ALOUD @ Los Angeles Public Library

“What do we talk about when we talk about Los Angeles today?” asks D.J. Waldie. A writer whose work has been called a “gorgeous distillation of architectural and social history” by The New York Times, Waldie is the author of Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir and other books that illuminate the ordinary and the everyday in lyrical prose. Becoming Los Angeles, his newest collection, blends history, memory, and critical analysis to illuminate how Angelenos have seen themselves and their city. From the ordinariness of L.A.’s seasons to the gaudy backdrop of Hollywood illusion, Waldie considers how the city’s image was constructed and how it fostered willful amnesia about its conflicted past. Encountering the immigrants and exiles, the dreamers and con artists, the celebrated and forgotten who became Los Angeles, Waldie arrives at an intersection of the city’s history and its aspirations. Please join us for a hometown celebration as Waldie discusses his love for L.A. and the renewed hope it takes to sustain the romance.

In ALOUD’s first live program, we’ll explore the science of virtual learning. As schools around the country prepare for an online fall semester, hear from neuroscientist, psychologist, and former teacher Dr. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang about the educational implications for this generation of learners. Focusing on teenagers and their developing brains, Dr. Immordino-Yang will discuss how current events are impacting the ways teenagers think, feel, and process the world. This program is generously supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

When New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof returned to his hometown of Yamhill, Oregon, the portrait of life in rural America was grim. In a new book, written alongside Sheryl WuDunn, the team of the bestselling Half the Sky tells a story of how a once prospering blue-collar town was devastated by the loss of well-paying union jobs. Moving beyond this one part of the country, and showing a similar trend representative of places ranging from the Dakotas and Oklahoma to New York and Virginia, Tightrope illustrates deeply poignant portrayals of real Americans and investigates how decades of policy mistakes on issues like education, health care, and criminal justice effect far more than unemployment. Kristof and Wu Dunn—the first husband and wife to share a Pulitzer Prize for journalism—will take the stage to discuss new ways to end the crisis in working-class America.

"I think this book could really save the world," said Ann Patchett of Gish Jen’s new dystopian novel The Resisters. This extraordinary story imagines a not-so-distant future of America—which she calls "AutoAmerica" and is half underwater and populated by two groups of people: the "Netted" of the higher ground and the “Surplus,” who live on swampland. A “Surplus” family’s home life is upended when their teen daughter with amazing baseball talents is allowed to play ball with the "Netted" in the hopes that their Olympic team will beat ChinRussia. Exploring how America’s favorite pastime collides with a very divided totalitarian society, this highly plausible, yet totally unsettling future brings into question the moral fabric of America as we know it today. Jen, the award-winning author of four previous novels, a story collection, and two works of nonfiction, the latest of which was The Girl at the Baggage Claim: Explaining the East-West Culture Gap, will discuss her new book that takes on the all-too-real threats against maintaining our humanity.

2019 National Book Award Finalist Kali Fajardo-Anstine (Sabrina & Corina: Stories) will discuss her work and why the preservation, perpetuation, and presentation of the experience of Mexican-American women in literature matters. Moderated by Lisa Lucas, Executive Director of the National Book Foundation, and presented in partnership with the Library Foundation of Los Angeles and Scripps Presents.

Education is an issue that hits home to every American. One of the foremost authorities on education and the history of education in the United States and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education, Diane Ravitch offers an impassioned defense of public education. In her new book, Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America’s Public Schools, Ravitch fights back against "disruptors" who wish to privatize schools. Documenting examples of how corporations, foundations, and individuals who have pushed for charter schools and vouchers have failed to fulfill their promises and have negatively impacted public schools, Ravitch also celebrates the grassroots efforts of parents, teachers, students, and entire communities who have rallied to keep their public schools alive. A research professor of education at New York University and the author of eleven books, including the bestselling Reign of Error, Ravitch is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Award. On the heels of the one-year anniversary of LAUSD’s momentous teachers’ strike, we welcome Ravitch to the stage to address some of the most important education issues of our time.

Quantum mechanics is the most important idea in physics, and physicists themselves readily admit that they don’t understand it. Genetics is another commonly misconceived area of science with the rise of new biomedical technologies and the popularity of at-home DNA testing kits. Fortunately for ALOUD audiences, we welcome two of the most celebrated science writers to help make sense of how we live in the world—through space and time, and what we pass along from generation to generation. Carl Zimmer is a celebrated New York Times columnist and science writer whose most recent book, She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity weaves historical and current scientific research to present a new definition of what heredity is and how it is much bigger than simply genes we inherit from our ancestors. Joining Zimmer is Sean Carroll, a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology, host of the Mindscape podcast, and bestselling author of The Big Picture. Carroll shares from his new book, Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime, where he demystifies the paradoxes of quantum mechanics. This illuminating, wide-reaching conversation will take us from the single cells that comprise our own bodies to the wonders of the cosmos.

Andrea Bernstein, the award-winning journalist, and host of the WNYC/ProPublica podcast Trump, Inc., offers a sweeping new exposé into the multigenerational saga of two emblematic American families. American Oligarchs: The Kushners, the Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power follows how these families rose from immigrant roots to the pinnacle of U.S. power. Through extensive reporting, Bernstein traces their journey to the White House—from growing rich on federal programs that bolstered the middle class to sheltering their wealth from tax collectors. Discussing this convoluted story of survival and loss, crime and betrayal, Bernstein will be joined by Kristen Muller, Chief Content Officer who oversees KPCC's station programming podcasting, and its local journalism.

What if search-and-rescue robots could sense survivors through dense smoke? What if surgical robots could perform impossible surgeries by seeing details invisible to a human doctor? At Dr. Achuta Kadambi’s UCLA lab, his team works to make these possibilities a reality. By symbiotically blending camera and algorithm designs, Kadambi gives the gift of sight to machines. With journalist Nellie Bowles, who covers tech and internet culture from San Francisco for the New York Times, Kadambi discusses how computational imaging has the potential to unleash an era of superhuman robotics.

In a special evening celebrating National Book Award-winning author Ta-Nehisi Coates’ first book of fiction, he’ll be joined by Ryan Coogler, revolutionary director of Black Panther. Coates’ newly released novel The Water Dancer offers a timely exploration of the most intimate evil of enslavement—the cleaving and separation of families. Following the story of Hiram Walker, who was born into bondage and motherless, Coates not only tells the dramatic story of an atrocity inflicted on generations of women, men, and children but also restores the humanity of those from whom everything was stolen. Join us at the West Angeles Cathedral, a community pillar of the vibrant Historic Crenshaw District, for a momentous conversation between two groundbreaking contemporary artists exploring ideas of race, history, and politics.

This program exists as a video. To view, visit ALOUD's Media Archive.