Penn Jillette in conversation with Matt Donnelly at Live Talks Los Angeles, Aug. 11, 2016, discussing his book, "Presto!: How I Made Over 100 Pounds Disappear and Other Magical Tales." For more info on Live Talks LA -- upcoming events, videos and podcasts -- visit www.livetalksla.org

Thomas Friedman​ at Live Talks Los Angeles​, Dec 9, discussing his book, "Thank You for Being Late: Finding a Job, Running a Country, and Keeping Your Head in an Age of Accelerations. (Farrar, Straus and Giroux​)"  He gave a talk and was then interviewed by David Lazarus​ of the Los Angeles Times​.  For more info on Live Talks Los Angeles -- upcoming events, videos and podcast -- visit our website www.livetalksla.org  and subscribe to this podcast.

Michael Nesmith in conversation with D.A. Wallach at Live Talks Los Angeles, April 27, 2017, discussing his memoir, "Infinite Tuesday: An Autobiographical Riff." For more info on Live Talks Los Angeles -- upcoming events, videos and podcast -- visit www.livetalksla.org or follow this channel on YouTube.

Andy Cohen in conversation with RuPaul at Live Talks Los Angeles, Dec 1, discussing his book "Superficial: More Adventures from the Andy Cohen Diaries." Talk took place at Barnum Hall, Santa Monica. For more info on Live Talks Los Angeles -- upcoming events, videos and podcasts -- visit livetalksla.org or subscribe to this podcast

Lisa Napoli in conversation with Frank Buckley discussing her book, "Ray & Joan: The Man Who Made the McDonald’s Fortune and the Woman Who Gave It All Away"

For more info on Live Talks Los Angeles -- upcoming events, videos and podcast -- visit our website, www.livetalksla.org and subscribe to this podcast.

Ray and Joan is about many things: mid-20th century US cultural history; post-WW2 emergence of fast food culture; addiction and its impact on the family; addiction treatment (the early days of, in particular;) philanthropy that precedes the grandeur of Buffett and Gates; the no-nukes movement of the 80s; the San Diego Padres; the mass media’s influence on all of the above, and, most importantly of all, the complexity of marriage.

When Lisa went to cover the fate of a crumbling peace sculpture in front of the Santa Monica courthouse for radio station KCRW, she didn’t know she’d spend the next five years tracking down the story of Joan Kroc, one of the greatest and little known philanthropists of the twentieth century.  The heiress to the McDonald’s fortune had anonymously funded the 26-foot tall mushroom cloud by Paul Conrad, titled Chain Reaction, at the height of the no-nukes movement.  Lisa knew just two things about Joan: that she had given a landmark posthumous gift to NPR, and that at one point she’d run the baseball team she’d inherited from her late husband.  But she found it curious that a woman who lived in San Diego would come to fund a polarizing artwork nowhere near her home. When Lisa went in search of a biography, she couldn’t find one—so she decided to write one.  Soon, she disccovered: why no book yet existed about Joan; that writing about Joan meant writing about Ray, and learning about the roots of the fortune that the third wife of the founding chairman of McDonald’s ultimately gave away.

Frank Buckley is an anchor of KTLA Morning News. Frank joined KTLA in June 2005 from CNN where he had been a national correspondent. Frank is also host of the “Frank Buckley Interviews” podcast.

Frank’s reporting experiences have taken him around the world and have included assignments covering the U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, politics for CNN, frequent reporting from the White House during George W. Bush’s presidency, natural disasters in Japan, the Los Angeles riots, the Hong Kong handover, the OJ Simpson trial and countless other stories in Southern California and across the U.S.

Prior to KTLA and CNN, Frank reported for Los Angeles station KCAL-TV, WXII-TV in Winston-Salem, N.C., and at KESQ-TV in Palm Springs. He has also written for the Los Angeles Times and the Detroit News.

Andrew McCarthy in conversation with Pico Iyer at Live Talks Los Angeles, April 5, 2017, discussing the writing life and his novel,
"Just Fly Away."

For more information on Live Talks Los Angeles -- upcoming events, videos and podcasts -- visit www.livetalksla.org and subscribe to this podcast.

Kelly Oxford in conversation with Busy Philipps at Live Talks Los Angeles, April 26, 2017, discussing her collection of essays, "When You Find Out the World Is Against You: And Other Funny Memories About Awful Moments."  For more info on Live Talks LA -- upcoming events, videos and podcast -- visit www.livetalksla.org or follow this channel on YouTube.

Brad Stone in conversation with Jeff Berman at Live Talks Los Angeles, Feb 8, 2017, discussing his new book, "The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley Are Changing the World."

For more talks like this at Live Talks Los Angeles -- upcoming events, videos and podcast -- please visit www.livetalksla.org or subscribe to this podcast