ALOUD @ Los Angeles Public Library

Crawford, a musicologist, reveals the uniquely vibrant era when Southern California became a hub of unprecedented musical talent.

What will America look like in 2050? Kotkin, a renowned social and economic trend analyst, argues that the key to America's economic recovery is its robust population growth.

McLennan, Dean for Religious Life at Stanford (and inspiration for Doonesbury's Rev. Scot Sloan) gives voice to millions of liberal Christians and builds solid bridges to all sides of the cultural divide.

Draitser, Professor of Russian at Hunter College (CUNY), resurrects-with great humor-the world of his Jewish childhood in the Soviet Union.

Page, now a Pulitzer-winning music critic, offers a riveting portrayal of what it is like to live in a psychological world that few understand.

In her new novel The Swan Thieves, the author of the bestseller The Historian offers a story of obsession, history's losses, and the power of art to preserve human hope.

The settings for Boyle's bold new stories range from a California suburb terrorizedby a mountain lion, to Napoleonic France where a feral child is captured naked in the forest. He reads and discusses his new collection, Wild Child as well as his novel The Women about the life of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Patel (author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System) asks us to reconsider how democracy might be the route by which we can reclaim markets so that they work for rather than against social change.

Gawande, a bestselling author and surgeon, takes us on an intellectual adventure in which lives are lost and saved and one simple idea makes a tremendous difference.

Grandin offers remarkable insights into animal behavior from her unique position at the intersection of autism and science. In her new book, she aims to revolutionize our ideas about what animals want and need-on their terms, not ours.