On the morning of November 7, 1938, a seventeen-year-old Jewish refugee, Herschel Grynszpan, walked into the German embassy in Paris and assassinated Ernst vom Rath, a low-level Nazi diplomat. Two days later, the Third Reich exploited the murder to inaugurate its long-planned campaign of terror…
Imagine a rain-soaked Beckett knocks on your door with a new manuscript. What was it like to collaborate with, publish, and know the genius? Seaver (who with her husband discovered and published Beckett’s early work) and Mandell (an actor directed by the playwright himself) team up to read both…
The award-winning author of Half a Yellow Sun delivers a powerful new story of love and culture clash between two Nigerian friends across several decades and three different continents—keenly observing race, identity, and belonging in today’s globalized world.
Fifteen years ago, in Autobiography of Red, Anne Carson, critically acclaimed poet, essayist, translator and classics professor, wrote about a boy named Geryon and his love affair with Herakles. In her newest work Red Doc>, Carson revisits these characters in later life, yet creates a dreamlike…
Holt, an irreverent detective of metaphysics and science, dives deep into conversation with Caltech cosmologist Sean Carroll, to try and answer the most persistent mystery of existence: Why should there be a universe at all, and why are we a part of it? why is there Something rather than Nothing…
Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues and the new memoir In the Body of the World, discusses the female body and the world’s responsibility to protect it with Jody Williams, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for her work banning landmines. Williams’ memoir, My Name is Jody Williams, promotes…
Weaving her own experience with remarkable new discoveries, Grandin brings her singular perspective to the thrilling journey through the revolution in the understanding of autism. She introduces advances in neuroimaging and genetic research that link brain science to behavior, even sharing her own…
Basking in the golden age of the graphic novel, a group of talented visual artists teamed up to adapt the greatest literature of all time. The Graphic Canon, a visual literary anthology, is a three-volume epic that spans from Greek tragedy to David Foster Wallace. Join us for a look at this stunning…
Panel discussion with author Ben Ehrenreich; Barbara Epler, president, New Directions; author Mónica Maristain; and poet-translator David Shook. Moderated by Héctor Tobar, staff writer, Los Angeles Times "Books are the only homeland of the true writer, books that may sit on shelves or in the memory…
In 1983, Granta devoted an entire issue to new fiction by 20 of the "Best of Young British Novelists" and did so again ten years later. From Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro to Zadie Smith, these lists have offered a revealing snapshot of a generation of writers about to come into their…
Esteemed primatologist de Waal discusses his pioneering research on primate behavior, the latest findings in evolutionary biology, and insights from moral philosophy to prove that morality does not require the specters of God or the law of man.
At age twenty-six, in the wake of a divorce and her mother’s death, Cheryl Strayed made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert to Washington State—and to do it alone. Wild, Strayed’s best-selling memoir, is the utterly compelling story of a…
Caroline Kennedy, editor of eight New York Times bestselling books on American history, politics, law, and poetry, discusses her new anthology, Poetry to Live By with Los Angeles’ first Poet Laureate, Eloise Klein Healy. In their far-ranging conversation, these two long-time poetry advocates…
