500 episodes listed below
Literary evenings with civic weight.
ALOUD @ Los Angeles Public Library is a stage for expansive conversations with writers, poets, artists, scholars, and advocates. Its episodes move patiently from careful introductions into serious exchanges about literature, justice, technology, creativity, identity, and the civic role of libraries.
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ALOUD @ Los Angeles Public Library is built like a public evening at a cultural institution. It opens the room before it opens the subject. The introductions name sponsors, library programs, land acknowledgments, civic purpose, and the people who have gathered in person or online. That framing is not ornamental; it explains the show’s center of gravity. ALOUD treats literature, art, technology, and public policy as parts of the same civic conversation. The literary episodes are grounded in books and authors, but they rarely stay confined to plot or biography. Jennifer Egan’s The Candy House becomes a path into memory, tech, form, and the problem of information without narrative. Yesica Salgado’s bilingual program brings poetry together with family, culture, body image, Los Angeles, and the politics of how women are seen. Wandering Stars opens into questions of trauma, therapy, Indigenous identity, humor, and the burden placed on fictional characters. The AI programs broaden the show’s range without changing its posture. They ask how algorithms shape health care, bail decisions, facial recognition, predictive policing, youth development, creative work, and racialized inequality. The conversations are serious, but not sealed off. Speakers are introduced with care, then allowed to answer at length, often moving from anecdote to principle to concrete consequence. A program on creative labor can sit beside a discussion of machine learning because both are treated as questions about power, authorship, and who gets protected. A maker-focused episode on the Auntie Sewing Squad connects mask making, radical care, library tools, and community practice. The show’s strength is patience. It does not chase speed, conflict, or comic rhythm. It gives a listener the feeling of sitting in the Taper Auditorium or another Los Angeles venue while a public conversation unfolds with clear stakes. The tone is warm, formal, and attentive to access. It suits people who want culture with context and civic conversation with literary intelligence.
Made for: For listeners who like author conversations, public lectures, and thoughtful panels that connect books to politics, technology, identity, and city life. It suits anyone who prefers careful framing and long-form answers over fast conversational pacing.
What sets it apart: ALOUD stands apart by placing literary programming inside the public mission of the Los Angeles Public Library. Its conversations treat books, AI, racial justice, creative labor, and community practice as shared civic questions rather than separate cultural niches.
ALOUD is the Library Foundation of Los Angeles' award-winning literary series of live conversations, readings and performances at the historic Central Library and locations throughout Los Angeles.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Public talks and author conversations connect creative work to labor, technology, politics, and the questions raised by a roomful of listeners.
ALOUD @ Los Angeles Public Library preserves the texture of public conversation: speakers address a room, arguments have space to develop, and audience questions can redirect the discussion.
A library stage where your reading list starts arguing back about who technology actually serves.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A loose public conversation follows Orville from court-mandated therapy to the uneasy comic world of pretendians.
This single-episode review finds its pressure points through Orville, using his court-mandated therapy, a speaker's later experience with therapy and behavioral-health work, and the moment he is shot while dancing to think through trauma, responsibility, and recognition.
A civic-minded discussion that makes opaque AI systems visible through the decisions and predictions they shape.
A public-library conversation about artificial intelligence opens into a broader look at how algorithmic systems gain authority in public life.
A wide-ranging lecture on debt, crisis, Bretton Woods, and the politics of deflation.
The episode frames capitalism as a system repeatedly unsettled by the financial tools it creates. Yannis Varoufakis moves from debt and credit to the 1929 crash, tracing how banks can turn confidence in future value into multiplying obligations until confidence breaks.
Great books, taken chapter by chapter, with delight
Book talk with room to wander.
A live library event introducing a bilingual program on body image and cultural perceptions featuring a poet and an activist.
Yannis Varoufakis starts with crisis.
Jessica Strand starts with civic care.
Jessica Strand starts with the room before the tech.
At the Los Angeles Public Library, Leslie Jamison and Sarah Manguzo discuss Jamison's Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story, a memoir about becoming a parent, ending a marriage, and rebuilding a life through friendship.
This episode is a live literary event at the Los Angeles Public Library, featuring an introduction that highlights library programs and maker activities before the main conversation.
A live literary event introducing a poet and activist discussing body image and cultural perceptions of women's bodies.
An author interview event at the Los Angeles Public Library featuring novelists Jennifer Egan and Danzy Sena discussing Egan's new novel 'The Candy House'.