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Live Talks LA launches “newer voices” series with Michael Cho and Chip Kidd
Michael Cho and Chip Kidd
For our four years of existence, Live Talks Los Angeles has largely focused on established authors and personalities packing larger venues. That doesn’t mean we aren’t sympathetic to how difficult it is for the lesser-known writers out there. This Fall, we’re proud to be launching a series of events that celebrate debut authors and ‘newer voices.’
Periodically, we’ll feature a debut author, or someone who has flown under the radar, who we feel deserves a little more attention. We’ll pair them in conversation with more established authors or storytellers. These events will be free, but for the price of the book we’ll offer two reserved seats. Our goal is to be able to host these monthly.
Our first event in the Live Talks Los Angeles Newer Voices Series features Michael Cho and his debut graphic novel, Shoplifter, about a young woman’s search for happiness and self-fulfillment in the big city. He will be interviewed by a man who admires Cho’s work, and whose work you likely know: the estimable Chip Kidd, the four-time Eisner Award–winning designer and author of Batman: Animated, Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz, and Mythology: The DC Comics Art of Alex Ross. As an editor of graphic novels for Pantheon Books, he has worked with some of the very best talents in the medium, including Chris Ware, Dan Clowes, Art Spiegelman, Charles Burns, and David Mazzucchelli.
> on Michael Cho in The Los Angeles Times, Sept. 3, 2014
Food events at Live Talks LA: Mark Bittman (Oct 16); Yotam Ottolenghi (Oct 23) & Marcus Samuelsson (Oct 28)
Mark Bittman, Yotam Ottolenghi and Marcus Samuelsson speak at Live Talks LA, October 2014
We are excited about a series of food events at Live Talks Los Angeles this fall. All three are held at All Saints Church, Beverly Hills and are preceded by a reception with selections prepared from each of the cookbooks featured. We feature Mark Bittman on October 16, Yotam Ottolenghi on October 23 and Marcus Samuelsson on October 28.
October 16, Mark Bittman — one of America’s best-known and most widely respected food writers. He covers food policy, cooking, and eating as an Opinion columnist for The New York Times and the paper’s Sunday Magazine. He produced “The Minimalist” column for 13 years and has starred in several popular Public Television cooking series. Now a frequent public speaker, he appears regularly on the Today Show and is a guest on a wide range of television and radio shows. Bittman has authored more than a dozen cookbooks, including How to Cook Everything® The Basics, How to Cook Everything®, How to Cook Everything® Vegetarian (all available as apps), Food Matters and The Food Matters Cookbook, and the new VB6™: Eat Vegan Before 6:00. Visit his website. In How to Cook Everything Fast, Bittman provides a game plan for becoming a better, more intuitive cook while you wake up your weekly meal routine with 2,000 main dishes and accompaniments that are simple to make, globally inspired, and bursting with flavor.
October 23, Yotam Ottolenghi who owns an eponymous group of four restaurants, plus the high-end restaurant, Nopi, in London. His previous cookbooks—Plenty, Jerusalem, and Ottolenghi—have all been on the New York Times bestseller list. He writes for The Guardian, and appears on BBC. Plenty More is the much anticipated follow-up to Ottolenghi’s bestselling and award-winning cookbook Plenty, featuring 120 vegetarian dishes organized by cooking method. Plenty influenced the way people cook and eat vegetables. Its focus on flavorful, vegetable-centric dishes that emphasize spices and fresh ingredients caused a produce-cooking craze in the UK, the US, and the world over. Plenty More continues in the spirit of Plenty, with dazzling dishes, prepared raw, grilled, baked, simmered, cracked, or braised. It features recipes for main dishes, sides, salads, and sweets including Membrillo and Stilton Quiche, Buttermilk-Crusted Okra, Candy Beets with Lentils, Roasted Rhubarb with Sweet Labneh, and Quince Poached in Pomegranate Juice.
October 28, Marcus Samuelsson, owner of Red Rooster restaurant in Harlem and former Executive Chef and co-owner of New York’s Restaurant Aquavit, AQ Cafe at Scandinavia House, and Riingo. The youngest chef ever to receive two three-star ratings from The New York Times, he starred on Discovery Home Channel’s Inner Chef. His cookbooks include Aquavit and the New Scandinavian Cuisine, The Soul of a New Cuisine, which won the 2007 James Beard Foundation Award for best international cookbook, and New American Table. He is winner of Top Chef Masters, and a judge on Chopped. In 2009, he was chosen by President Obama to cook the first state dinner. In his latest cook book, Marcus Off Duty, Samuelsson shows how he cooks at home for family and friends. Born in Ethiopia, raised in Sweden, and trained in European kitchens, he is a world citizen turned American success story. The recipes blend a rainbow of the flavors he experienced in his travels—Ethiopian, Swedish, Mexican, Caribbean, Italian, and Southern soul. His eclectic, casual food includes dill-spiced salmon; coconut-lime curried chicken; mac, cheese, and greens; chocolate pie spiced with Indian garam masala; and for kids, peanut noodles with slaw.
Previous food events at Live Talks Los Angeles include: Marcus Samuelsson in 2012 discussing his memoir; Daniel Boulud with Jonathan Gold and Suzanne Goin with Russ Parsons. Videos to each are in the links.
Peter Thiel, Co-founder, PayPal to speak at Live Talks LA October 2
We’re excited to be exclusively hosting Peter Thiel, Co-founder of PayPal on October 2, 2014, in Santa Monica. Ticket info.
Peter Thiel
Peter Thiel first gained attention for innovations in banking and startup finance. In 1998, Thiel made e-commerce easier, faster, and more secure by co-founding and leading PayPal, which now has more than 128 million active financial accounts. In 2002, PayPal sold to eBay and he founded a global macro fund, Clarium. He works to accelerate innovation by identifying and funding promising technology ideas and by guiding successful companies to scale and dominate their industries.
In 2004, he co-founded Palantir Technologies, which offers platforms for finance companies and intelligence, defense, and law enforcement communities to integrate, visualize, and analyze the world’s information. In the same year, he made the first outside investment in Facebook, whose board he serves on, and now has more than a billion active members.
Building on his personal success as a venture capital investor, Thiel co-founded and manages Founders Fund, a leading Silicon Valley venture capital fund that has pioneered new methods of venture financing that benefit founders. Through Founders Fund, as well as through his private investing, he has helped the next generation of tech companies, such as SpaceX, LinkedIn, Yelp, RoboteX, and Spotify.
And in 2012 he co-founded Mithril Capital Management, an international technology investment fund.
Thiel established and funds the Thiel Foundation, which promotes freedom in all its forms. He sponsors the Committee to Protect Journalists, The Seasteading Institute, and the Human Rights Foundation. He funds the artificial intelligence research of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. He also aids work against violence through the Oslo Freedom Forum and through the research of philosopher René Girard, which is extended and promulgated by Imitatio. He also promotes better health by funding the longevity research of Dr. Cynthia Kenyon and the SENS Research Foundation.
Thiel created the 20 Under 20 Thiel Fellowship, which nurtures the tech visionaries of tomorrow. And he formed Breakout Labs to help independent scientists, engineers, and inventors advance their most radical ideas.
Thiel earned a B.A. in philosophy from Stanford University and a J.D. from Stanford Law School, where he occasionally teaches on globalization and technology and serves on the board of overseers of the Hoover Institution. His articles have appeared in Policy Review and the Wall Street Journal. He co-produced the film Thank You for Smoking, was rated a master by the United States Chess Federation, and received the Innovation Award from the Economist in 2010. He lives in San Francisco.
ZERO TO ONE (co-authored with Blake Masters) is Thiel’s impassioned plea for an entirely new way of thinking about innovation, urging future business leaders not to compete on well-trodden paths but to explore a new frontier, stake their claim, and do something that has never been done. It is about the questions one must ask to find value in unexpected places. It is at an optimistic view of what the future of progress looks like in America and an intellectual meditation on the nature of innovation and other challenges of today’s business world of which Thiel writes: “If American business is going to succeed, we are going to need hundreds, or even thousands, of miracles. We call these miracles technology.”
In recent decades there have been rapid advances in information technology, but there is no reason why technology should be limited to computers or Silicon Valley for that matter. Progress can be achieved in any industry or area of business. It requires just one thing: a willingness to challenge conventional wisdom and ask oneself the question: what valuable company is nobody building?
ZERO TO ONE does teach is the most important skill every future business leader must master: the ability to think for oneself.
Thiel’s often contrary views underscore his point; that to build the future we must challenge convention and believe that what lies ahead is a world where things are not only different but better. Among the many ideas presented, he takes on such topics as:
- The fallacy of “lean” methodology so widely embraced by startups
- The benefit of monopolies and why capitalism cannot thrive without them
- The limitations of globalization and its detriment to innovation
- The ideology of competition in business and academia that poses a threat to creativity
- Man vs. Machine: why computers will never really replace people
These topics and more were at the core of a course taught by Peter Thiel at Stanford University in 2012, the goal of which was to help students see beyond the world of academia and on to the broader future that is theirs to create. One of the students taking that course, Blake Masters, took detailed notes on Thiel’s lectures and posted them on his blog. Within days, they had circulated far beyond the campus and generated over 350,000 readers and more than a million page views. Those notes have been revised, expanded, and refined to form the backbone of ZERO TO ONE.
April 17 — An Evening with Bob Saget
Thursday, April 17 , 2014
8:00pm (Reception 6:30-7:30pm)
An Evening with Bob Saget
in conversation with Kelly Oxford
Dirty Daddy: The Chronicles of a Family Man Turned Filthy Comedian
The Aero Theatre
1328 Montana Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90404
PURCHASE TICKETS
$20 General Admission
$30 Reserved Seats
$40 Includes Saget’s book + Reserved seat
$95 Includes Pre-event reception + Saget’s book + Reserved Seats
Bob Saget is a Grammy-nominated stand-up comedian, actor, director, writer, producer, and television host who has been performing for more than thirty years. In his memoir, Saget, the decidedly irreverent stand-up comedian and beloved TV star, delivers uproarious, uncensored, and heartfelt stories from a life in entertainment and beyond.
Millions of viewers know and love Bob Saget from his role as the sweetly neurotic father on the smash hit Full House, and as the charming wisecracking host of America’s Funniest Home Videos. And then there are the legions of fans who can’t get enough of his scatological, out-of-his-mind stand-up routines, comedy specials, and outrageously profane performances in such shows as HBO’s Entourage and the hit documentary The Aristocrats. In his bold and wildly entertaining publishing debut, Bob continues to embrace his dark side and gives readers the book they have long been waiting for—hilarious and often dirty yet warm and disarmingly sincere.
Bob talks about the connection between humor and pain, offering insights into his own life, including the deaths of his beloved sisters. He pays homage to the people who shaped and inspired him: his mom, Dolly; his father, Ben (the comedy influence who instilled his love of “sick silliness”); and the teacher who told him, “You need to make people laugh,” as well as legendary comedians such as Richard Pryor, David Letterman, Billy Crystal, and Robin Williams.
Bob believes there’s a time and a place for filth and immature humor—and for gentle family comedy. Dirty Daddy is packed with both, from his never-before-heard stories of what really went on behind the scenes of two of the most successful family shows of all times, with costars like John Stamos, Mary-Kate Olsen, and Ashley Olsen, to his liberating experience in The Aristocrats, his Comedy Central roast, and his role of playing an extreme version of himself on Entourage. Bob opens up about his career, his reputation for sick humor, his pride and love for Full House, and how he’s come to terms with the fame of being DT—”Danny Tanner.” Throughout, he shares tales of close friends and colleagues like Rodney Dangerfield and Don Rickles, and recalls his experiences with show business legends, including Johnny Carson and George Carlin.
The book is a blend of silliness, vulgarity, wit, and heart, Dirty Daddy reveals Bob Saget as never before—a man who loves being funny and making people laugh above all else.
Kelly Oxford is the bestselling author of Everything is Perfect When You’re a Liar which Interview magazine called, “a hilariously mortifying memoir.” Kelly has written for such publications at GQ, Playboy, Variety, and Flare (Canada) and has sold multiple screenplays that are in development with, NBC, FOX, CBS, Anonymous Content, Legendary, and Warner Brothers. On screen she recently filmed cameos for a forthcoming untitled Cameron Crowe film and the Syfy Network’s Sharknado 2; she fully expects her scenes to be cut from both. Originally from Edmonton, Canada, she currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband and three children. Follow Kelly on Twitter and Instagram (@kellyoxford) and Tumblr (kellyoxford.tumblr.com)
May 21 — Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
8:00pm (Reception 6:30-7:30pm)
An Evening with Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner
in conversation with Lisa Napoli
Think Like a Freak: How to Solve Problems,
Win Fights and Be a Slightly Better Person
All Saints Church-Beverly Hills
504 North Camden Drive
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
PURCHASE TICKETS
$20 General Admission — SOLD OUT
$30 Reserved Seats — SOLD OUT
$40 Includes Levitt and Dubner’s new book + Reserved Seats — SOLD OUT
$95 includes reserved seating + pre-event reception + the book – SOLD OUT
Steven D. Levitt is a professor of economics at the University of Chicago and a recipient of the John Bates Clark Medal, awarded to the most influential economist under the age of forty. He is also founder of The Greatest Good, a company that applies Freakonomic principles to philanthropy and business.
Stephen J. Dubner, a former writer and editor at The New York Times Magazine, is the author of Turbulent Souls (Choosing My Religion), Confessions of a Hero-Worshiper, and the children’s book The Boy with Two Belly Buttons.
The Freakonomics brand is bigger than ever. In addition to selling more than 5 million books worldwide, the Levitt and Dubner have established Freakonomics radio (#1 podcast on iTunes), the Freakonomics blog and website (2 million page views per month) and a Twitter feed with over half a million followers.
The revolutionary geniuses and #1 New York Times bestselling authors behind the Freakonomics phenomenon unveil essential tools that will allow you to—“think like a freak”—to see the world more unconventionally, and ultimately, more clearly.
In their smash #1 international bestseller Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner showed the world that applying counterintuitive approaches to everyday problems can bear surprising results.
In their new book, they turn your brain inside out, teaching you how to think like a freak. Levitt and Dubner analyze the decisions we make, the plans we create, and the morals we choose and show how their insights can be applied to daily life to make smarter, harder, and better decisions.
Dubner and Levitt advocate for a different way to solve problems by showing readers a totally new way to approach them. Along the way, they share stories of real people who have broken out of the box and tackled problems with innovative techniques, including an unlikely eating competitor from Japan who learned to crush the competition (and eat 50 hot dogs in 12 minutes), the doctor who discovered the cure for ulcers (by infecting himself with bacteria), the computer scientists who fight against online bank scammers (ever get one of those pesky emails about a Nigerian bank account?), and so many more.
Lisa Napoli is a journalist and author. She was a reporter and back-up host for public radio show Marketplace. She covered the Internet revolution and the cultural impact of technology as a columnist and staff reporter for the New York Times’ CyberTimes, and as a correspondent for MSNBC. In her 25 year career in media, she has also worked for CNN. She is author of RADIO SHANGRI-LA: What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth. Presently, she is does arts and cultural stories for NPR affiliate KCRW. Visit her website.
May 15 — Francine Prose in conversation with Meghan Daum
Thursday, May 15, 2014
8:00pm (Reception 6:30-7:30pm)
An Evening with Francine Prose
discussing her novel, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932
William Turner Gallery
Bergamot Station Arts Center
2525 Michigan Avenue,
Santa Monica, CA 90404
PURCHASE TICKETS
$20 General Admission
$40 Includes Prose’s book + Reserved seat
Francine Prose is the author of sixteen novels, including A Changed Man, winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and Blue Angel, a finalist for the National Book Award. Her most recent works of nonfiction include the highly acclaimed Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife, and the New York Times bestseller Reading Like a Writer. A former president of PEN American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Prose is a highly regarded critic and essayist, and has taught literature and writing for more than twenty years at major universities. She is a distinguished writer in residence at Bard College, and she lives in New York City.
Francine Prose’s new novel, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932 is a richly imagined and stunningly inventive literary masterpiece of love, art, and betrayal, exploring the genesis of evil, the unforeseen consequences of love, and the ultimate unreliability of storytelling itself.
Paris in the 1920s shimmers with excitement, dissipation, and freedom. It is a place of intoxicating ambition, passion, art, and discontent, where louche jazz venues like the Chameleon Club draw expats, artists, libertines, and parvenus looking to indulge their true selves. It is at the Chameleon where the striking Lou Villars, an extraordinary athlete and scandalous cross-dressing lesbian, finds refuge among the club’s loyal denizens, including the rising Hungarian photographer Gabor Tsenyi, the socialite and art patron Baroness Lily de Rossignol; and the caustic American writer Lionel Maine.
As the years pass, their fortunes—and the world itself—evolve. Lou falls desperately in love and finds success as a race car driver. Gabor builds his reputation with startlingly vivid and imaginative photographs, including a haunting portrait of Lou and her lover, which will resonate through all their lives. As the exuberant twenties give way to darker times, Lou experiences another metamorphosis— sparked by tumultuous events—that will warp her earnest desire for love and approval into something far more.
MEGHAN DAUM has been an opinion columnist for The Los Angeles Times for more than eight years. She is the author of three books, the essay collection My Misspent Youth, the novel The Quality of Life Report, and the memoir Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived In That House. She has written for numerous publications, including The New Yorker, Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, and Vogue and has contributed to public radio’s Morning Edition and This American Life. In 2013 she served as a mentor in PEN USA’s Emerging Voices program and she has taught at Cal-Arts and Columbia University. Her next book, a collection of original essays about sentimentality in American life, will be published this fall.