Essays Archive | Los Angeles Review of Books

All Essays

Late L’Engle: The Wrinkles of Time, Redeemed
Madeleine L'Engle is pegged as a writer for young people, but that isn't all.
Jonathan AlexanderAug 16, 2015
- Fiction
- Young Adult & Children’s Literature
Taking the Waters in Desert Hot Springs
For a brief time after its founding in 1941, Desert Hot Springs, California, was a boom town. Eventually, though, the boom went bust.
Ariana KellyAug 16, 2015
Don’t Settle: The Journalist in the Shadow of the Commercial Web
A good journalist makes society more democratic.
Guy Patrick CunninghamAug 16, 2015
- Politics
Selling Out the Newspaper Comic Strip
The comic strip and its evolution and devolution.
Luke EpplinAug 15, 2015
- Comics
Hell is Other Producers: The Painful Reality of "UnREAL"
Lifetime's television show UnREAL
Joshua David SteinAug 15, 2015
- Television
Controlling the Narrative: Harper Lee and the Stakes of Scandal
Considering the doubt that has attended the release of Harper Lee's "Go Set a Watchman," we might pause to reflect on just what is being doubted.
Aug 14, 2015
Translator’s Note
"After all, there's always a recursive component to utterance."
Amanda DeMarcoAug 13, 2015
- Literary Criticism
The Idea of Europe
Costica Bradatan and Robert Zaretsky on George Stiener and "The Idea of Europe" as a place defined more by philosophy than economics.
Costica Bradatan, Robert ZaretskyAug 12, 2015
- Philosophy & Religion
Kahlil Joseph’s Double Conscience: A Contemporary Spiritual
"Double Conscience," Kahlil Joseph's video project, is an elegant illustration of poverty, inner-city turmoil, and their multilayered impact on a community.
China AdamsAug 11, 2015
- Art & Architecture
David Foster Wallace and “Blurbspeak”
David Foster Wallace hated book blurbs — but his were fascinating.
Lucas ThompsonAug 9, 2015
- Literary Criticism
Always a Lighthouse: Video Games and Radical Politics
It's increasingly tenable to think that video games "may teach us to see the world differently and to understand global conflict from new perspectives."
Elliot MurphyAug 9, 2015
- Politics
A Little Hysterical: The Young Lives of Chester and Jean
How the extraordinary novel "Lonely Crusade" by Chester Himes wounded his marriage, unsettled his friends, and earned him literary foes.
Aug 8, 2015
A Child of Two Empires in an Age of Nuclear War
Mariko Terasaki Miller, the first woman appointed Honorary Consul-General of Japan, reflects on growing up "a child of two empires" in an age of nuclear war.
Mariko Terasaki MillerAug 6, 2015
- Politics
Why Your Rent Is So High and Your Pay Is So Low
Tom Streithorst explains why stagnant wages and higher stock prices are two sides of the same coin.
Tom StreithorstAug 4, 2015
- Politics
Landmark Princess
Denmark's most famous landmark, a 100-year-old statue of a bronze mermaid, has a sordid history of decapitation, tourist-baiting, cult reverence, and protest art.
Chantel TattoliAug 3, 2015
- Cultural Studies
- Nonfiction
The Literacy Games: Summer Lessons About Media from YA Fiction
Dystopic stories are attractive. They appeal to a readership that feels threatened — economically in an age of downward mobility, and politically in an age of terror.
Jonathan AlexanderAug 2, 2015
- Young Adult & Children’s Literature