David L. Ulin

Anthony Veasna So’s Afterparties is both debut and testament.

Why You Should Read This: ‘Elsewhere, California’

In Until Proven Safe, Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley present a history of quarantine.

William Finnegan reflects on his Pulitzer Prize–winning memoir, Barbarian Days.

Why you should read “Barbarian Days”

Rosecrans Baldwin’s Everything Now is a Los Angeles fever dream.

Alta books editor David L. Ulin proclaims this Robin Coste Lewis work the “most ambitious single poem in recent years.”

In The Quiet Boy, Ben H. Winters asks the big questions.

In Index of Women and Now We’re Getting Somewhere, Amy Gerstler and Kim Addonizio write out of the uncertainty of the times.

Transformative and resonant, Rachel Kushner’s novel is grounded in reality.

With Speculative Los Angeles, Denise Hamilton peels back the surface of the real.

Remembering Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919–2021).

In Love Is an Ex-Country, Randa Jarrar takes a look at America—and herself.

With Let Me Tell You What I Mean, Joan Didion ties up the loose ends of a literary life.

In Desert Oracle, Ken Layne goes all in on the Mojave’s lore—and lure.