LARB Radio Hour

Latest Episodes:

Writing Climate Futures: David Wallace-Wells, Jenny Offill, Bharat Venkat, and Jonathan Blake Jan 11, 2025

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In light of the recent fires in Los Angeles, we're re-airing an episode featuring a panel discussion titled "Writing Climate Futures" with David Wallace-Wells, Jenny Offill, Bharat Venkat, and Jonathan Blake. They discuss the role and efficacy of environmental writing, education, and the public discourse around climate change. The panel was hosted by the Los Angeles Review of Books in partnership with the Berggruen Institute.

On Giving Up Jan 03, 2025

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In this encore special episode, hosts Medaya Ocher, Kate Wolf, and Eric Newman discuss the case for and against giving up—on life, vices, dreams, creative pursuits, jobs, relationships, exercise, and work. Their conversation is inspired by Adam Phillips's recent book On Giving Up, in which the psychoanalyst observes that "we give things up when we believe we can change; we give up when we believe we can't." The hosts discuss what is acceptable to give up, their own fears of failure, both fictional and real-life inspirational quitters, and whether Bartleby was onto something when he said he'd prefer not to.

Ariana Reines' ''Wave of Blood'' Dec 27, 2024

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In our last episode of the year, Kate Wolf speaks with the poet, playwright, and performance artist Ariana Reines about her latest book, Wave of Blood. A hybrid text that includes poems, diary entries in verse, and various forms of public address, Wave of Blood spans the six month period between October 2023, after the outbreak of war in Gaza, and April 2024. In it, Reines wrestles with the genocide and what she calls "the mind of war," as well her own ancestry as the descendant of Holocaust survivors, her late mother, and a contemporary culture steeped in violence, shame, and anxiety. Searching for power within a moment of seeming powerlessness, and for words in a time of unspeakable tragedy, the writing in the book seeks to address the recent past with deep introspection and personal responsibility, while also upholding poetry as a way to "open the space of the miraculous—and keep it open. Forever." Also, Kathryn Davis, author of Versailles, returns to recommend Thursbitch by Alan Garner.

BEST OF 2024 EPISODE Dec 20, 2024

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It's time for our favorite episode of the year. Hosts Kate Wolf, Medaya Ocher, and Eric Newman discuss their favorite books, movies, TV shows, music, scandals and (new category!) memories of 2024. For a full list of picks, visit lareviewofbooks.org/podcasts/larb-radio-hour/

Kathryn Davis' "Versailles" Dec 13, 2024

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Medaya Ocher and Kate Wolf are joined by writer Kathryn Davis, the acclaimed author of many novels, including Labrador, The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf, Hell, The Walking Tour, The Thin Place, Versailles, Duplex, and Silk Road, and a memoir, Aurelia Aurélia. Davis discusses her novel Versailles, originally published in 2002, recently reissued by Graywolf. Versailles is the story of Marie Antoinette, beginning when she's a teenager traveling to France. The book is a lyrical meditation on personhood and girlhood, amidst the objects and structures of power, politics and history.

Raoul Peck's "Ernest Cole: Lost and Found" Dec 06, 2024

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Kate Wolf speaks to filmmaker Raoul Peck about his latest documentary, Ernest Cole: Lost and Found, out in theaters now. The film excavates the life and work of Ernest Cole, the South African photographer, using his own writing and a recently rediscovered archive of his photographs. Cole was one of the first people to capture the brutal realities of the apartheid regime on film. After escaping South Africa for the United States, he published his landmark book on apartheid, House of Bondage (1967). Years later, his career languished, and he became homeless and died of cancer in 1990. Peck's film looks closely at the conditions that thwarted Cole's promise as an artist, the legacies of racial segregation, and the devastating ways they still play out today. Also, Renee Gladman, author of My Lesbian Novel and To After That (TOAF), returns to recommend The Long Form by Kate Brigg. Plus Alan Minsky, executive director of Progressive Democrats of America (and producer of our show) stops by to talk about the fate of progressive activism under the incoming Trump administration

Renee Gladman's Experiments in Form Nov 29, 2024

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Medaya Ocher and Eric Newman are joined by writer and artist Renee Gladman to discuss the re-release of "To After That (TOAF)" and her latest book, "My Lesbian Novel." TOAF focuses on one of Gladman's abandoned manuscripts, working through its creation and revision in an attempt to parse what literary failure means. "My Lesbian Novel" completely reinvents and reimagines the lesbian romance. Gladman discusses form and its possibilities, as well as the artist's struggle to realize the vision of a project. Also, Edwin Frank, author of Stranger than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth Century Novel, returns to recommend Louis Aragon's Paris Peasant.

Edwin Frank's "Stranger than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth Century Novel" Nov 22, 2024

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Kate Wolf and Medaya Ocher are joined by the editorial director of the New York Review of Books and the founder of the NYRB classic series, Edwin Frank, to discuss his first work of nonfiction, the book, Stranger than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth Century Novel. Taking the novel as the preeminent art form of the last century, Frank's book charts its winding path of development, beginning with Fyodor Dostoevskey's Notes from the Underground, published in 1864, and ending with W.G. Sebald's Austerlitz which arrived more than a 100 years later. Along the way, Frank looks at the many different forms and categories great 20th century novels take, from the distinctly modern and popular science fiction of H.G. Wells to the "minorness" of Franz Kafka; the historical precision of Thomas Mann to Gerturde Stein's stress on sentence itself, and James Joyce's stress on words. The book connects an eclectic collection of authors by way of style, sensibility, reception, temporality, and perhaps most importantly the influence of cataclysmic world events on their work and the shaping of their work on the world.

Politics on the Couch: Psychoanalysis and the Presidency Nov 19, 2024

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In this special episode, Kate Wolf, Medaya Ocher, and Eric Newman are joined by writer and psychoanalyst Jamieson Webster to talk about the role of psychoanalysis in politics. Their discussion emerges from Webster's essay, "Freudulence," published in the latest issue LARB Quarterly Journal, which reassesses a controversial book co-authored by Sigmund Freud that gives a psychoanalytic reading of the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, including his disastrous handling of the Treaty of Versailles. Taking the recent election into account, the panel debates if psychoanalysis indeed belongs in politics. Could it help the electorate as a tool for making wiser decisions or understanding why we're attracted to certain leaders? How much does self-knowledge, or lack thereof, tip the scales of history?

Mosab Abu Toha's "Forest of Noise" Nov 15, 2024

Show notes

Eric Newman and Medaya Ocher are joined by the Palestinian poet, short-story writer, and essayist Mosab Abu Toha. He is the author of the award-winning collection of poetry, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear, as well as the founder of the Edward Said Library in Gaza, which he hopes to rebuild. Toha recently published a series of essays about Gaza in the New Yorker and his work has also appeared in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Review of Books. His new book is Forest of Noise, a collection of poems, grappling with his memories, experiences, and many, many losses. Also, Forrest Gander, author of Mojave Ghost returns to recommend Liontaming in America by Elizabeth Willis.

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