become work for hire.

May 23, 2012 • 47min
The Art of Being Unreasonable: Lessons in Unconventional Thinking
How have unreasonable principles —from negotiating to risk-taking, from investing to hiring— helped billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad in founding two Fortune 500 companies, funding scientific research and education reform, and building some of the world’s greatest contemporary art museums? Why is he drawn to the unreasonableness of contemporary artists like Richard Serra and Robert Rauschenberg? What can we learn from the wisdom of an unreasonable man?

May 16, 2012 • 0sec
Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain
If the conscious mind is the only part of the brain we are aware of, then what in the world else is happening up there? Renowned neuroscientist (and novelist) David Eagleman navigates the depth of the subconscious brain to illuminate surprising mysteries that take in brain damage, plane spotting, dating, drugs, synesthesia, criminal law, artificial intelligence and visual illusions.