LA Review of Books

Author Jacob Tobia joins co-hosts Eric Newman and Medaya Ocher to discuss their first book, Sissy: A coming of Gender Story. In a wide-ranging conversation, Tobia talks about coming into their non-binary gender, confronting haters, and embracing the messiness of Identity. Not only is Jacob a joy to talk with, but they also give a brilliant longview on the struggles both for queer rights and also for people to live however they feel gendered in their body.

Co-hosts Eric Newman, Medaya Ocher and Kate Wolf are granted an audience with his Holiness the King of Filth, John Waters. Speaking about his new memoir, Waters opens up about the importance of understanding the business of show business, remaining committed to your vision and believing, against all odds, that you’ll be a success. Along the way, Waters talks about sex, politics and Eric's memory of meeting him at a urinal during a Hairspray! intermission.

Authors Erica Jong and Susan Choi joins co-hosts Eric Newman, Medaya Ocher, and Kate Wolf in our third and final installment from the 2019 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on USC Campus. First, Erica Jong talks about her new collection of poems, “The World Began with Yes,” as well how she sees the present moment from the long view of her engagement with feminist and other political causes. Then, exploring the trials and tribulations of life in high school, Susan Choi’s talks about the ethics of storytelling and how her novel “Trust Exercise” emerges from questions about how we work through our ideas about power, identity and values in the turbulent years of high school and, much later, after we've become adults.

It's our second show from the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at USC; and this installment features two of the Festival's award winners, as hosts Eric Newman, Medaya Ocher, and Kate Wolf speak with Nafissa Thompson-Spires and Carl Phillips. Nafissa won the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction for her short story collection Heads of the Colored People; while Carl took home the LA Times Book Prize in Poetry for Wild is the Wind.

In the first of a series of shows from the Los Angles Festival of Books, Eric, Medaya, and Kate, catch up with two friends of the show: Hanif Abdurraqib and Claire Vaye Watkins. First up, Hanif talks about his new book, Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest, an epistolary appreciation of one of the most influential groups in Hip Hop history. As always, Hanif astounds with instant recall of, and insights about, all things pop cultural and their social resonance. Then, Claire joins the team to discuss her heralded first novel, Gold Fame Citrus: a terrifying, and all-too-possible, representation of Southern California's near future, in which love blooms in a landscape ravaged by drought.

Co-hosts Kate Wolf and Medaya Ocher talk to writer Laila Lalami about her most recent novel, The Other Americans, a story about a Moroccan immigrant family in the Mojave Desert. In the second half of the episode, Kate, Medaya, and Eric come together to talk about the lessons they've learned from their mothers with Jo Giese, author of Never Sit If You Can Dance, a recent memoir about the lessons her mother has taught her.

Co-hosts Medaya Ocher and Kate Wolf talk with filmmaker Werner Herzog about his new documentary Meeting Gorbachev, which he co-directed with Andre Singer. They discuss the legacy of the last Soviet leader, the era of Glasnost and Perestroika, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and how Herzog understands the history of Russia. The centerpiece of the film is a dialogue between Gorbachev and Herzog, which Gorbachev agreed to do because he recognized the great German filmmaker as more poet than journalist. Indeed, in this show, Herzog's reflections flow seamlessly across an array of subjects, from politics, culture, and history to the resilience of the human spirit. Also, Sally Rooney, author of Normal People, returns to recommend both The Kingdom by Emmanuel Carrere and the book that inspired it, the Gospel of Luke.

Co-hosts Medaya Ocher and Kate Wolf speak with Sally Rooney about her two novels Conversations with Friends and Normal People. Dubbed the "Jane Austin of the Precariat" and called "the first great millennial novelist" Sally addresses the acclaim she’s received; and how she’s grown into the person and writer she is today. Also, William E. Jones returns to recommend The Imposter byJavier Cercas, which tells the story of Spaniard Enric Marco, who was a national hero until he was exposed as a fraud in 2005.

Juliet Lapidos is a writer and editor. She is currently a senior editor at The Atlantic, and previously worked for the LA Times, NYT and Slate. Host Tom Lutz joins Juliet to discuss Talent, her new novel about a 29 year old English grad student who can’t finish her dissertation, spending her days eating pop tarts rather than producing pages — relatable. Everything changes when she meets the niece of a famous author and gets access to his notebooks. Anna finds in the author’s archive the inspiration that takes her on a whirlwind journey into the depths of a literary mystery. Tom talks with Juliet about every writer's favorite subject, writer's block; along with the role of slacking in American culture, and that ancient quandary of artistic production: hard work vs inspiration or, could we say, Talent.

Author and Artist William E Jones joins co-hosts Eric Newman, Medaya Ocher, and Kate Jones to discuss his first novel I'm Open to Anything. In the midst of a successful career as both an artist and a writer of non-fiction, William explains what inspired this change; albeit one clearly situated in the Los Angeles of the late 80s, which William encountered after a childhood in the declining rust belt and college on the East Coast. Much like his writing, insights pour forth as William reflects on the difference between writing and making art, his contempt for sexual ellipses in literature and film, his passion for both explicit sexual realism and literary pranks, and why these inform his love for Denis Diderot. Also, Poet Tommy Pico returns to recommend Tommy Orange's novel There There; and clarify who's who.

Author Karen Tongson talks with co-hosts Eric Newman and Kate Wolf about the tragic life and beautiful voice of Karen Carpenter, the singer who is Tongson's namesake and whose star has never lost its lustre for an enduring fanbase in the Philippines. What she unpacks in Carpenter's story is a moving account of suffering and beauty, of longing for a world we may never reach save in soaring notes and the practiced perfection of vocal harmony, a struggle resonant with queer and diasporic experience. Also, Morgan Parker, author most recently of Magical Negro, returns to recommend poet Nabila Lovelace's first collection, Sons of Achilles.

Co-hosts Eric Newman and Kate Wolf talk with poets Morgan Parker and Tommy Pico about their respective new works, Magical Negro and Junk. Parker and Pico discuss how they use poetry to explore the experiences of oppressed communities, shuttling between the sublimity and nuance of everyday experiences and the larger cultural and political questions that saturate bodies, spaces and relations. They also talk about how their aesthetic practice has changed as they have moved into writing novels and screenplays.

Who is Steve Bannon? The evil mastermind of a far right global counter-revolution that's taking the world by storm; or a shallow, frumpy guy doing the bidding of his billionaire backers. Could he be both? One thing for certain, Alison Klayman's verite documentary The Brink, which follows Bannon in the months after his exit from the Trump White House, is the essential portrait of one of the central players in global politics. Klayman explains to co-hosts Eric, Kate, and Medaya how she came to have such unlimited access to Bannon, her reflections on his toxic politics and on the man himself: his character, his motivations and what he hopes to accomplish. Also, Geoff Dyer, author of Broadsword Calling Danny Boy, returns to recommend Annie Ernaux's "impersonal autobiography" The Years, an astonishing first-hand reflection on the cultural, political, and economic changes over the 2nd half of the 20th century.

Geoff Dyer joins co-hosts Eric Newman, Medaya Ocher, and Kate Wolf to discuss his new book Broadsword Calling Danny Boy about the 1968 Richard Burton/Clint Eastwood war movie, Where Eagles Dare. In talking about a film that has held his attention since childhood, Dyer expounds on the continuities and discontinuities between the movie-going child and the adult critic as a resource for good film writing. It's not the plots that fascinate Dyer so much as a writer as the moments caught on camera that grab our critical attention: the signature expressions, the technicolorization of reality, the cacophony of sounds that transport us from our seats into the somewhere else of the film. Also, Deborah Eisenberg, author of Your Duck is My Duck, returns to recommend a classic of Chinese Literature from the 18th Century: Cao Xueqin's five volume The Story of the Stone.

Co-hosts Medaya Ocher and Kate Wolf talk with acclaimed author and master of the short story Deborah Eisenberg about Your Duck is My Duck, her new collection and her first since 2006. The free-wheeling discussion opens with the mystery of the silly, and selfish, sounding title; winds through a set of surprising reflections on inspiration, process, and myths of creativity; and how Deborah's relation to her craft has evolved throughout her life. Also, Chloe Ardijis, author of Sea Monsters, returns to recommend Charles Baudelaire's Prose Poems.