City Arts & Lectures

Andrew Sean Greer’s novels include T he Story of a Marriage , The Confessions of Max Tivoli, and a satire of the literary world, Less  - which earned him the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2018.  Now, he’s out with the followup,  Less is Lost , which catches up with the lovable Arthur Less as he and his pug travel across the country in a rusty camper van on a literary tour. Greer is the winner of t...

Andy Borowitz  is an award-winning comedian and  New York Times  bestselling author. He grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and graduated from Harvard College, where he became President of the  Harvard Lampoon . In 1998, he began contributing humor to  The New Yorker ‘s “Shouts and Murmurs” and “Talk of the Town” departments, and in 2001, he created “The Borowitz Report,” a satirical news column, which ha...

Angela Garbes ’s first book, Like a Mother,  looked at the science, myths, and inequities surrounding pregnancy and motherhood. Her latest book,  Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change , continues to examine obstacles and injustices faced by parents and other caregivers. In this book, Garbes also looks at her own family’s history as members of the Filipino American community, many of whom are...

Dave Eggers  is the author of many books, including  Zeitoun ,  What Is the What , and  You Shall Know Our Velocity.  In 2000, Eggers made his enormously popular literary debut with his memoir  A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.  His latest book,  The Every , is a follow-up to his 2013 dystopian novel,  The Circle.  It follows protagonist Delaney Wells as she tries to take down a dangerous...

Mary Roach  is the author of the books  Stiff ,  Spook ,  Bonk ,  Gulp ,  Grunt , and  Packing for Mars , all of which bring her distinctly funny voice to popular science subjects. Her new book  Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law,  combines little-known forensic science and conservation genetics with a motley cast of laser scarecrows, trespassing squirrels, and more of “nature’s lawbreakers,” offeri...

This week, a story of transformation with Los Angeles chef and restaurateur Keith Corbin. Corbin grew up in Watts, his early years entangled in drugs and gangs. After serving time in one of California’s most notorious maximum security prisons, Corbin experienced the employment challenges all too common for the formerly incarcerated. A model employee at one of his jobs, Corbin was promoted to a man...

This week, we’re going into the City Arts and Lectures archives for highlights from the many times Salman Rushdie has come to San Francisco.  Rushdie is the author of fifteen novels, including Victory City, which is expected to be published in early 2023, as well as non-fiction works and short stories. Of course, he’s much in our thoughts these days after being attacked on August 12th, 2022, minut...

Mohsin Hamid is the author of five novels, including  The Reluctant Fundamentalist,   How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia , and  Exit West.  All display Hamid’s lyrical prose, his acute understanding of some of the most dire conflicts faced by our modern world, and his belief in the immense and near-magical power of fiction. In his newest novel  The Last White Man , Hamid writes about racial met...

For more than thirty years, Michael Pollan has been writing books and articles about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect: on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in our minds. His many acclaimed titles include  How to Change Your Mind ,  The Omnivore’s Dilemma , and  The Botany of Desire . In his recent essay collection,  This is Your Mind on Plants , Pollan takes a deep d...

This week, we look at the connection between the state of our bodies and the state of the planet, with physician  Rupa Marya  and journalist  Raj Patel , Their new book Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice , draws on Dr. Marya’s work as a physician, as well as scientific research and scholarship on the social and environmental causes of poor health. On July 21, 2022, the two spoke...

An encore of a two-part miniseries from 2020, in which past City Arts & Lectures guests talk across, among, and around one another. In the second half of Crosstalk, our guests discuss genre. What is a novel? What is autofiction? What is poetry, a fable, creative nonfiction, a short story? Does perfect writing exist? Then, some of our writers speak to cancel culture – the contentious concept of...

An encore presentation from 2020: Crosstalk is a two-part series of compiled conversations between City Arts & Lectures guests from recent years discussing literary identity and the sometimes pleasurable, sometimes painful, act of writing. Guests include Ocean Vuong, Zadie Smith, Marlon James, Ottessa Moshfegh, Tommy Orange, Eileen Myles, Rebecca Solnit, and Ta-Nehisi Coates. Crosstalk is prod...

A conversation on the science of sleep and how we can improve it for better health with Dr. Matt Walker. Walker is a professor of neuroscience and psychology at UC Berkeley and the director of the Center for Human Sleep Science whose research examines the impact of sleep on human health and disease. He is the author of Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreaming and over 100 scientific...

In The Ministry for the Future , science fiction novelist Kim Stanley Robinson imagines a near-future where climate change has wreaked havoc, from severe heat waves, to flooding, limited resources, and a global refugee crisis. It’s a terrifying set of circumstances. But it’s not without hope - and Robinson brings to life a possible path for survival.  Robinson has also published a memoir, The High...

This week, a conversation with one of today’s most beloved and historically imaginative authors: Amor Towles. Towles earned wide critical acclaim and a loyal international audience with his 2016 novel, A Gentleman in Moscow. His new book, The Lincoln Highway, follows four boys on an exhilarating ten-day trip across America, from the farmlands of Nebraska to the bustling streets of New York City. O...

Our guest is writer, scholar, and activist Angela Davis. For more than 5 decades, Davis has been fighting for Black liberation, equal rights for women, queer and transgender people. Davis first received national attention in 1969, after being removed from her teaching position at UCLA for her social activism and membership to the Communist Party. In 1970, she was placed on the FBI’s “Ten Most Want...

This week, we’ll listen to a conversation with David Mitchell and Pico Iyer, recorded on May 8, 2021. David Mitchell’s many novels include Cloud Atlas, The Bone Clocks , and Ghostwritten . . His most recent novel, Utopia Avenue, follows the strangest British band you’ve never heard of. Mitchell’s stories often weave together the supernatural and the philosophical.  He’s also one of the most struct...

This week,  journalist Michael Lewis is in conversation with his fellow writer and friend Dave Eggers. Michael Lewis is the author of books including Moneyball and The Big Short, and most recently The Premonition: A Pandemic Story . It’s a nonfiction thriller filled with the unforgettable characters that Lewis is known for . His knack for storytelling is also what makes his podcast Against the Rul...

Neil Gaiman has been called one of the modern masters of fantasy writing, but his work includes other genres too, from novels like American Gods and Neverwhere , to song lyrics, and poetry. His groundbreaking series The Sandman was the first comic ever to receive a literary award. It’s now being adapted into a show on Netflix. Coraline , his dark fantasy for children, was made into a movie too. In...

This week, our guest is Neil Gaiman. He’s been called one of the modern masters of fantasy writing, but his work includes other genres too, from novels like American Gods and Neverwhere , to song lyrics, and poetry. His groundbreaking series The Sandman was the first comic ever to receive a literary award. It’s now being adapted into a show on Netflix. Coraline , his dark fantasy for children, was...

This week, our guest is Richard Powers. He’s the author of thirteen novels on everything from neuroscience, to artificial intelligence to the environment. His book, “The Overstory” earned him a Pulitzer prize in fiction. The Financial Times called it “A Great American Eco-Novel.” His latest book is called “Bewilderment”, and it also deals with environmental catastrophe. It’s the story of a widowed...

This week, a conversation between two accomplished multi-disciplinary minds - writer Jennifer Egan and computer scientist and artist Jaron Lanier. Egan won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel A Visit from The Goon Squad . Now, a decade later, she’s written a sort of sibling to that book. It’s called The Candy House and it imagines a technology that allows people to access every memory they’ve ever had,...

Musician, actor, and fashion icon Janelle Monáe has long been creating sci-fi worlds through her albums and performances. With her new short story collection The Memory Librarian, Monáe, along with a team of collaborators, expands on the Afrofuturistic world of one of her critically acclaimed albums, Dirty Computer.  Dirty Computer introduced us to a world where people’s memories—a key to self-exp...

This week, our guest is Krista Tippett, host of the On Being podcast. Tippett started the program in 2003.  It features conversations about faith, ethics and moral wisdom. Tippett often begins her interviews by asking guests what their relationship to faith was like growing up. It’s a prompt that grounds them in memory before Tippett takes the conversation into an expansive examination of their vi...

Lauren Groff is a two-time National Book Award finalist and the author of four novels and two collections of short stories.  The relatively young author gathered major attention for her novel Fates and Furies – from literary awards to a nod from President Barack Obama.  Her newest novel, Matrix, imagines the life of Marie du France, a medieval writer who became France’s first woman poet. Her work...