John Freeman
John Freeman is the host of the California Book Club and the author of California Rewritten, among other books. He is the editor of The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story and an executive editor at Knopf. He lives in New York.
Excerpt: ‘California Rewritten’
Read a portion of the introduction to John Freeman’s new book of literary essays, the October selection of the California Book Club.
Why I Write: A Calling to See the World
From family letters to poetry and journalism, John Freeman traces the origins of his writing life and the call to share extraordinary journeys through words.
Reversing the Gaze
In The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan opens our eyes to the wonders of bird-watching, of “being the bird.”
Defying Expectations
Adrian Tomine’s Shortcomings centers on a protagonist who may not be as perceptive as he believes himself to be.
Poetry: ‘Transit’
John Freeman reflects on the environmental costs of modern living. The poem also meditates on concerns raised in Rosanna Xia’s California Against the Sea and Manjula Martin’s The Last Fire Season, both California Book Club selections.
Sea Change
Rosanna Xia’s California Against the Sea, the California Book Club’s July selection, asks us to reimagine our approach to ocean rise and shift to more-sustainable paths.
Scars of Fires Past
CBC host John Freeman writes about wildfires, crisis, and tending to living things in Manjula Martin’s The Last Fire Season, the California Book Club’s June selection.
Enter Desert: ‘Gold Fame Citrus’
In this newsletter, California Book Club host John Freeman writes about landscape, echoes of the past, and Claire Vaye Watkins’s radical debut novel, the May selection.
A Chaotic and Dangerous Present
CBC host John Freeman looks at the resonances that Ishmael Reed’s 1972 novel Mumbo Jumbo, the April California Book Club selection, carries again today.
A Novel Challenge
No list is a match for the state’s astonishing geography, history, and diversity.
Quantum Physics of Fiction
In Headshot, the California Book Club’s March selection, novelist Rita Bullwinkel brilliantly captures the consciousness of athletes engaged in sports.
Living in the Wedge of Light and Darkness: ‘The Consequences’
Manuel Muñoz’s most recent collection, the California Book Club’s February selection, is a masterpiece of close-focus stories.
Defying the Scripts of Empire
When writing his magnificent debut novel, The Sympathizer, the January California Book Club selection, and other books, author Viet Thanh Nguyen refused to capitulate to the fate colonial forces laid out for him.
Rivers of Joy and Pathos in ‘Goodbye, Vitamin’
Rachel Khong’s debut novel about caring for an elderly, demented parent excavates memories lost and recovered.
‘Violent Spring’: A Long Wait for Justice in Los Angeles
A detective’s puzzling out of group interests and division among a wide range of Angelenos is a central and striking element of Gary Phillips’s first novel, the California Book Club’s November selection.
Green Years in ‘This Boy’s Life’
Tobias Wolff’s memoir, the California Book Club’s October selection, entwines the mythologies of boyhood with Wolff’s westward journey and the complex people he observed on the path to becoming a writer.
Source of Strength
By taking us deeply into its protagonist’s longings, Danzy Senna’s Colored Television makes the case for fiction.
Questions of the Spirit
Helena María Viramontes’s lyrical novel Under the Feet of Jesus, the August California Book Club selection, excavates anguished ground to delve into faith and kindness.
Deflective Shimmer: ‘Dead in Long Beach, California’
Venita Blackburn’s debut novel, the California Book Club’s selection for July, attends to what it’s like to live in the present moment as we attempt to predict through storytelling
North to ‘La USA’
Javier Zamora’s Solito builds upon the aching tenderness contained in his debut poetry collection.
The Shock of Its Necessity
CBC host John Freeman meditates on California Book Club author Gary Snyder’s distinctive voice and use of language across his poems, essays, and translations.
Riding the Wave of ‘The Gangster of Love’
John Freeman writes about the vivid characters who populate the April California Book Club selection, Jessica Hagedorn’s novel of queer love and family.
Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Big Ideas Are Hiding in Plain Sight
The author’s books and lectures liberate challenging perspectives from the confines of genre, expectation, and academia.
Accidents of the Heart
California Book Club host John Freeman considers the happenstance involved in the occurrences that delineate the lives of characters in Laila Lalami’s The Other Americans.
Ways to Create Valhallas
Dave Eggers’s fiction, including the February California Book Club selection, The Every, explores utopian arrangements in which attempts to live up to ideals collide with people and their limitations.
Conductor of Time
California Book Club host John Freeman writes about the history of the Lakewood suburb in D. J. Waldie’s Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir, the January CBC selection, and its mirrors.
The Velvety Relief of Contagion Plots
Carribean Fragoza’s gothic short story collection, Eat the Mouth That Feeds You, allows us to think about darkness.
Multiple Sources of Beauty
California Book Club host John Freeman meditates on author Deborah A. Miranda’s Bad Indians, which retrieves her family’s stories and places them within the frame of broader California Indian history.
A Prosthetic for Connection
Jennifer Egan’s The Candy House, the October California Book Club selection, probes the devastating consequences of trusting a technology that outsources memory on the inner lives of the novel’s characters and embraces beauty.
Running to Explore Cities and Memories
Morning jogs offer surprising ways to interact with nature, the built environment, and oneself.
A Radical Movement of Mutual Aid
In Bad Mexicans, the September CBC selection, historian Kelly Lytle Hernández brings Mexican and Mexican American revolutionaries to vivid life.
Secrets and Rumors
Author Naomi Hirahara produces tension in Clark and Division, the August CBC selection, by asking the reader to join protagonist Aki Ito in reconstructing the truth from a tumult of perceptions, chatter, and public facts.