Essays Archive | Los Angeles Review of Books

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Gilding the Small Screen: or, “Is it just me or did TV get good all of a sudden?”
The true reasons for TV’s emergence as the preeminent mass medium of the early 21st century are primarily external to the actual business of creating televised narrative; none of them have anything to do with anyone’s personal greatness.
Javier Grillo-MarxuachSep 24, 2014
- Television
The Ephemeral Real, Part IV
Sometimes a fragment of the real lasts long enough to make it into more than one film.
Drew JohnsonSep 23, 2014
- Film
Worth the Trip
What is groundbreaking within one cultural context can seem routine a few years later.
Rumaan AlamSep 23, 2014
- Young Adult & Children’s Literature
“Mount Terminus” by David Grand
Sequestered in a villa up in the hills of pre-Hollywood Los Angeles, Bloom and his father Jacob live apart from society—but it is only a matter of time before their dramatic pasts catch up to them in this dark, thrilling novel about art, family, and the birth of Los Angeles. Check out our Summer 2014 pick for the LARB Book Club: “Mount Terminus” by David Grand.
Sep 22, 2014
Parents, Teenagers, and the Books in Between
In a society where people believe that “teenagers don’t care,” at least not about anything important, what is it like to read as teenager?
Angela YuenSep 22, 2014
- Young Adult & Children’s Literature
Afghanistan at the Brink Again: A Long-Term Solution to a Growing Crisis
It’s the executive branch, stupid.
M. Nazif ShahraniSep 21, 2014
- Around the World
- Politics
Long Burn the Fire: On Political Order and Political Decay
Fukuyama focuses on political decay by analyzing the slow rot of American institutions.
Zach DorfmanSep 21, 2014
- History
- Politics
Why Am I Brown? South Asian Fiction and Pandering to Western Audiences
Publishers have decided Western readers want cliché-heavy, lunch-buffet fiction that’s easy to digest and doesn’t contain too many weird ingredients.
Jabeen AkhtarSep 20, 2014
- Around the World
Why We Need Anita Hill
Ming-Qi ChuSep 20, 2014
- Politics
Vampire Socials
The distressingly human lives of vampires today
Becca RothfeldSep 19, 2014
- Television
- Young Adult & Children’s Literature
Outlander: Season 1
'Outlander' votes for Scotland
Sarah MesleSep 19, 2014
- Dear Television
George Orwell Weighs In on Scottish Independence
Nina MartyrisSep 19, 2014
Network’s Darling: On “The Good Wife”
On 'The Good Wife'
Briana FasoneSep 18, 2014
- Television
Who Killed Robert McCulloch’s Father?
The story behind the story of the prosecutor in the Michael Brown case in Ferguson, Missouri.
Peter James HudsonSep 18, 2014
The Ephemeral Real, Part III: Get Carter
Get Carter: the ephemeral real and industry.
Drew JohnsonSep 16, 2014
Signifying Nothing
Thoughts on Confidence, Depression, and Shakespeare
Jonathan FarmerSep 16, 2014
- Poetry