Dearest supporters, readers, and friends:
Ah, February — the tiniest month that packs the mightiest punch. This month, everyone in California found out their houses weren’t actually waterproof when record-setting precipitation hit. We waited out the rain by drinking cat wine and looking at dog pictures, and getting inspiration from this interview with Wane One in the Creative Independent, which we also featured on BLARB. Basketball fans in the City of Angels are excited to welcome back the inimitable Magic Johnson to the Lakers. (Can’t wait to see ya around town, Earvin!) March is sure to bring even more excitement, but for now, we present you with the Best of February; at least, according to us, your friends at the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Raoul Peck Brings Life to James Baldwin’s Unfinished Manuscript
By Michelle Amor
Michelle Amor talks to Raoul Peck about his new documentary “I Am Not Your Negro.”
Against Normalization: The Lesson of the “Munich Post”
By Ron Rosenbaum
Ron Rosenbaum on what the media can learn from the prescient “Munich Post.”
Goodbye, Eastern Europe!
By Jacob Mikanowski
Jacob Mikanowski shares a few lessons about a vanishing Eastern Europe.
I Cut and Cut and Cut Away: An Interview with Kate Zambreno
By Meghan Lamb
On the ongoing project of literature, and writing as séance.
Haruki Murakami Has More Books Out in Korean Than He Ever Will in English
By Colin Marshall
The real reason English-speakers are missing out on much of Murakami’s canon.
The President Who Mistook His Wife for a Drape
By Joseph Giovannini
Renowned architecture critic Joseph Giovannini on Trump’s Tremendous interior decoration.
Alec Baldwin, James Baldwin, and Apocalyptic Exceptionalism
By Matt Seybold
On SNL, Trump, and the apocalyptic imagination.
Leonard Cohen’s Art of Losing
By Oksana Maksymchuk
On Leonard Cohen and following the path of longing.
The World is Never Just Politics: A Conversation with Javier Marías
By Gregg LaGambina
Acclaimed Spanish novelist Javier Marías on translation, what fascism looks like, and what book you should be reading right now.
The Plague is Within Us: Shlomo Sand on France and its Intellectuals
By Robert Zaretsky
As Shlomo Sand suggests in his new book, the French intellectual was never what he was cracked up to be.
