Welcome to the new LARB

The Monthly DIgest: April Edition

Welcome to the new LARB
FIVE YEARS AGO, a small but mighty group of like-minded editors, artists, and writers officially launched the Los Angeles Review of Books. “The big site,” as it came to be known within our editorial board, was the final act in a leap of faith we’d decided to take: that readers all over the world were as interested in fun, smart, intelligent long-form writing about literature, culture, and the arts as we were; that the dissolution of literary book review supplements in newspapers and magazines nationwide was a travesty; that the book, far from being dead, was in fact alive and well, and that it remains one of the great alembics for public discourse.

Since then, we have also launched a print journal, a radio show, and the LARB Channels network: a community of new publishers intent on expanding the cultural and literary geographies through which we can become better informed and more active citizens. We strive to create a home for great journalism, capacious civic discourse, and penetrating literary exploration.

Today we launch the next generation of “the big site.” All of the content is still free of charge, which is made possible by the continued generosity of you, our readers. We have developed a number of handy new features to help you navigate, track what you’re interested in, and share it with others.

The “Monthly Digest” is one of them — each month a different LARB editor will personally curate a selection of articles for LARB members, which will then be delivered to your “Bookshelf.”  The Bookshelf is a place where you can save articles to read later — your own space to collect and share content with others. The Monthly Digest replaces the LARB Digital Editions as the basic level of LARB membership. In this inaugural issue, to celebrate LARB’s five-year anniversary, we’ve selected the following five articles, one from each year LARB has been in existence, for your reading pleasure.

A reminder that while all our content is free, producing it, and bringing it to you, is not. We depend on our supporting members to help us stay in business. If you aren’t already a member, please consider joining us, and help us keep LARB alive.

Thank you for reading, and for your support.

Sincerely,

Tom Lutz, Editor-in-Chief, and Jonathan Hahn, Executive Editor