A multimedia literary and cultural arts magazine with an enduring commitment to the written word. https://lareviewofbooks.org/
It's only mid-summer but we're already thinking about autumn: applications are now open for the fall copydesk intern! Running from Sept 14-December 18, with in-person, remote, or hybrid availability. Learn more and apply at https://airtable.com/app5UeNk1TbjY8imi/pagmpclOj2tWTfio1/form
"Butler brings surprising vigor to his telling of the story of government heavy-handedness and curatorial clumsiness when it comes to the arts." Paul Elie reviews Isaac Butler's "The Perfect Moment": https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/perfect-moment-god-sex-art-culture-wars-butler/
On this week's #LARBRadioHour, Historian Erin Maglaque joins the podcast to talk about her new book "Presence: A Hidden History of the Female Body." Listen now: https://lareviewofbooks.org/av/erin-maglaque-presence-podcast-interview-book/
"Chinese Muslims have often found themselves judged as an anomaly—neither fully Muslim nor fully Chinese." Benno Weiner and Qianyu Ma on two new books tracking the history of China’s Muslim minority: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/islamic-china-rian-thum-muslim-transnationalism-hale-eroglu/
"Through its pronounced self-referentiality, the film appears as the victory lap of an immensely successful auteur retracing Nolan's career to its Homeric origins." @BKruchio on "The Odyssey": https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/homer-odyssey-christopher-nolan-career-retrospective-memory-adaptation/
“Television flow reorganized narrative time. Social media has radicalized it.” From our Traffic issue, Max L. Feldman on what the internet took from television: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/max-l-feldman-internet-television-flow-traffic/
A Brief History of Flow | Los Angeles Review of BooksWhat the internet learned from television.lareviewofbooks.org"A world too austere for art is impoverished in more than one sense." @scottwstern.bsky.social on the field of fictional character biographies: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/fictional-character-biographies-shakespeare-margaret-hannibal-juliet-bigger/
“'The Perfect Moment' is akin to the quilt that Butler saw as a young man: it brings together stories of people whose efforts might be forgotten otherwise.” Paul Elie on Isaac Butler's "The Perfect Moment": https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/perfect-moment-god-sex-art-culture-wars-butler/
"The absence of Chinese Muslims from our consciousness is curious but, as two new books show, neither new nor unexpected." Benno Weiner and Qianyu Ma on the history of China’s Muslim minority: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/islamic-china-rian-thum-muslim-transnationalism-hale-eroglu/
"The pleasure here comes not from allusion but from the materiality of these flimsy, disposable glowing screens." Eileen Havant Townsend reviews Megan Mi-Ai Lee’s exhibition L.A. exhibition "Small Fortune": https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/megan-mi-ai-lee-small-fortune-tiffanys-townsend/
"Nolan’s 'The Odyssey' functions as a meta commentary on how women factor into his career-long obsessions with power, time, and memory." Abby Monteil explores Nolan's relationship to gender: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/odyssey-christopher-nolan-women-circe-athena-calypso-penelope/
Know Your Own Men | Los Angeles Review of BooksSome say that Christopher Nolan has finally transformed into a women’s director, but the gender dynamics in his new mythology epic are actually much more complicated.lareviewofbooks.org"The breakneck pace of their revolution shows how quickly the actions of a determined few can alter the fate of a nation, which is also the premise of 'Astronaut!'" Cory Oldweiler reviews "Astronaut!" https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/astronaut-oana-aristide-romanian-novel-dictatorship
“What does it mean to write a ‘biography’ of someone who never existed?” @scottwstern.bsky.social on fictional character biographies: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/fictional-character-biographies-shakespeare-margaret-hannibal-juliet-bigger/
"Once a laughingstock, animation—and animators—had become the pinnacle of show business." Tim Brinkhof reviews Tom Sito's "Drawing Life Back Into Animation," a personal history of animation in Hollywood: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/disney-drawing-life-back-into-animation-tom-sito
In his latest book, Capital from Zero, Japanese Marxist scholar Kohei Saito provides an accessible and relevant reading of Karl Marx’s magnum opus, Capital (1867–94). lareviewofbooks.org/article/kohe...
Capitalism’s ‘Metabolic Rift’ | Los Angeles Review of BooksKohei Saito’s new book offers a compelling account of Marx’s development as an ecosocialist thinker.lareviewofbooks.org"The two books with such different target readers underscore how completely the protests changed the lives of everybody there." Melissa Chan on "Everyday Movement" and "An Echo in the City": https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/echo-city-kx-song-everyday-movement-gigi-leung/
"The house felt voided, like an unwanted entry effaced from a history book." Nabil Salih reports from Baghdad: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/baghdad-round-city-destruction-saddam-hussein-iran-war/
Only a Place Like This | Los Angeles Review of BooksReporting from a car in Baghdad.lareviewofbooks.org"Lia’s narrative, which remains mostly grounded in kid-appropriate observations, flirts a bit too much with YA fiction at times." Cory Oldweiler reviews Oana Aristide’s new novel, "Astronaut!" https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/astronaut-oana-aristide-romanian-novel-dictatorship/
"I can't say that Lee’s work left me emotional, but neither did it leave me dry." Eileen Havant Townsend reviews Megan Mi-Ai Lee’s exhibition "Small Fortune" at Tiffany’s in Los Angeles: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/megan-mi-ai-lee-small-fortune-tiffanys-townsend/
“If Collins is then to be the final great butterfly collector, he will be the last of an illustrious cast of adventurers and eccentrics.” Emil Leth Beiter on the last of the last of the butterfly collectors: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/emil-beiter-butterfly-collector/