Ruth Ozeki is a writer, filmmaker, Zen Buddhist priest, and author of three novels, My Year of Meats, All Over Creation, and A Tale for the Time Being, which was a finalist for the 2013 Booker Prize. Her nonfiction work includes the memoir The Face: A Time Code and the documentary film Halving the Bones. 
Ozeki joins Eric Newman and Medaya Ocher to talk about her latest work, The Book of Form and Emptiness. The novel opens with the death of Kenji, an itinerant jazz musician who is run over by a chicken truck after he falls down in the street late at night and is too intoxicated to pick himself back up. The story follows Kenji’s wife, Annabelle, and son, Benny, as they both cope, in their own ways, with their terrible tragedy. Annabelle becomes a hoarder, stacking various objects in their home as a kind of insurance against loss. Benny starts to hear those objects, and many others, talking to him, which eventually lands him in a psychiatric ward. As the novel moves forward, Benny meets an alluring, rebellious girl, Aleph, and Slajov the Bottleman, a wheelchair-bound alcoholic whose ravings about poetry, capitalism, and philosophy gin up, in part, the novel’s deep investment in questions about consumption, objects, and grief.
Also, Tom McCarthy, author of The Making of Incarnation, returns to recommend Ann Quin’s Three.

Ruth Ozeki's "The Book of Form and Emptiness"

In an encore presentation, Adam Phillips joins Kate Wolf to discuss his two latest books, both published this year, On Wanting to Change and On Getting Better. The series looks at the very human impulse toward transformation, from religious and political conversion, and the conversion to family life from which one must ultimately emerge, to the aims and practices of psychoanalysis, along with more quotidian ideas of self-betterment. As always in his work, Phillips attends in these books to the aspects of ourselves that can be hardest to bear, and that can lead us to desire more rigid structures — intellectual or otherwise — or desire to be someone else, while also quietly petitioning for a more complex and thoughtful mode of change in which, as Socrates encouraged his pupils, we learn only to be ourselves. How might we get better, Phillips wonders, at talking about what it is to get better?

Also, Pankaj Mishra, author of Run and Hide, returns to recommend Josep Pla’s The Grey Notebook.

Best of 2022: Adam Phillips's "On Wanting to Change" and "On Getting Better"

Miranda July speaks to Kate Wolf about her latest novel, All Fours. Its narrator is a woman in the middle of her life, a recognized artist who’s worked steadily for years with “the confidence that comes from knowing there is no other path.” Shortly after her 45th birthday, she decides to take a road trip to New York to celebrate with money she’s recently made from a whiskey commercial. She leaves her husband and child one morning and ends up stopping in a small suburb outside of Los Angeles for breakfast. But instead of continuing on, she rents a motel room there and proceeds to stay for the next three weeks. Part of her decision is based on her intense desire for a Hertz rental car employee she meets named Davey, a younger man, who yearns to be a hip hop dancer. But other aspects of her reasoning are more ineffable, fueled perhaps by the uncertainty of the future, aging, mortality, and struggles with the confines of domestic life. Her sojourn in the motel room becomes the catalyst for a reckoning with that life upon her return, and the basis for a deeper philosophical and visceral inquiry into desire, the female body, social and sexual possibility, caregiving, and what truly makes life worth living.
Also, Danielle Dutton, author of Prairie, Dresses, Art, Other, returns to recommend The New Animals by Pip Adam.

Miranda July's "All Fours"

Kate Wolf and Medaya Ocher speak to Sarah Manguso about her new novel, Liars, which focuses on a marriage and its disintegration. Jane is a writer, and her husband John is an artist and entrepreneur. Even early on in their relationship, John gives Jane plenty of reason to doubt their future. By the time they have their first child, Jane is subsumed by the role of wife and mother, responsible for tackling the domestic work as well as the chaos of John’s finances and shifting career ambitions, and ultimately his betrayal. The novel focuses on the trespasses of a single relationship, but it’s also about art, wifehood, and the institution of marriage itself, as well as the stories we tell about it from inside and outside its vows.
Also, Dayna Tortorici, co-editor of The Intellectual Situation: The Best of n+1’s Second Decade, returns to recommend All Fours by Miranda July.

Uptown Swag

Sarah Manguso's "Liars"

Kate Wolf speaks to the author Deborah Levy about her new book, a collection of essays called The Position of Spoons: And Other Intimacies. The piece collected here cite Levy’s early influences from French writers like Colette, Simone de Beauvoir and Marguerite Duras to JG Ballard and Anna Quinn. The collection also moves through snippets of Levy’s life: her relationship to her mother, her youth in dreary London, her abiding interest in surrealism and psychoanalysis, the way inspiration strikes and then takes shape for her novels, and the sensual and aesthetic pleasures of food and nature. In her review of the book for LARB, Grace Linden writes: “It is evident to everyone who reads Levy that language is her plaything….her words are lit from within.”
Also, Emily Witt, author of Health and Safety: A Breakdown. returns to recommend A Song for the River by Philip Connors.

Deborah Levy's "The Position of Spoons: And Other Intimacies"

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 https://lareviewofbooks.org/podcasts/larb-radio-hour/

BEST OF 2024 EPISODE

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.

Ariana Reines' ''Wave of Blood''

Kate Wolf and Medaya Ocher are joined by Deborah Treisman, the fiction editor at The New Yorker and host of The New Yorker’s Fiction podcast. Deborah is the editor of a new anthology of short stories, "A Century of Fiction in The New Yorker, 1925-2025," which features some of the incredible writers that The New Yorker has published over the past 100 years. There are stories by J.D. Salinger, Philip Roth, Muriel Spark, Vladimir Nabokov, Jamaica Kincaid, Mary Gaitskill, Don DeLillo and Zadie Smith and many, many more. Deborah discusses how she put the collection together and how she thinks about the short story as a form.

Deborah Treisman's "A Century of Fiction in The New Yorker"

Kate Wolf and Medaya Ocher are joined by the art critic and historian Hal Foster to speak about his latest book, "Fail Better: Reckonings with Artists and Critics." A collection of essays that brings together over three decades of Foster’s work, the book exhibits a rigorous philosophical and political engagement with a celebrated group of critics and artists who span the 1960s to the present. Foster digs deep into the work of Pop masters, Minimalists, and the Pictures Generation, as well as contemporary artists, always splaying open the vein of his critique to make it resonant beyond the confines of the art world, and in broader conversation with history and culture. In addition to writers like TJ Clark and Rosalind Kraus, in "Fail Better" he also reflects on his own work as a critic, and the changes that have occurred in the landscape between his emergence in the 1980s and now. 

Hal Foster's "Fail Better: Reckonings with Artists and Critics"

In this special episode, host Eric Newman joins LARB senior editor Paul Thompson and Film Comment co-editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute for a look at this year’s Oscar nominees ahead of this weekend’s award ceremony. Surveying this rather strange year in film, the gang discusses the gory camp of The Substance, the omnipresence of Wicked, the multi-genre madness of Emilia Pérez, and much more. 

LARB Radio Hour x Film Comment 2025 Oscars Preview

Kate Wolf and Medaya Ocher speak to writer Haley Mlotek about "No Fault: A Memoir of Divorce and Romance." The book blends the history of divorce law and custom in North America over the last century with cultural criticism on the way divorce has been portrayed in literature, film, and online. Mlotek also records her own experience of ending a marriage, and the front row seat she had growing up to the dissolution of many other unions through her mother’s work as a divorce mediator. At a time when it’s easier than ever before to access divorce, "No Fault" looks at the many questions that still persist around “what divorce should be, who it is for, and why the institution of marriage maintains its power.”

Haley Mlotek's "No Fault: A Memoir of Divorce and Romance"

Eric Newman speaks with Torrey Peters about her new story collection, "Stag Dance," which spans genre, time, and place to explore the shifting sands of gender, sex, desire, and identity. From a post-apocalyptic world in which everyone is trans to a pirate logging camp in the early 1900s where desire and gender explode in surprising ways, the stories in "Stag Dance" plumb the murky and often ugly feelings that contradict the “good politics” narrative of the transgender experience. Eric and Torrey discuss how our desires and identities often remain unintelligible to us, how the materialist force of capitalism shapes those desires and our relationships with others, and what history might tell us about today’s unprecedented assault on trans rights and lives.

Torrey Peters' "Stag Dance"

Eric Newman speaks with Bruce Robbins about his latest book, "Atrocity: A Literary History," which explores how literary accounts of mass killing came to shape our collective moral indignation against such violence. Moving from the pre-modern era to the twentieth century, Robbins's book wrestles with how texts from the Bible to Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five" reckon–or fail to reckon–with atrocity, drawing out the risks of representing such violence, namely forgetting it altogether or normalizing its horrors.

Bruce Robbins's "Atrocity: A Literary History"

The writer Pankaj Mishra joins Kate Wolf and Medaya Ocher to discuss his new book, "The World After Gaza: A History." It probes how the legacy of the Holocaust has shaped the contemporary world order, including how it has shaped the government of Israel, and the current war in Gaza. The book grapples with how, within the relentless violence of the 20th century, trauma can lead to nationalism, and also how one genocide can lead to another.

Pankaj Mishra's "The World After Gaza: A History"

Kate Wolf and Medaya Ocher speak to Lynne Tillman about her latest book, "Thrilled to Death," a collection of short stories selected from over four decades of her work. The stories in "Thrilled to Death" attest to Tillman’s range as a writer and stylist, showcasing her frenetic humor, deep psychological insight, and her innovation of the form. Ever playful and perverse, these stories cover terrains of urban existence, romantic obsession, familial entanglement, the interplay between culture—particularly film—and experience, along with the carnivalesque of American life in all of its absurdity.

Lynne Tillman's "Thrilled to Death"

Eric Newman and Medaya Ocher speak with Andrea Long Chu about "Authority," a collection of previously published and new essays and criticism. "Authority" interrogates what it means to be a critic today, analyzing the work that the critic does in interpreting a book, film, or TV show for us as well as how the status of the critic has developed from antiquity to the present. Andrea, Medaya, and Eric talk about finding one's voice as a critic, how the critic approaches an object of analysis, and the increasingly siloed role of the full-time critic in an era of tectonic shifts in the media landscape. 

Andrea Long Chu's "Authority"

Eric Newman and Medaya Ocher speak with writer Katie Kitamura about her recent novel, "Audition," which explores a tense, complex relationship between a middle-aged actress and a young man who may or may not be her son. The book raises questions about the roles we play, the stories we inhabit, and the many choices we make. “Audition” is  LARB’s Book Club pick this month. Join in on the conversation at https://lareviewofbooks.org/event/larb-book-club-discussion-audition-by-katie-kitamura/

Katie Kitamura's "Audition"

Maggie Nelson joins Kate Wolf to discuss her new book "Pathemata, Or, The Story of My Mouth." It is at once a compressed record of her long struggle with chronic pain and a document of the boundless blur of the pandemic era. It combines vignettes of daily life and doctor’s visits with dreams and memories, pushing at the partition between interior and exterior, symptom and experience, containment and surrender. Nelson depicts the mysteries of pain and the vulnerability of the human body with both humor and pathos, as well as the connections that are possible even in a moment of extreme isolation.

Maggie Nelson's ""Pathemata, Or, The Story of My Mouth"

Eric Newman and Kate Wolf speak with Sarah Schulman about her latest book, "The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity." With a focus on practical politics, Schulman explores both how we imagine solidarity and what the work of solidarity requires. Rather than a horizontal movement, the book focuses on the ways achieving today's most pressing political goals—from Palestine's self-determination to immigration reform and protecting LBGTQ rights—requires working across various levels of individual privilege and power. With both historical and present day examples, Schulman presents a clear-eyed, long-term vision of a life in activism, laying out stumbling blocks and failures alongside meaningful progress, and the steps it takes to get there.

Sarah Schulman's "The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity"

Medaya Ocher is joined by TV writer, memoirist and librettist Sarah Labrie, author of the book "No One Gets to Fall Apart." The book is a memoir of LaBrie’s fraught relationship with her mother, who suffers a psychotic break in 2017 and is found on the side of a freeway, convinced that she is being followed by FBI agents. LaBrie is then forced to confront the difficulties and mysteries of her childhood, the way her family dealt with mental illness, and the many questions we all face around fate and inheritance. 

Sarah LaBrie's "No One Gets to Fall Apart"

Eric Newman speaks with Jon Hickey about his debut novel "Big Chief." The book is a gripping political thriller about the struggle for power, belonging, and destiny set against a tribal election campaign on a fictional reservation. It follows the story of Mitch Caddo and his childhood friend Max Beck, who is seeking reelection as the tribal president of the Passage Rouge Nation. As Max’s reelection turns ruthless and agitated protesters turn out in force, Mitch is caught between loyalty, love, and his own conflicted sense of purpose—not least because Max's opponent, Gloria Hawkins, is backed by his estranged sister Layla, Mitch’s former love. When a tragic plane crash reveals a political and financial bombshell, Mitch and the tribe’s future hangs in the balance. Eric and Jon discuss the many meaty questions that suffuse "Big Chief," including tribal identity and the long legacies of historical trauma the US government has inflicted on Native Americans. 

Jon Hickey's "Big Chief"

Eric Newman speaks with journalist and author Vauhini Vara about her new book “Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age.” The book hybrid blend of memoir and modern tech history explore how the internet, AI, and the corporate tech giants behind them have shaped the way we see ourselves and connect with others. Through Vara’s personal anecdotes and digital history deep dives—including a nostalgic look at AOL chat rooms, a rundown of her Google search history and prolific Amazon product reviews, and her reporting on the rise of AI and how an early version of ChatGPT helped her write an essay about her sister’s death—“Searches” shows how our search for meaning and identity online defines life in the digital age in ways both fascinating and concerning.

Vauhini Vara's "Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age"

Dan Nadel joins Kate Wolf and Eric Newman to speak about his new biography, "Crumb: A Cartoonist's Life." The book traces the life and art of Robert Crumb, arguably the most influential cartoonist of the last half century. Crumb emerged from the world of underground comics that he helped create in the late 1960s to both mainstream fame and commercial success. But he was a reticent celebrity who often felt at odds with the hippie culture that he became so identified with. Nadel sifts through the aspects of American culture that did inspire Crumb—from Disney cartoons to pre-war comic books to old blues 78s— and also looks closely at his troubled early life and complicated family. The book also faces the misogyny and racism in much of Crumb’s work and explores his long marriage to his wife and frequent collaborator, cartoonist Aline Kominsky-Crumb.

Dan Nadel's "Crumb: A Cartoonist's Life"

In this special episode, hosts Kate Wolf, Medaya Ocher, and Eric Newman wrestle with the question: What are we to do about shame? Using Frédéric Gros’s recent book, "A Philosophy of Shame," as a guidepost, they discuss shame’s place in culture, politics, and our personal lives. Are there social benefits to feeling shame? And what are the repercussions of trying to avoid it? The hosts debate the possibility of a post-shame society and share personal stories about what they feel most ashamed of.

What To Do About Shame?

Eric Newman and Medaya Ocher speak with Alison Bechdel about her new graphic novel, "Spent." Bechdel is the author of "Essential Dykes to Watch Out For," "Fun Home,"  and "Are You My Mother?" "Spent" fictionalizes Bechdel’s life with her wife Holly on their pygmy goat sanctuary in Vermont. The comic chronicles political and local dramas, generational shifts, experiments with polyamory, and navigating the relationship between success and art. In conversation, Alison shares her struggles with fame, success, and the Trump era with a view toward the steadying forces of our relationships with others.

Alison Bechdel's "Spent"

In this double episode celebrating pride month, Kate Wolf speaks with the critic Vince Aletti about his new book, "Physique," an assortment of hundreds of physique photos from Aletti’s own personal collection. The images in the book represent a time when homosexual life in the US was illegal, existed mostly underground, and was by necessity furtive and coded. Yet throughout the country there were photo studios producing erotic and often very beautiful photographs of barely clothed men, and distributing them through mail order catalogues and small magazines. Aletti revisits these images and their quiet revolution in his book; post-Stonewall physique photos may have appeared timid or kitsch but today they point to a largely unknown story and genre of imagery that is worthy of reconsideration as well as enjoyment. Then Milo Todd discusses his novel "The Lilac People" with Eric Newman. Set in the aftermath of World War II, "The Lilac People" follows three queer Holocaust survivors—Bertie, a trans man; his girlfriend, Sofie; and a young trans man named Karl—as they attempt to flee a hostile postwar Germany. As they evade Allied forces who are re-imprisoning queer and trans survivors, they must also navigate betrayal, suspicion, and the ongoing threat of violence from neighbors and hidden Nazis alike. Todd’s debut shines a light on a buried chapter of Holocaust history, one in which the queer and trans people, who were among the Reich's first victims, became victims anew after its fall. 

PRIDE SHOW: Featuring Milo Todd and Vince Aletti

Susan Choi joins Kate Wolf and Medaya Ocher to speak about her new novel, "Flashlight." An epic story that spans multiple generations of a single family, the book is an astute exploration of identity, migration, memory, kinship and the irrepressibility of the past. It begins in the wake of the mysterious disappearance of a young academic named Serk. An ethnic Korean, who was raised in Japan and decided to continue his studies there when his family returned to Korea after WWII, Serk later moves to the US and marries Anne, who is also estranged from her family and has her own secrets. Their daughter, Louisa, is with her father on the night of his disappearance, from a beach back in Japan, where the family has come for Serk’s year-long academic appointment. Washing up on the shore in the morning, Louisa has little memory of what has taken place, and it will take her many decades, and the course of the novel, to discover the truth.

Susan Choi's "Flashlight"

For Independence Day, we dive into the archives to bring you an episode that still feels timely. Ruth Wilson Gilmore joins Kate Wolf and Eric Newman to talk about her collection, "Abolition Geography: Essays Toward Liberation," which covers three decades of her thinking about abolition, activism, scholarship, the carceral system, the political economy of racism, and much more. For Gilmore, these are not siloed issues; rather, they are braided effects of an unjust political, economic, and cultural system that must be dismantled in order for liberation to take place. Gilmore reminds us that we must look for connections beyond the academy, where theory meets praxis, where the vulnerable are not an abstraction but a concrete human reality. Her thought and work are a much needed shot in the arm for a political and intellectual culture that has, in the view of many, atrophied or been co-opted by the extractive loops of late capitalism.

Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s “Abolition Geography: Essays Toward Liberation”

Medaya Ocher and Eric Newman speak with Traci Thomas, host of the "The Stacks” podcast. They discuss the impact of social media on publishing, the content creator life, and the way readers discover books today. At the end of the episode, Medaya, Eric, and Traci offer readers a rundown of recommendations for the books getting us through 2025.

LARB x The Stacks Podcast: Books on the Internet

Medaya Ocher and Kate Wolf speak with writer Catherine Lacey, author of the novels "Biography of X," "Pew," "The Answers," and a short story collection, "Certain American States." Her most recent work is "The Möbius Book," which is split in two — one half is fiction and the other memoir. The novel tells the story of two friends, catching up on a grim Christmas Eve. The memoir is about Catherine herself, set adrift after a brutal breakup. Lacey discusses new beginnings, the formal experiment in the book, the connection between memory and storytelling.

Catherine Lacy's "The Möbius Book"

The Los Angeles Review of Books is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting and disseminating rigorous, incisive, and engaging writing on every aspect of literature, culture, and the arts.

The Los Angeles Review of Books magazine was created in part as a response to the disappearance of the traditional newspaper book review supplement, and, with it, the art of lively, intelligent long-form writing on recent publications in every genre, ranging from fiction to politics. The Los Angeles Review of Books seeks to revive and reinvent the book review for the internet age, and remains committed to covering and representing today’s diverse literary and cultural landscape.

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