Events
Malcolm Gladwell with Brit Marling
Monday, September 16, 2019
8pm
Presented in association with Barnes & Noble
Malcolm Gladwell
in conversation with Brit Marling
discussing his book,
Talking to Strangers:
What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know
Frost Auditorium
4401 Elenda St,
Culver City, CA 90230
PURCHASE TICKETS
$55 General Admission Section Seat + signed Book
$75 Premium Seat + Book (Sold Out)
Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast Revisionist History and the bestselling author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, David and Goliath, and What the Dog Saw, offers a powerful examination of our interactions with strangers—and why they often go wrong.
Malcolm Gladwell is the author of five New York Times bestsellers: The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, What the Dog Saw, and David and Goliath. He is the host of the podcast Revisionist History and is a staff writer at The New Yorker. He was named one of the 100 most influential people by Time magazine and one of the Foreign Policy’s Top Global Thinkers. Previously, he was a reporter with the Washington Post, where he covered business and science, and then served as the newspaper’s New York City bureau chief. He graduated from the University of Toronto, Trinity College, with a degree in history. Gladwell was born in England and grew up in rural Ontario. He lives in New York.
How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to each other that isn’t true?
Talking to Strangers is a classically Gladwellian intellectual adventure, a challenging and controversial excursion through history, psychology, and scandals taken straight from the news. He revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, the suicide of Sylvia Plath, the Jerry Sandusky pedophilia scandal at Penn State University, and the death of Sandra Bland—throwing our understanding of these and other stories into doubt. Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don’t know. And because we don’t know how to talk to strangers, we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding in ways that have a profound effect on our lives and our world. In his first book since his #1 bestseller, David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell has written a gripping guidebook for troubled times.
Brit Marling is an actor, writer and producer. Most recently she was in the return of The OA on Netflix. Other credits include The Keeping Room, The Better Angels, I Origins, The East, and The Company You Keep.
Ticket sales are final. No refunds.
Randall Munroe with Kyle Hill
Thursday, September 12, 2019
8pm
Randall Munroe
in conversation with Kyle Hill
discussing his book,
How To:
Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems
Aratani Theatre
Japanese American Cultural & Community Center
244 S. San Pedro Street
Downtown Los Angeles, CA 90012
PURCHASE TICKETS
$75.00 first three rows (includes book)*
$53.00 orchestra section (includes book)
$45.00 balcony section (includes book)
$20.00 balcony (on sale August 12, 10am)
* also includes Live Talks Los Angeles 10th anniversary tote bag.
Q&A with Entertainment Weekly about Randall Munroe’s new book, How To
The world’s most entertaining and useless self-help guide, from the brilliant mind behind the wildly popular webcomic xkcd and the #1 New York Times bestsellers What If? and Thing Explainer
Randall Munroe is the author of the popular webcomic xkcd and the science question-and-answer blog What If. He is author of the New York Times bestsellers What If? and Thing Explainer. A former NASA roboticist, he left the agency in 2006 to draw comics on the internet full-time supporting himself through the sale of xkcd t-shirts, prints, posters, and books. He appeared at Live Talks Los Angeles in conversation with Will Wheaton when his book, What If was published.
For any task you might want to do, there’s a right way, a wrong way, and a way so monumentally complex, excessive, and inadvisable that no one would ever try it. How To is a guide to the third kind of approach. It’s full of highly impractical advice for everything from landing a plane to digging a hole.
Bestselling author and cartoonist Randall Munroe explains how to predict the weather by analyzing the pixels of your Facebook photos. He teaches you how to tell if you’re a baby boomer or a 90’s kid by measuring the radioactivity of your teeth. He offers tips for taking a selfie with a telescope, crossing a river by boiling it, and powering your house by destroying the fabric of space-time. And if you want to get rid of the book once you’re done with it, he walks you through your options for proper disposal, including dissolving it in the ocean, converting it to a vapor, using tectonic plates to subduct it into the Earth’s mantle, or launching it into the Sun.
By exploring the most complicated ways to do simple tasks, Munroe doesn’t just make things difficult for himself and his readers. As he did so brilliantly in What If?, Munroe invites us to explore the most absurd reaches of the possible. Full of clever infographics and amusing illustrations, How To is a delightfully mind-bending way to better understand the science and technology underlying the things we do every day.
David Koepp with Andrew Kevin Walker
David Koepp
in conversation with Andrew Kevin Walker
discussing the writing life and his debut novel,
Cold Storage
William Turner Gallery
Bergamot Station Arts Center
2525 Michigan Avenue,
Santa Monica, CA 90404
This event is part of our Newer Voices Series.
General Admission tickets are complimentary, but we encourage you to support these newer authors and purchase their books.
RSVP HERE for free tickets to this event
$30 Reserved Seat + Book PURCHASE TICKETS
An astonishing debut by the screenwriter of Jurassic Park: a wild and terrifying adventure about three strangers who must work together to contain a highly contagious, deadly organism.
David Koepp is a celebrated American screenwriter and director best known for his work on Jurassic Park, Spider-Man, Panic Room, and War of the World. His work on screen has grossed over $6 billion worldwide.
“An ultra-flammable combination of science-based horror, primal nightmare-level terror, and unrelenting action, cunningly tied together by indelible characters and a satisfyingly sly, knowing sense of humor.” — Steven Soderbergh, Academy Award-winning director of Traffic and Ocean’s Eleven
In Cold Storage, when Pentagon bioterror operative Roberto Diaz was sent to investigate a suspected biochemical attack, he found something far worse: a highly mutative organism capable of extinction-level destruction. He contained it and buried it in cold storage deep beneath a little-used military repository.
Now, after decades of festering in a forgotten sub-basement, the specimen has found its way out and is on a lethal feeding frenzy. Only Diaz knows how to stop it.
He races across the country to help two unwitting security guards—one an ex-con, the other a single mother. Over one harrowing night, the unlikely trio must figure out how to quarantine this horror again. All they have is luck, fearlessness, and a mordant sense of humor. Will that be enough to save all of humanity?
Andrew Kevin Walker is the BAFTA nominated screenwriter of Se7en, Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow, Brainscan and Nerdland.
Emma Donoghue with Marisa Matarazzo
Emma Donoghue
in conversation with Marisa Matarazzo
discussing the writing life and her novel,
Akin
William Turner Gallery
Bergamot Station Arts Center
2525 Michigan Avenue,
Santa Monica, CA 90404
PURCHASE TICKETS
$43 Reserved Section + Book
$20 General Admission Section
Born in Dublin in 1969, Emma Donoghue is a writer of contemporary and historical fiction whose novels include the international bestseller Room (her screen adaptation was nominated for four Oscars), Frog Music, Slammerkin, The Sealed Letter, Landing, Life Mask, Hood, and Stirfry. Her story collections are Astray, The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits, Kissing the Witch, and Touchy Subjects. She also writes literary history, and plays for stage and radio. She lives in London, Ontario, with her partner and their two children.
Marisa Matarazzo is the author of Drenched: Stories of Love and Other Deliriums. Her stories have appeared in a number of literary journals, and she has a piece forthcoming in The Believer. She is an Assistant Professor in the MFA Writing Program at Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles and is currently at work on a novel.
Praise for Room
“Emma Donoghue’s writing is superb alchemy, changing innocence into horror and horror into tenderness. Room is a book to read in one sitting. When it’s over you look up: the world looks the same but you are somehow different and that feeling lingers for days.”―Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler’s Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry
In her new novel, Akin, a retired New York professor’s life is thrown into chaos when he takes a young great-nephew to the French Riviera, in hopes of uncovering his own mother’s wartime secrets.
Noah Selvaggio, a widower living on the Upper West Side, but born in the South of France is days away from his first visit back to Nice since he was a child, bringing with him a handful of puzzling photos he’s discovered from his mother’s wartime years. But he receives a call from social services: he is the closest available relative of an eleven-year-old great-nephew he’s never met, who urgently needs someone to look after him. Out of a feeling of obligation, he agrees to take Michael along on his trip.
Much has changed in this famously charming seaside mecca, still haunted by memories of the Nazi occupation. The unlikely duo, suffering from jet lag and culture shock, bicker about everything from steak frites to screen time. But Noah gradually comes to appreciate the boy’s truculent wit, and Michael’s ease with tech and sharp eye help Noah unearth troubling details about their family’s past. Both come to grasp the risks people in all eras have run for their loved ones, and find they are more akin than they knew.
Akin is a funny, heart-wrenching tale of an old man and a boy, born two generations apart, who unpick their painful story and start to write a new one together.
Walter Mosley with Viet Thanh Nguyen
Thursday, September 5, 2019
8pm
Walter Mosley
in conversation with Viet Thanh Nguyen
discussing his book,
Elements of Fiction
Peltz Theater
Museum of Tolerance
9786 West Pico Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90035
PURCHASE TICKETS
$45.00 Reserved Section (includes book)
$35.00 General Admission Section (includes book)
$20.00 General Admission Section
Walter Mosley is the author of more than fifty critically-acclaimed books, including the major bestselling mystery series featuring Easy Rawlins. His work has been translated into twenty-five languages and includes literary fiction, science fiction, political monographs, and a young adult novel. In 2013, he was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame, and he is the winner of numerous awards, including an O. Henry Award, the Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Master Award, a Grammy, PEN America’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and an Edgar Award. He previously appeared at Live Talks Los Angeles in conversation with Karen Grigsby Bates (video)
Viet Thanh Nguyen was born in Vietnam and raised in America. His novel The Sympathizer won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well as five other awards. He is also the author of the short story collection The Refugees, and nonfiction books Nothing Ever Dies and Race and Resistance, and editor of The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives. He is a University Professor, the Aerol Arnold Chair of English, and a Professor of English, American Studies and Ethnicity, and Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California.
“Drawing on a prolific and successful crime fiction career, Mosley returns to elucidating the author’s craft, after 2007’s This Year You Write Your Novel, in this compact but insight-rich monograph. He addresses plot structure, character development, authorial voice, and the journey from a blank page, the would-be writer’s ‘first impediment and biggest obstacle,’ to the final stage of ‘putting it all together’…Mosley has skillfully packed a large canvas into a small frame, which should equally please readers who enjoy seeing a writer at work and writers in need of assistance.”—Publishers Weekly
In his essential writing guide, This Year You Write Your Novel, Walter Mosley supplied aspiring writers with the basic tools to write a novel in one year. In this com-plementary follow up, Mosley guides the writer through the elements of not just any fiction writing, but the kind of writing that transcends convention and truly stands out. How does one approach the genius of writers like Melville, Dickens, or Twain? In The Elements of Fiction, Walter Mosley contemplates the answer.
In a series of instructive and conversational chapters, Mosley demonstrates how to master fiction’s most essential elements: character and char-acter development, plot and story, voice and narrative, context and description, and more. The result is a vivid depiction of the writing process, from the blank page to the first draft to rewriting, and rewriting again. Throughout, The Elements of Fiction is enriched by brilliant demonstrative examples that Mosley himself has written here for the first time.
Inspiring, accessible, and told in a voice both trustworthy and wise, The Elements of Fiction writing will intrigue and encourage writers and readers alike.
Steve Aoki with Howie Mandel
Wednesday, September 4, 2019
8pm
Steve Aoki
in conversation with Howie Mandel
discussing his memoir,
Blue: The Color of Noise
Aratani Theatre
Japanese American Cultural & Community Center
244 S. San Pedro Street
Downtown Los Angeles, CA 90012
PURCHASE TICKETS
$75.00 first three rows Orchestra (includes book)*
$53.00 Orchestra section (includes book)
$45.00 Balcony section (includes book)
$20.00 Balcony Section (on sale August 5, 10am)
* also includes Live Talks Los Angeles 10th anniversary tote bag.
Steve Aoki is an electronic musician, record producer, DJ, and music executive. He has collaborated with artists such as BTS, Daddy Yankee, Migos, Tiesto, Linkin Park, blink-182, Lil Jon, and Fall Out Boy, and has released several Billboard-charting studio albums, notably Wonderland, which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Dance/Electronica Album in 2013. His most recent album, Neon Future III, which serves as the third chapter of the Neon Future concept albums, featured Louis Tomlinson, Lil Yachty, Bill Nye, Mike Posner, and many more. He was born in Miami, FL, and grew up in Newport Beach, CA, and is the founder of The Aoki Foundation, whose primary goal is to support the organizations in the brain science and research areas with a specific focus on regenerative medicine and brain preservation as well as humanitarian causes such as disaster relief, developmental disabilities and animal rights.
“For over two decades, Aoki has been a disruptive trailblazer in music, fashion and lifestyle. Kicking off his career by providing a platform for bands and throwing rock concerts in his living room, his expansive enterprise has evolved to include a thriving record label, leading apparel brand and celebrated run as one of the most prominent EDM DJ’s in the world.” ―Forbes
The music. The mix. His life.
“Sometimes I think my whole life can be seen through shades of blue…” ―Steve Aoki
Blue is the remarkable story―in pictures and words―of Steve Aoki, the superstar DJ/producer who started his career as a vegan straightedge hardcore music kid hellbent on defying his millionaire father, whose unquenchable thirst to entertain―inherited from his dad, Rocky Aoki, founder of Benihana―led him to global success and two Grammy nominations.
Ranked among the top ten DJs in the world today, Grammy-nominated artist, producer, label head, fashion designer, philanthropist and entrepreneur Steve Aoki is an authentic global trendsetter and tastemaker who has been instrumental in defining contemporary youth culture. Known for his outrageous stage antics (cake throwing, champagne spraying, and the ‘Aoki Jump’) and his endearing personality, Steve is also the brains behind indie record label Dim Mak, which broke acts such as The Kills, Bloc Party, and The Gossip. Dim Mak also put out the first releases by breakout EDM stars The Chainsmokers and The Bloody Beetroots, as well as the early releases for Grammy-nominated artist Iggy Azalea, in addition to EDM star Zedd and electro duo MSTRKFT.
In Blue, Aoki recounts the epic highs of music festivals, clubs and pool parties around the world, as well as the lows of friendships lost to drugs and alcohol, and his relationship with his flamboyant father. Illustrated with candid photos gathered throughout his life, the book reveals how Aoki became a force of nature as an early social media adopter, helping to turn dance music into the phenomenon it is today. All this, while remaining true to his DIY punk rock principles, which value spontaneity, fun and friendship above all else―demonstrable by the countless cakes he has flung across cities worldwide.
Howie Mandel has served as a judge for a decade on NBC’s hit summer talent competition series, America’s Got Talent. He was also a judge on the global winter edition of the series, America’s Got Talent: The Champions. He currently serves as executive producer and host of the game show Deal or No Deal, which airs on CNBC. Mandel recently released his first solo special in 20 years Howie Mandel Presents Howie Mandel at the Howie Mandel Comedy Clubon Showtime. He can also be seen in the upcoming second season of his Nat Geo Wild Series Animals Doing Things (June 2019)which he co-hosts with his son Alex. His additional work as a host, actor, and/or executive producer include Take It Alland Howie Do Itfor NBC, Deal With Itfor TBS and Mobbedfor Fox. Previously, Mandel received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program for Deal or No Dealand a Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Game Show Host for the syndicated version of the show. His television work includes the Emmy Award-winning St. Elsewhere, to the animated children’s series Bobby’s World, and countless comedy specials both on cable and network television. He has also hosted his own syndicated talk show, The Howie Mandel Show, and continues to be a mainstay on the talk show circuit. He performs as many as 200 stand-up comedy shows each year throughout the U.S. and Canada. His frank, funny and no-holds-barred memoir, Here’s the Deal: Don’t Touch Mewas a New York Times bestseller. In it he revealed his ongoing struggle with OCD and ADHD, and how it has shaped his life and career.