All Essays

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  Strawberries on Life Support

  The alien can be found within us; for proof, we need look no further than the colonies of bacteria proliferating in the crook of the human elbow.

  Antónia Szabari, Natania MeekerMay 9, 2012
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  A Grosser Power: A Contrarian Look at The Hunger Games

  The only way The Hunger Games works as art is if it shows ordinary people being entertained by death. Then it forces the audience to look at itself.

  Ned VizziniMay 8, 2012
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  Discoveries: Tom Bissell, April Bernard, James Franco, John Green, Sarah Manguso

  On 'Magic Hours,' 'Miss Fuller,' 'The Dangerous Book Four Boys,' 'The Fault of Our Stars,' and 'The Guardians.'

  Susan Salter ReynoldsMay 6, 2012

  • Young Adult & Children’s Literature

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  The France of Yes and the France of No: Sunday's Presidential Elections

  On Sunday, French voters will go to the polls to decide whether Sarkozy, the incumbent, or François Hollande, the poll favorite, will be president.

  Judah GrunsteinMay 4, 2012
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  I Gotta Be Able to Counterattack: Rap and the Los Angeles Riots

  "L.A. hip hop, like the punk and skateboarding subcultures of the 1970s, had sprouted from the imaginations of forgotten kids..."

  Jeff ChangMay 3, 2012
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  Dead or Straight: The Conundrum of the Lesbian Coming-of-Age Story

  How true, how frequent, is the "dead or straight" binary to the lesbian novel at large?

  Laura GoodeMay 2, 2012

  • Fiction

  • Gender & Sexuality

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  Ruminations on Riots

  When it comes to matters of race, L.A. would rather forget.

  Wanda ColemanMay 2, 2012
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  Fix-up Artist: The Chaotic SF of A.E. van Vogt

  "The disjointed novel is more in vogue today than at any previous point in history."

  Ted GioiaApr 30, 2012
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  The Embers of April 1992

  "Los Angeles became a carnival of repression."

  Mike DavisApr 30, 2012
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  Perched on Nothingness

  Juan Felipe HerreraApr 30, 2012
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  Reality Hunger: On Lena Dunham’s “Girls”

  For Hannah, talking is a way of coming to terms with, and owning, her appetites.

  Jane HuApr 28, 2012
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  Mr. Amis’s Planet

  Martin Amis has always been a casualty of his own biography.

  Morten Høi JensenApr 25, 2012
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  Weetzie Bat Meets the Genie

  "Block paints Los Angeles in late-eighties' Rococo: Patrick Nagel doing the Go-Gos in dayglo."

  Bennett MadisonApr 23, 2012

  • Young Adult & Children’s Literature

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  Novels Are Not the Only Books

  "As soon as I finished reading 'Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?' I wanted to take stock of the Winterson canon."

  Audrey BilgerApr 20, 2012
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  Death and the Library

  I held my father's copy of Mein Kampf in my hand wondering if it should be kept, donated, or set on fire in the backyard.

  Seth GreenlandApr 19, 2012
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  Rivers of Blood: On Guillermo Fernández García

  On the murder of the poet and translator Guillermo Fernández Garcia.

  Dolores DorantesApr 18, 2012