Free Library Podcast

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Elaine Pagels | Why Religion?: A Personal Story Dec 07, 2018

Show notes

In conversation with award-winning journalist, Tracey Matisak One of the most esteemed religious scholars of our time, Elaine Pagels is the author of Revelations, Beyond Belief, and The Gnostic Gospels. Her many honors include Rockefeller, Guggenheim, and MacArthur fellowships. Her new book draws upon the perspectives of science, history, and her own research, as well as the insight she gleaned from the shocking loss of both her son and husband in the same year. Lauded by Joyce Carol Oates as ''an extraordinary memoir of loss, spiritual struggle, illumination and insight,'' Why Religion? contemplates some of the modern world's most important questions about why so many still believe and how we reconcile faith with contemporary ideas of sex and culture. Watch the video here. (recorded 11/29/2018)

Gary Giddins | Bing Crosby: Swinging on a Star: The War Years, 1940-1946 Dec 07, 2018

Show notes

Gary Giddins is the author of the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Visions of Jazz: The First Century, ''a grand, brilliant history" (The New York Times Book Review). Jazz columnist at The Village Voice for 30 years, his other books include Weatherbird: Jazz at the Dawn of Its Second Century, Faces in the Crowd, and biographies of Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker. Giddins teaches at the City University of New York Graduate Center and was prominently featured on Ken Burns's landmark Jazz documentary series. Drawing on scores of interviews and unprecedented archival access, his latest book is the second installment of his multi-part biography of America's quintessential crooner. Watch the video here. (recorded 12/4/2018)

Nelson Díaz | Not from Here, Not from There/No Soy de Aquí ni de Allá: The Autobiography of Nelson Díaz Oct 15, 2018

Show notes

In conversation with Sabrina Vourvoulias, journalist, short story author and novelist Introduced by Henry Cisneros A 1972 Temple University Law School graduate, Nelson Díaz was the first Puerto Rican lawyer admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar Association and became the state's first Latino judge and partner in a top-100 law firm. He was later appointed to a White House Fellowship by Jimmy Carter and as General Counsel to the Department of Housing and Urban Development by Bill Clinton. His honors include the Philadelphia Bar Association's Justice Sonia Sotomayor Diversity Award. From his childhood in a New York tenement to advocacy for human rights, housing reform, and neighborhood economic development, Not from Here, Not from There is a chronicle of Díaz's remarkable path toward the American Dream. (recorded 10/9/2018)

Jill Lepore | These Truths: A History of the United States Sep 21, 2018

Show notes

An historian whose ''discipline is worthy of a first-class detective'' (New York Review of Books), Jill Lepore is the author of the National Book Award finalist Book of Ages, the story of Benjamin Franklin's beloved but often-overlooked sister Jane; New York Burning, winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Award and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; and The Secret History of Wonder Woman, a revelatory feminist origin story of one of the most popular superheroes of all time. Her new book is an ambitious biography of the United States, as told through the intersection of politics, technology, journalism, and sketches of greater- and lesser-known leaders, mischief makers, and visionaries. Watch the video here. (recorded 9/20/2018)

Andrew Shaffer | Hope Never Dies: An Obama Biden Mystery Jul 31, 2018

Show notes

Crockett and Tubbs. Murtaugh and Riggs. Tango and Cash. Obama and Biden. In Hope Never Dies, this time it's personal as the former President and Vice President are on the case in this high-stakes thriller mystery from Andrew Shaffer, the New York Times best-selling author of Fifty Shames of Earl Grey and other fiction and nonfiction titles. When Biden, fresh into retirement, finds that his favorite railroad conductor has died in a suspicious accident, he calls the only man he ever fully trusted: the 44th President of the United States. From biker bars and fleabag motels to the heart of the opioid epidemic, these two rebels will risk everything to see just how far down the Delaware rabbit hole this thing goes. (recorded 7/30/2018)

Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha | What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City Jul 26, 2018

Show notes

The dramatic story of the Flint water crisis-the signature environmental disaster of our time-and an inspiring tale of scientific resistance by a relentless physician who stood up to power. Internationally recognized for her 2015 study that exposed elevated lead blood levels in Flint children, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, MD, MPH, FAAP, is a physician, scientist, and activist at the forefront of one America's most notorious public-health crises. She is the recipient of the Freedom of Expression Courage Award by PEN America, and one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People. What the Eyes Don't See tells the inspiring story of how a diverse group of researchers, parents, and community leaders fought bureaucratic indifference and proved that Flint's children were exposed to dangerous levels of lead. In partnership with the Heinz Endowment and the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading as a feature of GLR Week (recorded 7/25/2018)

Steven Johnson | Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World Jul 16, 2018

Show notes

Watch the video here. Exploring the intersection of science, technology, and experience, Steven Johnson is the author of the bestselling Where Good Ideas Come From, Everything Bad Is Good for You, and How We Got to Now, which he adapted into a popular PBS and BBC series. Johnson is also the creator of the influential online magazine FEED and the website plastic.com, and was one of Prospect magazine's Top Ten Brains of the Digital Future. A look at the ways novelty, wonder, and amusement have driven innovation, Wonderland is ''a swashbuckling argument for the centrality of recreation to all of human history'' (New York Times). Due to low sound levels, you will have to turn the sound up on your computer (after the introduction) in order to hear the podcast. We apologize for the inconvenience. (recorded 1/24/2017)

Melissa Fleming | A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea: One Refugee's Incredible Story of Love, Loss, and Survival Jul 16, 2018

Show notes

Watch the video here. Melissa Fleming is Head of Communications and Chief Spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Her TED talk on the subject of refugees has been viewed more than 1.3 million times, and her advocacy has helped bring worldwide attention to the Syrian crisis. She is a frequent contributor to The Guardian, the New York Times, and The Washington Post. In her debut book, ''the human toll of the worst humanitarian crisis of our time is painfully, heartbreakingly brought home'' (Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner) through the harrowing journey of a young Syrian refugee and her family. (recorded 1/26/2017)

Michael Eric Dyson | Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America Jul 16, 2018

Show notes

Watch the video here. In conversation with Dr. James Peterson, Director of Africana Studies and Associate Professor of English at Lehigh University. MSNBC Contributor Possessed of ''intellectual heft, critical thinking depth and finesse with words and messages'' (Essence), Michael Eric Dyson is the author of 19 books, a frequent New York Times opinion writer, an MSNBC political analyst, and University Professor of Sociology at Georgetown. His many honors include an American Book Award and two NAACP Image Awards, and Ebony named him one of the 100 Most Influential African Americans. Tears We Cannot Stop is a no-holds-barred call for white America to face difficult truths about how it has ignored or dismissed African American grievances. (recorded 2/1/2017)

Jason Rekulak | The Impossible Fortress Jul 16, 2018

Show notes

Watch the video here. In conversation with comedian Doogie Horner Jason Rekulak is the publisher of Philadelphia-based Quirk Books, where he has overseen acquisition of a number of, well, very quirky books, including the no. 1 New York Times bestseller Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, the Edgar Award-winning The Last Policeman, and the literary mashup Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, among many others. In his debut novel, Rekulak travels to 1987 to tell the coming-of-age story of three teenage boys, first love in the age of old school computer programming, and a master plan to heist their own version of the Maltese Falcon: a Playboy magazine containing nude photographs of Vanna White. (recorded 2/6/2017)

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