Reviews Archive | Los Angeles Review of Books

All Reviews

Present at the Destruction: Humanity’s Success in Ruining Nature
This unholy alliance of producers, consumers, and parochially focused governments is sleepwalking the Earth off the climate cliff. On "The Water Will Come."
Franz BaumannFeb 21, 2018
- Politics
- Science & Technology
“We Are Almost Dead”: The Politics of Migrants and Refugees in an Unequal World
Jonathan Blake surveys several recent works on the refugee crises.
Jonathan S. BlakeFeb 21, 2018
- Around the World
- Politics
Outside It Is Already Winter: Two New Books on Stalinist Terror
Patrick Kurp on “The Day Will Pass Away: The Diary of a Gulag Prison Guard: 1935-1936” and “Stalinist Perpetrators on Trial.”
Patrick KurpFeb 21, 2018
“Alone Together, Together Alone”: On Lisa Halliday’s “Asymmetry”
Lori Feathers takes the measure of “Asymmetry” by Lisa Halliday.
Lori FeathersFeb 20, 2018
- Fiction
“Even in Windowless Rooms, I See Sky”: Lisa Russ Spaar’s “Orexia”
L. A. Johnson reviews Lisa Russ Spaar’s “Orexia.”
L. A. JohnsonFeb 20, 2018
- Poetry
Active Shooter
A recent book on a famous 2010 mass shooting in the United Kingdom.
Jeff MayshFeb 19, 2018
- History
Indicting the System
A memoir from the co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Stephanie AbrahamFeb 19, 2018
- Memoir & Essay
- Politics
A Terraqueous Counter-Narrative in US History
Michele Currie Navakas’s “Liquid Landscape” convincingly demonstrates that Florida has always compromised master narratives of US nationalism.
D. Berton EmersonFeb 18, 2018
- History
Playing the Girl: Ten False Starts (After Janet Malcolm)
Karen Karbo tries to review "You Play the Girl" by Carina Chocano.
Karen KarboFeb 18, 2018
- Gender & Sexuality
- Memoir & Essay
A Theory of Injustice for Truly Disadvantaged Blacks
What duties do black citizens owe to a biased “justice” system?
Jody D. ArmourFeb 17, 2018
- Law
- Politics
Queer Desires, Queer Disagreements
Will Clark explores “The Ethics of Opting Out” as an introduction to key debates in contemporary queer theory and a path to a more engaged queer politics.
Will ClarkFeb 16, 2018
- Gender & Sexuality
- Philosophy & Religion
The United States’s Sacred Gun Problem
The American fetish for firearms goes back to the nation’s genocidal roots, a new book argues.
Mark TreckaFeb 15, 2018
- History
- Politics
Dissolving Identities: On Cristina Rivera Garza’s “The Iliac Crest”
Rachel Ballenger dwells in “The Iliac Crest,” a novel by Cristina Rivera Garza, translated by Sarah Booker.
Rachel BallengerFeb 14, 2018
- Fiction
- Gender & Sexuality
A Gnostic Gospel for the Now: B. K. Fischer’s “Radioapocrypha”
Heather Treseler reviews B. K. Fischer’s “Radioapocrypha.”
Heather TreselerFeb 13, 2018
- Poetry
Ideologies of Boring Things: The Internet and Infrastructures of Race
Safiya Umoja Noble’s “Algorithms of Oppression” explores how racial bias informs and shapes the very platform we laud as radically democratizing.
Emily DrabinskiFeb 13, 2018
- Science & Technology
Life Writing: Samuel Beckett’s Literature of Disorder
Amanda Dennis cracks open “Samuel Beckett Is Closed” by Michael Coffey.
Amanda DennisFeb 13, 2018
- Fiction
- Literary Criticism