City Arts & Lectures

Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief, and The Library Book, returns with On Animals. The book is a collection of essays she’s written for The New Yorker-- where she is a staff writer-- that catalogue her love and wonder of animals. On October 13, 2021, Susan Orlean talked to Steven Winn about her fascination with all kinds of creatures, and some truly bizarre animal owners, like a woman who ha...

Dave Eggers’ books include A Hologram for the King, What is the What, and many more since his breakout memoir in the year 2000, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. He’s written a new novel, called The Every. It’s follow up to his 2013 book The Circle, and both take a very skeptical view of technology’s impact not only on our daily lives, but our capacity for focus and empathy. On September...

Congressman  Adam Schiff  represents California’s 28th Congressional District. In his 11th term in the House of Representatives, Schiff currently serves as the Chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which oversees the nation’s intelligence agencies. In his role as Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Schiff led the first impeachment of Donald J....

Andrea Elliott is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for  The New York Times  and a former staff writer at  The Miami Herald . In 2012, Elliott set out to report about what it was like to be an unhoused child in New York City. She met 11-year-old Dasani Coates, living in a shelter with her parents and seven siblings.  The conditions were unsurprisingly horrible, and the challenges fac...

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...

Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard is best known for the autobiographical series “My Struggle.” The six volumes total more than 3,000 pages. And the books manage to be both epic and intimate. In them, Knausgaard meticulously catalogs the minor details of his daily life, like cleaning his father’s house and checking out books at the library.  He also tackles fundamental questions about existence...

Colson Whitehead is the only novelist to win a Pulitzer Prize for consecutive books:  The Underground Railroad , now a television miniseries directed by Oscar-winner Barry Jenkins, and  The Nickel Boys . His novels span a wide range of genres, including satire ( Apex Hides the Hurt) , post-apocalyptic zombie horror ( Zone One ), and an autobiographical coming-of-age story ( Sag Harbor , which is s...

This week, we’ll hear from Frances Moore Lappé, whose groundbreaking book “Diet for a Small Planet” was controversial when it first came out in 1971.  World hunger was a major news topic and a genuine concern; many believed there simply wasn’t enough food to feed the planet.  But Lappé argued that hunger wasn’t caused by a scarcity of food, but a scarcity of power among those who go hungry.  She b...

Under the pen name Lemony Snicket, Daniel Handler is responsible for the beloved thirteen-volume A Series of Unfortunate Events and the four-volume All the Wrong Questions , among other books. Mr. Snicket is back with his first book for readers of all ages, a whimsical and philosophical novel that begins with the protagonist Snicket finding a note that informs him: “You had poison for breakfast.”...

Dr. Andrew Budson is a cognitive and behavioral neurologist, a cognitive neuroscientist, and author. He has written and co-authored a number of books that focus on Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, and related disorders –– including his most recent work,  Six Steps to Managing Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia , is a guide for families who are navigating caring for a loved one. Budson is incredibly ac...

This week…. a encore of a 2018 conversation with Michael Pollan. When it was originally recorded in 2018, the idea of using psychedelics for therapeutic intervention was new to many people. Today, just a few years later, treating mental health disorders like depression and PTSD with drugs like psilocybin, LSD or MDMA, better known as a component in Ecstasy, is much more familiar. Some might say it...

Rita Dove was the youngest person ever to be named United States Poet Laureate.  She was also the first African American to hold the title.  Her poems imbue historical events with personal detail and experience.  Dove is also a novelist and acclaimed lyricist.  On August 15, 2021, she talked with Steven Winn about her most recent collection. “Playlist for the Apocalypse”.

Joy Harjo is a performer and writer of the Muskogee Creek Nation. She’s currently serving her second term as United States Poet Laureate.  Much of Harjo’s poetry incorporates indigenous myths.  She also addresses social justice and feminism.  Her newest book is a memoir, “Poet Warrior”.  On August 16, 2021, Joy Harjo talked with Steven Winn about her work.

Alison Bechdel‘s cult following for her early comic strip  Dykes to Watch Out For  grew wildly in response to her family memoirs, the best-selling graphic memoir  Fun Home , adapted into a Tony Award-winning musical, and  Are You My Mother?  She has become a cultural household name for the concept of the Bechdel Test, a metric used when considering the representation of women in film. Bechdel has...

When journalist Courtney Martin learned that white families in her gentrifying neighborhood in Oakland largely avoided the majority-Black, poorly-rated public school down the street, she began asking why. In  Learning in Public: Lessons For a Racially Divided America From My Daughter’s School,  Martin examines her own fears, assumptions, and conversations with other parents as they navigate school...

Brian Greene is one of the world’s leading theoretical physicists, widely recognized for his groundbreaking discoveries in the field of superstring theory. His ability to clearly communicate cutting-edge science - even bringing humor to abstruse mathematical concepts -- has made Greene a sort of rock star physicist. On February 25, 2020, Brian Greene came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Fra...

This week, we’ll hear how distance has played a key role in psychotherapy – even before the pandemic. Starting with Freud’s treatments by mail, to crisis hotlines, and now mobile phones and Zoom sessions, therapy has long existed outside the doctor’s office.  Hannah Zeavin calls it teletherapy, and she explores its history in a new book “The Distance Cure”.  On July 17, 2021, Zeavin talked to Adam...

Michelle Zauner is a musician who plays indie pop under the name “Japanese Breakfast”.  Zauner grew up in the Pacific Northwest, raised by her mother, a Korean immigrant.  As an adult, she moved back to become a caregiver at the end of her mother’s life.  Her memoir “Crying in H-Mart” grapples with grief and trauma - but also provides delicious detail about her family’s Korean cooking.  On May 6,...

Lucy Corin is the author of the novel “Everyday Psycho Killers: A History for Girls”, and two short story collections, the most recent being “100 Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses”.  On June 23, 2021, Corin talked with Daniel Handler just before the publication of her second novel, “The Swank Hotel”.  The book explores mental illness, familial grief, and love.

Poet Victoria Chang’s new collection, “Obit”, is about grief and grieving.  Chang wrote the book in the wake of her mother’s death.  The poems are written as obituaries, and their creation gave Chang a way to process her loss and contemplate her own mortality.  Victoria Chang spoke with Daniel Handler on January 19, 2021.

Dr. Jen Gunter is an ob-gyn and a pain medicine physician who writes on topics of sex, science, and social media. A fierce advocate for women’s health, Gunter is devoted to correcting the misinformation perpetuated by the internet around women’s well-being and reproductive health. She is the author of  The Preemie Primer  and  The Vagina Bible . Her new book,  The Menopause Manifesto: Own Your Hea...

Twenty years ago, Jhumpa Lahiri received the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for Interpreter of Maladies, her debut story collection that explores issues of love and identity among immigrants and cultural transplants.  She went on to write more short stories, poems, essays, and novels, such as The Namesake.  Since moving to Italy in 2011, Lahiri has worked as a translator of Italian literature, and produce...

Over a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, people have faced unprecedented emotional challenges.  Our guests this week are both experts in the relationship between physical and emotional well-being.  Dr. Elissa Epel’s research includes the ways that chronic stress affects the process of aging. She’s a professor of psychology at UC San Francisco.  Dr. Dacher Keltner studies the biological and evolutio...

Dr. Jessica B. Harris is the preeminent authority on the culinary culture of the African Diaspora.  Harris has spent over three decades studying African food and its migration.  To understand the rich and complex flavors of African American cuisine requires looking at the culinary cultures of the African continent and the slave trade that brought Africans to America. Harris is the author of twelve...

In 2018, Stacey Abrams lost her bid to be governor of Georgia.  It was a huge disappointment – she was the first Black woman to become the gubernatorial nominee of a major party in the US.  It was also unexpected – Abrams won more votes than any Democrat in Georgia’s history.  The surprise outcome had much to do with the state’s mismanagement of the election.  After she lost, Abrams created the vo...