Los Angeles Review of Books PubLab | We are the official annual journal of the LA Review of Books Publishing Workshop, an immersive, collaborative summer program designed for students and innovators interested in publishing.

We are the official annual publication of the LA Review of Books Publishing Workshop, an immersive, collaborative summer program designed for students and innovators interested in publishing.

A Puerto Rican man in his 20s-30s stands in the middle of a sugar cane field during harvest, looking at the camera with one hand on his hip. He wears a wide-brimmed hat, beige pants, a leather belt, and a button-down polo shirt. His eyes and nose are obscured by the shadow of his hat. There is a blue sky in the background, and other workers harvesting sugarcane.

“No suelte’ la bandera ni olvide’ el lelolai”: (Re)Imagining Lo Jíbaro From Manuel Alonso to Bad Bunny

“No suelte’ la bandera ni olvide’ el lelolai”: (Re)Imagining Lo Jíbaro From Manuel Alonso to Bad Bunny “Man in sugar cane field during harvest, Puerto Rico” (1942), Jack Delano, Photograph. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. When I first saw the NFL and...

Layered digital collage of three pixelated figures standing in front of a Buchla machine.

Echoes of the Fourth Person: A Dilemma of Sociality in Electronic Music

ONE PERSON is never enough. Buzzing away on my bassoon in a practice room or listening to The Strokes through a dime-sized speaker lodged in my ear are not typically lauded as the pinnacle of musical experience. One of the platitudes of music is that sound is social:...

Unfinished sketch of a woman staring into the distance while sitting at a table with a cup, saucer, and pitcher.

Self-improvement

Self-improvement “Tea” (c. 1890), Mary Cassatt. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art. It was one of those clear, sunny October days: crisp, bright mornings; intense, red afternoons; chilly, slow evenings. It was Sunday, so at 5 p.m. she went to yoga...

Overlapping shadows of hands that form an enigmatic figure over a blue background.

Do You Know Where Your Kids Are?

There were maybe three reasons this might not work. First, he hadn’t been fasting like each book strictly recommended. That day, Jason had a large breakfast and lunch, all without any worry. Second, it wasn’t midnight. It was three in the afternoon, the sun was out...

Andrea Long Chu’s Females, Revised

Andrea Long Chu’s Females, Revised “At Your Own Expense” (2026), digital collage and mixed media, Lauren Burnham. Incorporates various silhouettes from the ledger book of William Bache (1803-12), sourced from the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian...

A ghostly portrait of Anne Boleyn by Hans Holbein the Younger.

Anne Boleyn in the Manosphere: What Ava Pickett’s hot new period piece can teach us about misogyny’s past and present

On April 26, 2025, just over one week before Ava Pickett’s 1536 premiered for its sold-out run at the Almeida Theatre in London, 38-year-old Owen Lawrence attacked the popular Otley Run pub crawl in Leeds, England, seriously injuring two women. In January of that...

A nineteenth-century stereograph of two side-by-side identical prints. Both are a photograph of a bride and groom during their wedding march, with their wedding party following behind. The image is largely black and white, excepting the pink bridesmaids' dresses and blue-green palm fronds surrounding the group.

Monogamy is Dead, Long Live Monogamy!

When I was a teenager, my mother died. A few years later, my father remarried. I now have the language to describe grief as an encounter with what could have been and cannot be, one in which we negotiate with imagined futures after loss. At that time, however, I found...

Caribou antlers jut out of the snow against a pale wintery landscape.

Heretics

In the darkness of the fields, she waited, seated on the dirt as the horned man came for her. She had first thought the horns he wore were those of a caribou. They were just as grand, with moonlight gliding off their points like slivers of white off a calm lake. They...