Posts by Live Talks LA
Steve Roberts, Nina Totenberg and Martha Raddatz with Judy Woodruff
This event premieres on November 2, 2021 at 6pm PDT/9pm EDT
TICKETS
— $38 includes the book with signed book plate (shipping included)
(* we only ship to US addresses)
— Complimentary to watch the event.
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The extraordinary life and legacy of legendary journalist Cokie Roberts—a trailblazer for women—remembered by her friends and family.
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Steven V. Roberts has been a journalist for more than 50 years. He is the author of My Father’s House and From This Day Forward, which he co-wrote with Cokie. He is the chief political analyst for the ABC radio network, a professor of journalism and politics at George Washington University, and a nationally-syndicated columnist. He lives in the home in suburban Washington that Cokie grew up in and they shared for 44 years.
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Nina Totenberg is NPR’s award-winning legal affairs correspondent. Her reports air regularly on NPR’s critically acclaimed newsmagazines All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and Weekend Edition. Totenberg’s coverage of the Supreme Court and legal affairs has won her widespread recognition. NPR received the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award for its gavel-to-gavel coverage — anchored by Totenberg — of both the original hearings and the inquiry into Anita Hill’s allegations, and for Totenberg’s reports and exclusive interview with Hill.
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Martha Raddatz is ABC News chief global affairs correspondent and co-anchor of “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” She has covered national security, foreign policy and politics for decades – reporting from the Pentagon, the State Department, the White House and conflict zones around the world.
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Judy Woodruff is the anchor and managing editor of the PBS NewsHour. She has covered politics and other news for five decades at NBC, CNN and PBS. At PBS she was the chief Washington correspondent for the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. She also anchored PBS’ award-winning documentary series, “Frontline with Judy Woodruff.” At CNN in, she served as anchor and senior correspondent for 12 years; among other duties, she anchored the weekday program “Inside Politics.” She returned to the NewsHour in 2007, and in 2013, she and the late Gwen Ifill were named the first two women to co-anchor a national news broadcast. After Ifill’s death, Woodruff was named sole anchor.
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“She was a trailblazing figure; a role model to young women at a time when the profession was still dominated by men; a constant over forty years of a shifting media landscape and changing world, informing voters about the issues of our time and mentoring young journalists every step of the way.” –President Barack Obama
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Through her visibility and celebrity, Cokie Roberts was an inspiration and a role model for innumerable women and girls. A fixture on national television and radio for more than 40 years, she also wrote five bestselling books focusing on the role of women in American history. She was portrayed on Saturday Night Live, name checked on the West Wing, and featured on magazine covers. She joked with Jay Leno, balanced a pencil on her nose for David Letterman, and was the answer to numerous crossword puzzle clues. Many dogs, and at least one dairy cow, were named for her. When the legendary 1980s Spy Magazine ran a diagram documenting all her connections with the headline “Cokie Roberts – Moderately Well-Known Broadcast Journalist or Center of the Universe?” they were only half-joking.
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Cokie had many roles in her lifetime: Daughter. Wife. Mother. Journalist. Advocate. Historian. Reflecting on her life, those closest to her remember her impressive mind, impish wit, infectious laugh, and the tenacity that sent her career skyrocketing through glass ceilings at NPR and ABC. They marvel at how she often put others before herself and cared deeply about the world around her. When faced with daily decisions and dilemmas, many still ask themselves the question, ‘What Would Cokie Do?’
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In this loving tribute, Cokie’s husband of 53 years and bestselling-coauthor Steve Roberts reflects not only on her many accomplishments, but on how she lived each day with a devotion to helping others. For Steve, Cokie’s private life was as significant and inspirational as her public one. Her commitment to celebrating and supporting other women was evident in everything she did, and her generosity and passion drove her personal and professional endeavors. In Cokie, he has a simple goal: “To tell stories. Some will make you cheer or laugh or cry. And some, I hope, will inspire you to be more like Cokie, to be a good person, to lead a good life.”
David Copperfield with Richard Wiseman
This event premieres on October 28, 2021 at 6pm PDT/9pm EDT
— $50 ticket includes a book with signed book plate (shipping included).
(* we only ship to US addresses).
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An illustrated, illuminating insight into the world of illusion from the world’s greatest and most successful magician, capturing its audacious and inventive practitioners, and showcasing the art form’s most famous artifacts housed at David Copperfield’s secret museum.
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David Copperfield has been hailed by critics as the greatest illusionist of our time. He was described by Forbes magazine as the most commercially successful magician in history. He has won twenty-one Emmy awards, was the first living illusionist to be given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and was named a Living Legend by the United States Library of Congress..
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You might be familiar with Copperfield’s most famous illusions and honors, but what you might not know is that for more than thirty years, Copperfield has had a secret project – curating a museum in a hidden location on the outskirts of Las Vegas dedicated to preserving the history and art of magic, and open only to historians, filmmakers, and magic scholars. With this new book, DAVID COPPERFIELD’S HISTORY OF MAGIC, Copperfield pulls back the curtain and invites fans and readers into his secret museum for the first time
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In this personal journey through a unique and remarkable performing art, David Copperfield profiles twenty-eight of the world’s most groundbreaking magicians. From the 16th-century magistrate who wrote the first book on conjuring to the roaring twenties and the man who fooled Houdini, to the woman who levitated, vanished, and caught bullets in her teeth, David Copperfield’s History of Magic takes you on a wild journey through the remarkable feats of the greatest magicians in history.
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These magicians were all outsiders in their own way, many of them determined to use magic to escape the strictures of class and convention. But they all transformed popular culture, adapted to social change, discovered the inner workings of the human mind, embraced the latest technological and scientific discoveries, and took the art of magic to unprecedented heights.
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The incredible stories are complimented by over 100 never-before-seen photographs of artifacts from Copperfield’s exclusive Museum of Magic, including a 16th-century manual on sleight of hand, Houdini’s straightjackets, handcuffs, and water torture chamber, Dante’s famous sawing-in-half apparatus, Alexander’s high-tech turban that allowed him to read people’s minds, and even some coins that may have magically passed through the hands of Abraham Lincoln.
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By the end of the book, you’ll be sure to share Copperfield’s passion for the power of magic.
Richard Wiseman has been described by a Scientific American columnist as ‘…one of the most interesting and innovative experimental psychologists in the world today.’ His books (including The Luck Factor, 59 Seconds and Paranormality) have sold over 3 million copies and he regularly appears on the media. Richard also presents keynote talks to organizations across the world, including The Swiss Economic Forum, Google and Amazon. He holds Britain’s only Professorship in the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, is one of the most followed psychologists on Twitter, and the Independent On Sunday chose him as one of the top 100 people who make Britain a better place to live. Richard is a Member of the Inner Magic Circle, a Director of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and has created psychology-based YouTube videos that have attracted over 500 million views. He has published over 100 academic papers and articles, and also acts as a creative consultant, including work with Derren Brown, The Twilight Zone and the hit television show, Brain Games.
Rep. Adam Schiff with Larry Wilmore
This event premieres on October 20, 2021 at 6pm PDT/9pm EDT
— $39 ticket includes a signed book (shipping included).
(* we only ship to US addresses).
— ASL interpreter available upon request.
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From the congressman who led the first impeachment of Donald J. Trump, the vital inside account of American democracy in its darkest hour, and a warning that the forces of autocracy unleashed by Trump remain as potent as ever.
Adam Schiff is the United States Representative for California’s 28th Congressional District. Schiff is Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and he served as the lead manager in the first impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump. Before he served in Congress, he worked as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles and as a California State Senator. Adam and his wife, Eve, have two children, Lexi and Eli.
Emmy Award winner Larry Wilmore hosted Wilmore on Peacock from NBC where he and his guests discussed issues during the 2020 election. He has been a television producer, actor, comedian, and writer for more than 25 years. He can also be heard as host of Larry Wilmore: Black on the Air on The Ringer Podcast Network. The show features Wilmore’s unique mix of humor and wit as he weighs in on the issues of the week and interviews guests in the worlds of politics, entertainment, culture, sports, and beyond. Wilmore is perhaps best known for his role as host of Comedy Central’s The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, which debuted in January 2015 and ran for nearly two years. Off-screen, Wilmore serves as co-creator and consulting producer on HBO’s Insecure, a half-hour comedy series starring Issa Rae that details the awkward experiences and racy tribulations of a modern-day African-American woman. Wilmore also helped to launch ABC’s Black-ish as an executive producer.
“If there is still an American democracy fifty years from now, historians will be very grateful for this highly personal and deeply informed guide to one of its greatest crises. We should be grateful that we can read it now.”—Timothy Snyder, #1 New York Times bestselling author of On Tyranny
In the years leading up to the election of Donald Trump, Congressman Adam Schiff had already been sounding the alarm over the resurgence of autocracy around the world, and the threat this posed to the United States. But as he led the probe into Donald Trump’s Russia and Ukraine-related abuses of presidential power, Schiff came to the terrible conclusion that the principal threat to American democracy now came from within.
In Midnight in Washington, Schiff argues that the Trump presidency has so weakened our institutions and compromised the Republican Party that the peril will last for years, requiring unprecedented vigilance against the growing and dangerous appeal of authoritarianism. The congressman chronicles step by step just how our democracy was put at such risk, and traces his own path to meeting the crisis—from serious prosecutor, to congressman with an expertise in national security and a reputation for bipartisanship, to liberal lightning rod, scourge of the right, and archenemy of a president. Schiff takes us inside his team of impeachment managers and their desperate defense of the constitution amid the rise of a distinctly American brand of autocracy.
Deepening our understanding of prominent public moments, Schiff reveals the private struggles, the internal conflicts, and the triumphs of courage that came with defending the republic against a lawless president—but also the slow surrender of people that he had worked with and admired to the dangerous immorality of a president engaged in an historic betrayal of his office. Schiff’s fight for democracy is one of the great dramas of our time, told by the man who became the president’s principal antagonist. It is a story that began with Trump but does not end with him, taking us through the disastrous culmination of the presidency and Schiff’s account of January 6, 2021, and how the anti-democratic forces Trump unleashed continue to define his party, making the future of democracy in America more uncertain than ever.
Steven Pinker with Niall Ferguson
This event premieres on October 13, 2021 at 6pm PDT/9pm EDT
TICKETS
— $40 includes the book with signed book plate (shipping included)
(* we only ship to US addresses)
— Complimentary to watch the event.
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“In our uncertain age, which can so often feel so dark and disturbing, Steven Pinker has distinguished himself as a voice of positivity.” – New York Times
Can reading a book make you more rational? Can it help us understand why there is so much irrationality in the world? Steven Pinker, author of Enlightenment Now answers all the questions here
Steven Pinker is an experimental psychologist who conducts research in cognition, language, and social relations. He earned his BA from McGill and his PhD from Harvard. Currently Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard, he has also taught at Stanford and MIT. He has won many prizes for his research, his teaching, and his books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Sense of Style, and Enlightenment Now. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, a Humanist of the Year, a recipient of nine honorary doctorates, and one of Foreign Policy’s “World’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals” and Time’s “100 Most Influential People in the World Today.” He was Chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, and writes frequently for The New York Times, The Guardian, and other publications.
Niall Ferguson is a historian and the author of sixteen books, including Civilization, The Great Degeneration, Kissinger, 1923–1968: The Idealist, and The Ascent of Money. He is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the managing director of Greenmantle LLC. He is also a regular Bloomberg Opinion columnist. His many prizes include the International Emmy for Best Documentary (2009), the Benjamin Franklin Award for Public Service (2010), and the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award (2016).
“An impassioned and zippy introduction to the tools of rational thought… Punchy, funny and invigorating.”—The Times (London)
Today humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding–and also appears to be losing its mind. How can a species that developed vaccines for Covid-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, medical quackery, and conspiracy theorizing?
Rationality is a primer in logical thinking and an entertaining expedition through all the trapdoors we can tumble through when we try to parse reality or bend it to our will. As always, Pinker’s examples range from the profound (the impossibility of proving God exists), to the hilarious (using a scene from the old movie Love Story to demonstrate deduction as well as seduction).
Pinker rejects the cynical cliché that humans are simply irrational–cavemen out of time saddled with biases, fallacies, and illusions. After all, we discovered the laws of nature, lengthened and enriched our lives, and set out the benchmarks for rationality itself. We actually think in ways that are sensible in the low-tech contexts in which we spend most of our lives, but fail to take advantage of the powerful tools of reasoning we’ve discovered over the millennia: logic, critical thinking, probability, correlation and causation, and optimal ways to update beliefs and commit to choices individually and with others. These tools are not a standard part of our education, and have never been presented clearly and entertainingly in a single book–until now.
Rationality also explores its opposite: how the rational pursuit of self-interest, sectarian solidarity, and uplifting mythology can add up to crippling irrationality in a society. Collective rationality depends on norms that are explicitly designed to promote objectivity and truth.
Rationality matters. It leads to better choices in our lives and in the public sphere, and is the ultimate driver of social justice and moral progress. Brimming with Pinker’s customary insight and humor, Rationality will enlighten, inspire, and empower.
Robby Krieger
This event premieres on October 12, 2021 at 6pm PDT/9pm EDT
— $40 ticket includes a book with signed book plate (shipping included).
(* we only ship to US addresses).
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In his tell-all, legendary Doors guitarist, Robby Krieger, one of Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time,” opens up about his band’s meteoric career, his own darkest moments, and the most famous black eye in rock ‘n’ roll.
Robby Krieger is the guitarist for the legendary rock band The Doors and the songwriter behind some of the band’s biggest hits, including “Love Me Two Times,” “Touch Me,” “Love Her Madly,” and their #1 smash, “Light My Fire.” The Doors have sold over a hundred million albums worldwide, inspired a major feature film, been awarded a Lifetime Achievement Grammy®, and been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Robby is a Grammy®-nominated solo artist and was listed among the “100 Greatest Guitarists” of all time by Rolling Stone. He is also an accomplished painter and the co-founder of the annual Medlock-Krieger Rock & Roll Golf Classic & All-Star Concert.
Jeff Alulis is the co-author of Robby Kreiger’s memoir. He is also the co-author of the New York Times bestseller NOFX: The Hepatitis Bathtub and Other Stories. He holds an MFA from USC’s Graduate Screenwriting Program, he has directed several award-winning music-based documentaries, and he has toured as the vocalist for seminal punk bands Dead Kennedys and Reagan Youth. Aside from writing, film, and music he is an avid traveler, and he documents his journeys at TrueAdventureStories.com.
“Doors guitarist Krieger riffs melodiously through the discordant and harmonious measures of his life and times with the band in this galloping, episodic debut…His most insightful moments come in his reflections on songwriting, ‘a constant reminder that music is infinite.’ Krieger’s engrossing stories are sure to be relished by fans.” ―Publishers Weekly
Few bands are as shrouded in the murky haze of rock mythology as The Doors, and parsing fact from fiction has been a virtually impossible task. But now, after fifty years, The Doors’ notoriously quiet guitarist is finally breaking his silence to set the record straight. Krieger opens up about the band’s meteoric career, his own darkest moments, and the most famous black eye in rock ’n’ roll.
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Through a series of vignettes, Robby Krieger takes readers back to where it all happened: the pawn shop where he bought his first guitar; the jail cell he was tossed into after a teenage drug bust; his parents’ living room where his first songwriting sessions with Jim Morrison took place; the empty bars and backyard parties where The Doors played their first awkward gigs; the studios where their iconic songs were recorded; and the many concert venues that erupted into historic riots. SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE is packed with never-before-told stories from The Doors’ most vital years, and offers a fresh perspective on the most infamous moments of the band’s career.
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Krieger also goes into heartbreaking detail about his life’s most difficult struggles, ranging from drug addiction to cancer, but he balances out the sorrow with humorous anecdotes about run-ins with unstable fans, famous musicians, and one really angry monk. SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE is at once an insightful time capsule of the ‘60s counterculture, a moving reflection on what it means to find oneself as a musician, and a touching tale of a life lived non-traditionally. It’s not only a must-read for Doors fans, but an essential volume of American pop culture history.
Gabrielle Union with Jemele Hill
TICKETS
— $38 includes a copy of the book a signed book.
— Please note we only ship to US addresses.
— Tickets include opportunity to watch the event on Video on Demand until Oct 3 at midnight PDT.
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Remember when we hit it off so well that we decided We’re Going to Need More Wine? Well, this time you and I are going to turn to our friend the bartender and ask, You Got Anything Stronger? I promise to continue to make you laugh, but with this round, the stakes get higher as the conversation goes deeper. — Gabrielle Union
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So. Where were we?
Right, you and I left off in October 2017, when my first book came out. The weeks before were filled with dreams of loss. Pets dying. My husband leaving me. Babies not being born. My therapist told me it was my soul preparing for my true self to emerge after letting go of my grief. I had finally spoken openly about my fertility journey. I was having second thoughts—in fact, so many thoughts they were organizing to go on strike. But I knew I had to be honest because I didn’t want other women going through IVF to feel as alone as I did. I had suffered in isolation, having so many miscarriages that I could not give an exact number. Strangers shared their own journeys and heartbreak with me. I had led with the truth, and it opened the door to compassion.
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When I released We’re Going to Need More Wine, the response was so great people asked when I would do a sequel. The New York Times even ran a headline reading “We’re Going to Need More Gabrielle Union.” Frankly, after being so open and honest in my writing, I wasn’t sure there was more of me I was ready to share. But life happens with all its plot twists. And new stories demand to be told. This time, I need to be more vulnerable—not so much for me, but anyone who feels alone in what they’re going through.
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A lot has changed in four years—I became a mom and I’m raising two amazing girls. My husband retired. My career has expanded so that I have the opportunity to lift up other voices that need to be heard. But the world has also shown us that we have a lot we still have to fight for—as women, as black women, as mothers, as aging women, as human beings, as friends. In You Got Anything Stronger?, I show you how this ever-changing life presents challenges, even as it gives me moments of pure joy. I take you on a girl’s night at Chateau Marmont, and I also talk to Isis, my character from Bring It On. For the first time, I truly open up about my surrogacy journey and the birth of Kaavia James Union Wade. And I take on racist institutions and practices in the entertainment industry, asking for equality and real accountability.
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You Got Anything Stronger? is me at my most vulnerable. I have recently found true strength in that vulnerability, and I want to share that power with you here, through this book.