ALOUD @ Los Angeles Public Library

Join us in a celebration of Bark, a new collection of stories (the first in fifteen years, since Birds of America) by one of America’s most beloved and admired short-story writers. With her singular wisdom and in her inimitable voice—“fluid, cracked, mordant, colloquial” (The New York Times Book Review)—Moore plumbs the public and private absurdities of American life in a heartrending mash-up of the tragic and the hilarious. *Click HERE to see photos from the program!

How do you write/convey/film the story of a visionary figure with tragic flaws who founded a labor union, launched a movement, and inspired a generation? Biographer Miriam Pawel, playwright/director Luis Valdez (Teatro Campesino) lend their perspective on the crusades of an unlikely American hero who ignited one of the great social movements of our time. *Click HERE to see photos from the program!

From the MacArthur Award-winning writer, comes a subtle and quietly devastating new novel about love, exile and the fragmentation of lives that straddle countries and histories. All Our Names is a tale of friendship between two young men who come of age during an African revolution and the emotional and physical boundaries that tear them apart--one drawn into peril, the other into the safety of the American Midwest. In this political novel, Mengestu presents a portrait of love and grace, of self-determination, of the names we are given and the names we earn. *Click here to see photos from the program!

In 2009, three American hikers (and UC Berkeley grads) hiking in Iraqi Kurdistan unknowingly crossed into Iran and were captured by a border patrol. Accused of espionage, they were incarcerated in Tehran’s infamous Evin Prison—Sarah, for fourteen months and Josh and Fattal, for two long years. This poignant memoir is their story, as told through a bold and innovative interweaving of the authors’ three voices that recounts the psychological torment of interrogation and the collective strength of will that kept them alive. *Click here to see photos from the program!

This National Book Award-winning account illuminates the erosion of the social compact --the collapse of farms, factories, public schools--that had kept the United States stable and middle class since the late 1970s. In The Great Unwinding, Packer probes the seething undercurrents of American life, offering an intimate look into the lives that have been transformed by the dissolution of our economic glue. From unchecked banks to the rise of Walton's Walmart, this retelling of American history through Packer's voice offers “…a sad but delicious jazz-tempo requiem for the post-World War II American social contract.” (David M. Kennedy) *Click here to see photos from the program!

Imagine that Plato came to life in the twenty-first century and embarked on a multicity speaking tour. How would he handle the host of a cable news program who denies there can be morality without religion? How would he mediate a debate between a Freudian psychoanalyst and a tiger mom on how to raise the perfect child? Philosopher and novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein provides an original plunge into the drama of philosophy, revealing its hidden role in today’s debates on religion, morality, politics, and science. Does philosophy itself ever make progress? And if it does, why is so ancient a figure as Plato of any continuing relevance? Plato at the Googleplex is Goldstein’s startling investigation into these conundra. *Click here to see photos from the program!

In this revelatory study of Muslim youth movements that have emerged in cities around the world in the years since 9/11 and in the wake of the Arab Spring, Aidi illuminates the unexpected connections between urban marginality, music, and political mobilization.  By examining both secular and religiously-fueled movements as a means of protest against the policies of the “War on Terror,” he explains how certain kinds of music—particularly hip hop, but also jazz, Gnawa, Andalusian, Judeo-Arabic, Latin, and others—have come to represent a heightened racial identity and a Muslim consciousness that crisscrosses the globe.*Click here to see photos from the program!

On February 21, 2012, five young women entered the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow wearing neon-colored dresses, tights, and balaclavas to perform a “punk prayer” beseeching the “Mother of God” to “get rid of Putin.” What transformed a group of young women into artists with a shared vision, and what gave them the courage to express that vision and to deal with the subsequently devastating outcomes? Through the trial of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot, Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen, author of Putin: The Man Without a Face, tells a larger story about Vladimir Putin’s Russia, with its state-controlled media, pervasive corruption, and pliant judiciary. *Click here to see photos from the program!

Artist Jeff Koons and filmmaker/author/photographer John Waters discuss Koon’s innovative and ever-changing art making practice, which ranges from sculpture to painting to digital media. Like Waters, Koons’s art comments on the notion of “good taste,” as well as the decadence of capitalist culture, the innocence of childhood, and beauty’s eternal resonance. Waters will speak with Koons about the inspiration and ideas behind his iconic works such as Michael Jackson and Bubbles, Balloon Dog (Blue), and Girl with Dolphin and Monkey Triple Popeye (Seascape), all of which are part of the Broad's collection.*Click HERE to see photos from the program! 

Walter Mosley, one of America’s most admired crime novelists joins one of its newest stars – Attica Locke – for a conversation about noir, race and writing in and from Los Angeles. Presented in collaboration with the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West, the evening kicks off Tales from Two Cities: Writing from California, a free two-day conference at the downtown Central Library spotlighting the writers who help define Los Angeles as a place with a language, culture, and aesthetic all its own.

Frenkel, one of the 21st century’s leading mathematicians, works on one of the biggest ideas to come out of mathematics in the last 50 years: the Langlands Program. In his lyrical autobiography, he reveals a side of math we’ve never seen, suffused with all the metaphysical beauty and elegance of a work of art. Known for his controversial erotic film about math, Frenkel believes a mathematical formula can carry a charge of love. Frenkel is joined by screenwriter and “The X-Files” creator Chris Carter to discuss how mathematics reaches to the heart of all matter, uniting us across culture, time, and space. *Click here to see photos from the program!

William Burroughs was the original cult figure of the Beat Movement, author of Naked Lunch, and influence to scores of artists, writers, and musicians. For the centennial celebration of Burroughs’ birth, beat historian and biographer Barry Miles discusses the long-term cultural legacy of Burroughs and his literary risk-taking. Click here to see photos from the program! 

The Days of Anna Madrigal, the suspenseful, comic, and touching ninth (and final) novel in Armistead Maupin’s bestselling “Tales of the City” series, follows one of modern literature’s most unforgettable and enduring characters—Anna Madrigal, the legendary transgender landlady of 28 Barbary Lane. While some members of Anna’s family head for the other-worldly landscape of Burning Man, Anna embarks on a road trip that takes her deep into her past, including a visit to Winnemucca, Nevada where the 16-year old boy she used to be ran away from the whorehouse he called home. *Click HERE to see photos from the program!

This new work by the MacArthur Award-winning novelist begins when composer Peter Els opens the door to find the police on his doorstep. His home microbiology lab—where he experiments to find music in surprising patterns—has aroused the suspicions of Homeland Security. Seeking help from family and a longtime collaborator, this “Bioterrorist Bach” hatches a plan to turn his disastrous collision with the security state into a work of art that will reawaken its audience to the sounds all around them. *Click HERE to see photos from the program!

Hailed as one of the most inspiring women of our time, musician and activist Angélique Kidjo shares the story of her world in the memoir, Spirit Rising: from the communist regime of her native Benin to her work as a UNICEF Ambassador and activist promoting education for all girls in Africa. Kidjo’s GRAMMY-Award winning music, rich with African rhythms, speaks to her own vibrancy, resilience, and to the hope she carries for the world’s spirit rising. Kidjo brings her electrifying presence to the Library in a special evening of conversation, story and song, where she will perform excerpts from her new CD Eve, before embarking on a world tour. *Click HERE to see photos from the program!