Los Angeles Review of Books

The cover of The Sleep Room

"At their deaths, both men were lionized for their contributions to psychiatry. For decades afterward, those who served under them remained silent."

Andrew Scull on Jon Stock’s "The Sleep Room": https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/william-sargant-electroshock-lobotomy-sleep-room-jon-stock/

Joshua Hall on how the work of Mark Edmundson offers a vision for recentering universities: "An education spent in pursuit of material comfort and convenience is a recipe for unhappiness."

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/mark-edmundson-literary-criticism-american-university-humanities-essay/

A Sojourn into the Stephen King Archive: ‘The Dark Half’ | Los Angeles Review of Books Typescript drafts on view in the newly opened archive reframe the horror maestro’s relationship with his alter ego, Richard Bachman.

"Seeing, holding, and smelling the oldest existing piece of paper on which Stephen King himself typed 'The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed' was a transcendent experience." —Andy Hageman for @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social

lareviewofbooks.org/article/step...

The cover of Feminism, Young Women, and Cultural Studies

"The disaffection and fleetingness of youth, it turned out, was the stuff of cultural studies as I would come to understand it."

Rose Higham-Stainton reflects on Angela McRobbie’s vision of girlhood. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/angela-mcrobbie-feminism-young-women-cultural-studies-girlhood

Writing in Place w/ Sierra Crane Murdoch | Los Angeles Review of Books Writing in Place w/ Sierra Crane Murdoch

What role should place play in our nonfiction writing? Let Sierra Crane Murdoch be your guide in our upcoming Spring educational workshop. Class is online at 5-7 p.m. PST from April 14 to May 19, 2026. Sign up today: https://lareviewofbooks.org/event/writing-in-place-w-sierra-crane-murdoch/

World Cup Nausea | Los Angeles Review of Books With the World Cup looming in North America this summer, Simon Kuper offers a compelling—and depressing—history of this unique tournament.

The World Cup in America should be a celebration of the Beautiful Game in the triple brotherhood of the Land of the Free. It doesn't feel like that. My latest for @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social lareviewofbooks.org/article/worl...

Shelter in Place | Los Angeles Review of Books The battle for Minnesota’s public.

"With a growing sense that we are all responsible for one another, we’ve tapped into something older than this occupation or even the state."

Kate Collier on Minnesota's ICE response: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/minneapolis-operation-metro-surge-immigration-authoritarian-mutual-aid/

the cover of The Disappointment

“Broker’s book suggests one thing and does another. It is not the sexy, somewhat menacing vacation novel it promises to be.”

Gideon Leek reviews Scott Broker’s "The Disappointment": https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/disappointment-scott-broker-queer-couple-uncanny-travel-novel/

the cover of World Cup Fever

"Just as the Catholic Church is not simply about prayer, World Cups are not simply about soccer."

Dan Friedman reviews Simon Kuper’s "World Cup Fever." https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/world-cup-fever-simon-kuper-soccer-football-corruption/

A Sojourn into the Stephen King Archive: ‘The Dark Half’ | Los Angeles Review of Books Typescript drafts on view in the newly opened archive reframe the horror maestro’s relationship with his alter ego, Richard Bachman.

"Authorship and identity become fluid and the author(s) of 'The Dark Half' tangle with their meaning inside the intellectual crawlspace the notes create."

Andy Hageman visits the Stephen King archive: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/stephen-king-dark-half-revisited-archives-richard-bachman

Iranians Don’t Need to Prove Their Revolution to You | Los Angeles Review of Books The uprising in Iran isn’t only against armed oppression; it’s also over narrative.

"To deny people their complexities is to deny them their agencies. To reduce their struggles to binaries is to repeat the same colonial gaze."

Sahar Delijani on the January uprising in Iran: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/iran-protests-2026-internet-blackout-imperialism-sahar-delijani

Writing about Illness with Emmeline Clein | Los Angeles Review of Books "Writing about Illness" is a 6-week workshop with writer Emmeline Clein. The class will take place on Zoom on Mondays from April 13 to May 18 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. PST. The course will include weekly discussions of non-fiction craft and participants' works in progress. All participants will receive written feedback from the instructor.

We still have slots available for our "Writing About Illness" class, starting on April 13. Join “Dead Weight” author Emmeline Clein’s 6-week online class to learn how to craft nonfiction that renders illness honestly: https://lareviewofbooks.org/event/writing-about-illness-with-emmeline-clein/

"We deserve this care to be reflected in the people we’ve elected."

@kristincollier.bsky.social on the battle for Minnesota's public: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/minneapolis-operation-metro-surge-immigration-authoritarian-mutual-aid/

here I am (Kristin lol)— in LARB. Thanks to the sheltering families who were so generous with their stories. ❤️

The cover of Feminism, Young Women, and Cultural Studies

"Reading Angela McRobbie again feels closer to retrospection than nostalgia."

Rose Higham-Stainton on Angela McRobbie’s vision of girlhood: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/angela-mcrobbie-feminism-young-women-cultural-studies-girlhood/

"Solitude is an elemental necessity of intellectual life, but it has been replaced by a technocratic vision of learning."

Joshua Hall on the work of literary critic Mark Edmundson: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/mark-edmundson-literary-criticism-american-university-humanities-essay/

"Discussion is not the enemy of collective healing; according to Pagani, it’s the whole point."

Noemí Fierros revisits a Hannah Howard piece from the LARB archives: https://lareviewofbooks.org/short-takes/hannah-howard-feast-archive-susan-pragani-eating-disorders/

The cover of This if For Everyone

Nicholas Carr on Tim Berners-Lee’s “This Is for Everyone: The Unfinished Story of the World Wide Web”: "The qualities of the web he celebrates unquestioningly are the very qualities we should be questioning." https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/tim-berners-lee-unfinished-story-world-wide-web/

Co-curator Béatrice Grenier narrates a tour of the new Jean Nouvel–designed Fondation Cartier building and its inaugural exhibition: "Rather than imposing form, he orchestrates conditions."

https://lareviewofbooks.org/av/fondation-cartier-jean-nouvel-beatrice-grenier-architecture-video/

It Really Can Happen Here | Los Angeles Review of Books What the transnational links among fascist movements in the 1930s can tell us about the Far Right today.

"Fascism doesn’t just cross borders—it’s been everywhere all along. It can happen here."

Juliette Britan on what we can learn from fascist movements in the 1930s: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/transnational-fascism-united-states-nazis-hungary-yugoslavia-germany/

A flier on a window that says "The Wrong ICE is melting"

"It’s a battle for the public—who gets to be in public, how the public is imagined and narrativized, and how they are cared for or punished with public money."

Kate Collier on Minneapolis: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/minneapolis-operation-metro-surge-immigration-authoritarian-mutual-aid/

Literature Is Not a Vibe: On ChatGPT and the Humanities | Los Angeles Review of Books Rachele Dini discusses OpenAI’s “A Machine-Shaped Hand” and an academic sector in crisis.

"The framing of LLMs as preserving the lives of those we have lost distracts from the lost livelihoods, and worsened material conditions, of a generation of writers on whose work the technology of LLM feeds."
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/literature-is-not-a-vibe-on-chatgpt-and-the-humanities/

Sweating It Out | Los Angeles Review of Books The history of experiencing life as a sweaty body in steamy queer spaces.

"There are places where I’m ready to engage with the inevitable conflicts of human difference, but baths aren’t one. Ideally, baths are havens."

Calvin Gimpelevich experiencing life as a sweaty body: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/calvin-gimpelevich-bath-houses-saunas-queer-trans-spaces/

"Fascism doesn’t just cross borders—it’s been everywhere all along. It can happen here."

Juliette Bretan on what fascist movements in the 1930s can tell us about the Far Right today: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/transnational-fascism-united-states-nazis-hungary-yugoslavia-germany/

Man-su raising a potted plant above his head in a still from No Other Choice

"'No Other Choice,' in Park’s knowing hands, turns technological isolation into text, constantly emphasizing the screens that 'connect' us without bringing us closer."

Zosha Millman on "No Other Choice": https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/no-other-choice-park-chan-wook-unemployment-murder/

The cover of This is for Everyone

"The web wasn’t corrupted by outside forces. The corruption was there from the start, latent in its design.”

Nicholas Carr on Tim Berners-Lee’s “This Is for Everyone: The Unfinished Story of the World Wide Web”: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/tim-berners-lee-unfinished-story-world-wide-web/

"Central to Nouvel’s sensibility is an understanding of architecture as a perceptual experience rather than a fixed object."

A narrated tour of the new Jean Nouvel–designed Fondation Cartier building: https://lareviewofbooks.org/av/fondation-cartier-jean-nouvel-beatrice-grenier-architecture-video/

A collage of a woman's figure made up by vegetables, leaning on a fork. Below is a graphic that says "LARB Archive"

"Pagani invites us to remember that shame is the enemy of healing and progress, but also not to silence our voices on the topic."

Noemí Fierros revisits "Feast: True Love in and out of the Kitchen": https://lareviewofbooks.org/short-takes/hannah-howard-feast-archive-susan-pragani-eating-disorders/

Anthony Curtis Adler on "The Master of Contradictions": "Jensen doesn’t so much explain the novel through Mann’s life as explain Mann through the novel. There’s a risk in this, however." https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/thomas-mann-magic-mountain-master-contradictions-jensen-review/

A b/w headshot of Lauren Groff with the text "Listen now!" overlaid

Lauren Groff joins this week's #LARBRadioHour to talk about her new short story collection "Brawler." Listen now on our site, or wherever you get your podcasts: https://lareviewofbooks.org/av/lauren-groffs-brawler-interview-podcast/