Library Talks

In this episode of Library Talks , the acclaimed Irish writer, Fintan O'Toole, delivers the annual Robert B. Silvers lecture.    The idea of greatness has infused politics across much of the globe in the last decade, from Brexit to Donald Trump's MAGA movement. In this lecture, Fintan O'Toole suggests why greatness is, after all, not so great: it is in thrall to an imagined past, it generates a co...

In this episode of Library Talks , acclaimed author Maile Chapman joins the podcast to discuss her first novel in fifteen years from acclaimed, The Spoil.   As a young girl growing up on the outskirts of Tacoma in the 1970s, Mandy is preoccupied by the paranormal phenomena she reads about in magazines: alien visitations, ESP, the Bermuda Triangle. What follows is a gripping and often terrifying st...

In this episode of Library Talks , The historian and bass player for The Avett Brothers, Bob Crawford revisits the life of John Quincy Adams in his book America's Founding Son. Adams was born nine years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and he died as the United States was sliding irrevocably toward Civil War. In between he was a foreign ambassador, secretary of state, sitting...

In this episode of Library Talks , Author Daisy Hernández explores one of the most contested questions in contemporary American life: who belongs. Hernández is joined in discussion  with journalist Jia Lynn Yang.   Citizenship: Notes on an American Myth braids memoir, history, and cultural criticism to reveal how citizenship functions less as a guarantee than as a narrative we tell about ourselves...

In this episode of Library Talks , historian Ellen Carol DuBois discusses her new book Elizabeth Cady Stanton: A Revolutionary Life with legal scholar Julie Suk. Elizabeth Cady Stanton presents a definitive portrait of one of the most influential figures in the American struggles for women's suffrage and rights.   From the 1840s until her death in 1902, Stanton fought for women's emancipation, adv...

In this episode of Library Talks , historian Jeanne Theoharis joins the podcast to discuss her groundbreaking work, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks. She is joined in discussion by fellow historian Robyn C. Spencer-Antoine.   The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks is the definitive political biography of Rosa Parks and examines her six decades of activism, challenging perceptions of her as a...

In this episode of Library Talks , award winning director Clint Bentley joins the podcast to discuss his new film Train Dreams and the process of adapting Denis Johnson's beloved novella.   Train Dreams is the moving portrait of Robert Grainier, a logger and railroad worker who leads a life of unexpected depth and beauty in the rapidly-changing America of the early 20th Century. Clint Bentley's fi...

In this episode of Library Talks , historian Nina Sankovitch discusses her new book Not Your Founding Father: How a Nonbinary Minister Became America's Most Radical Revolutionary.   In 1776 a 23-year-old woman named Jemima Wilkinson suffered a severe illness, declared her past self dead, and then rebranded as the Public Universal Friend, a genderless messenger of God. In a few short years the Frie...

In this episode of Library Talks , we explore the life of one of the most influential architects of the civil rights era Rev. James Lawson Jr. and discuss his new posthumous memoir Nonviolent: A Memoir of Resistance, Agitation, and Love   Rev. James Lawson Jr. spent his life fighting racial and economic injustice. A peer of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he taught and organized nonviolent direct acti...

In this episode of Library Talks , Academy and BAFTA Award–winning filmmaker, Emerald Fennell, discusses her seductive interpretation of Wuthering Heights .   Wuthering Heights has been the subject of controversy since it was first published in 1847. One of its first critics derided the novel's "vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors," and another wrote, "How a human being could have attempted suc...

In this episode of Library Talks , author Edward McPherson sits down with fellow author Robert Sullivan to discuss his latest book, Look Out: The Delight and Danger of Taking the Long View.   Look Out is an exploration of long-distance mapping, aerial photography, and top-down and far-ranging perspectives—from pre–Civil War America to our vexed modern times of drone warfare, hyper-surveillance at...

In this episode of Library Talks , prizewinning constitutional historian Akhil Reed Amar talks about his new book Born Equal: Remaking America's Constitution, 1840–1920.   Born Equal recounts the dramatic constitutional debates that unfolded across eight decades, across those eight decades four amendments abolished slavery, secured Black and female citizenship, and extended suffrage regardless of...

In this episode of Library Talks ,   Pulitzer Prize–winning author and physician Siddhartha Mukherjee joins Library Talks to discuss the updated edition of his groundbreaking book, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer   Originally published in 2010, The Emperor of All Maladies is a humane "biography" of cancer, tracing the disease from its first documented appearance thousands of yea...

In this episode of Library Talks , The legal scholar and former White House official, Tim Wu, examines how today's tech giants extract wealth from ordinary citizens and deepen America's class divide.   The Internet was once celebrated as a democratizing force promising widespread prosperity. In his new book, The Age of Extraction , Tim Wu explores how it has instead fueled the rise of new economic...

In this episode of Library Talks , 4th generation Russ & Daughters co-owners Niki Russ Federman & Josh Russ join the podcast to talk about their book Russ & Daughters: 100 Years of Appetizing with fellow writer Joshua David Stein. From the legendary New York destination for Jewish appetizing, a beautiful and inspiring cookbook that encompasses history, tradition, and absolutely delicious food. In...

In this episode of Library Talks , writer Amanda Vaill joins the podcast to discuss her new book Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution. Discover America's Founding Era anew through the lives of the Schuyler sisters, two women as formidable as the famous men they loved, married, and mothered.   Amanda Vaill worked on Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of R...

In this episode of Library Talks , science writer Mindy Weisberger discusses her new book Rise of the Zombie Bugs: The Surprising Science of Parasitic Mind-Control with Neuroscientist Paula Croxson. Zombies aren't just the stuff of nightmares. Explore the fascinating world of real-life insect zombification.   In Rise of the Zombie Bugs, Mindy Weisberger explores the eerie yet fascinating phenomeno...

In this episode of Library Talks , award-winning journalist Margalit Fox joins Library Talks to discuss her latest book, The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum: The Rise and Fall of an American Organized-Crime Boss, the true story of a once-infamous criminal mastermind and visionary businesswoman in Gilded Age New York.   Drawing on deep historical research, Fox tells the true story of a once-famous heroine...

In this episode of Library Talks , author Lance Richardson joins Library Talks to discuss his new book True Nature: The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen.  He's joined by award-winning writer Sam Anderson.   A towering figure of twentieth-century American letters, Peter Matthiessen (1927–2014) defies categorization. He co-founded the Paris Review while working undercover for the CIA in postwar Paris...

In this episode of Library Talks , award-winning author and New York Times Magazine staff writer Jonathan Mahler joins the podcast to discuss the transformative, tumultuous era in New York City he evokes vividly in The Gods of New York: Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists, and the Birth of the Modern City: 1986-1990 , with bestselling novelist Amor Towles.   The Gods of New York is an immersive port...

In this episode of Library Talks , the former director of the CDC Dr. Tom Frieden, joins Library Talks to discuss his new book The Formula for Better Health: How to Save Millions of Lives – Including Your Own. He's joined in conversation by Chelsea Clinton, vice chair of the Clinton Foundation.   Dr. Tom Frieden led New York's health department after 9/11, directed the CDC during the Ebola epidemi...

In this episode of Library Talks , Irin Carmon speaks with Melissa Murray about her new book Unbearable . In Unbearable , Irin Carmon draws on the history and politics of reproduction, showing how the American story of pregnancy has long been incomplete, hidden, or taken for granted. Pregnant herself while reporting on the lived experiences of five women navigating pregnancy during the Supreme Cou...

In this episode of Library Talks , Author Francesca Wade, joins Library Talks to discuss her new book Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife she is joined by fellow author Brenda Wineapple who's most recent book is national bestseller, Keeping the Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial That Riveted a Nation.   Gertrude Stein's Paris salon is the stuff of literary legend. Many have tried to capture the spirit...

In this episode of Library Talks , Ray D. Madoff, a professor at Boston College Law School, talks about her new book The Second Estate which lifts the veil on the 7,000-page tax code that has created two Americas. In one America, "millions of working Americans pay substantial portions of their resources to support the expenses of the country." In another, the wealthiest one percent have been "give...

In this episode of Library Talks , Cheryl McKissack Daniel—fifth-generation leader of the nation's oldest Black-owned design and construction services firm, sits down with multimedia mogul Charlamagne Tha God to discuss her family's extraordinary 200-year history, as captured in her new book The Black Family Who Built America.   From the National Civil Rights Museum in Tennessee, to the Atlantic Y...