Library Talks

Latest Episodes:

Nasty Women Oct 18, 2017

Show notes

The co-editors of the essay collection Nasty Women along with select contributors to it explore the complications of being an American woman in 2017. Featuring Kate Harding and Samhita Mukhopadhyay, with Kera Bolonik, Zerlina Maxwell, and Meredith Talusan. Moderated by Jezebel founder Anna Holmes.

Mike Wallace, Greater Gotham Oct 10, 2017

Show notes

Twenty years in the making, Greater Gotham is Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Mike Wallace's follow-up to his 1999 Gotham. He spoke about the New York City history, which covers 1898 to 1918, with the New Yorker's Jelani Cobb.

Salman Rushdie, The Golden House Oct 03, 2017

Show notes

The Booker Prize–winning novelist discusses his twelfth, and most recent, novel, The Golden House.

Jesmyn Ward on 'Sing, Unburied, Sing' Sep 26, 2017

Show notes

The National Book Award–winning author spoke at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture about her most recent novel, Sing, Unburied, Sing. She was joined by Lisa Lucas, Executive Director of the National Book Foundation.

Atul Gawande & Elizabeth Alexander Sep 19, 2017

Show notes

Two writers, two beautiful books, both on the subject of death. Atul Gawande's Being Mortal examines the lengths modern medicine must go to better humanize the final stages of our lives. Elizabeth Alexander's The Light of the World is the memoir of her husband Ficre's sudden and unexpected death, and Alexander's process of grieving and rebuilding that followed it.

Kurt Andersen, Fantasyland Sep 12, 2017

Show notes

The host and co-creator of Studio 360 discusses his new book, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, a 500-Year History. He spoke with NYU professor Kwame Anthony Appiah. Andersen argues that the roots of our post-truth, alternative facts present can be discovered in America's "promiscuous devotion to the untrue" and its instinct to believe in make believe, evident across four centuries of magical thinkers and true believers, hucksters and suckers, who have embedded an appetite for believe-whatever-you-want fantasy into our national DNA.

Raoul Peck, "I Am Not Your Negro" Sep 05, 2017

Show notes

The filmmaker speaks about his groundbreaking documentary I Am Not Your Negro at the Schomburg Center with the Schomburg's Director, Kevin Young and LIVE from the NYPl's Paul Holdengräber.

Ayobami Adebayo on her debut novel "Stay With Me" Aug 29, 2017

Show notes

The Nigerian writer discusses her debut novel, Stay With Me, the haunting tale of a young couple whose childless marriage threatens to tear them apart. It was shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction and hailed by Michiko Kakutani as "powerfully magnetic and heartbreaking."

Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning Aug 22, 2017

Show notes

Kendi discussed his National Book Award–winning work on the history of racist ideas in America with Khalil Gibran Muhammad, the Director Emeritus of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Noam Chomsky and Wallace Shawn: Rigorous Rationality Aug 15, 2017

Show notes

MIT linguist, philosopher, and political theorist Noam Chomsky, in conversation with actor Wallace Shawn.