Free Library Podcast

In conversation with Imani Perry Ilyon Woo is the author of The Great Divorce, the ''lively, well-written, and engrossing tale'' (The New York Times Book Review) of a young mother's five-year fight against her husband, the Shakers religious sect, and the norms of 19th century United States for her and her children's freedom. The recipient of a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Writing Grant and of fello...

In conversation with Mike Sielski The star of ESPN's No. 1 morning talk show First Take, Stephen A. Smith is one of the U.S. sporting press's most popular and outspoken personalities. He is also the host of NBA in Stephen A's World on ESPN2 and ESPN+, the host and producer of the podcast K[no]w Mercy with Stephen A. Smith, and an NBA analyst on ABC's NBA Countdown and ESPN's Sportscenter. From his...

He started as Jerry Blavat, a half-Jewish, half-Italian kid from South Philadelphia. These days, he's better known as The Geator with the Heater, The Boss with the Hot Sauce.  After 50 years in the music business, the man former Governor Ed Rendell declared ''as Philadelphia as the cheesesteak'' is still going strong.  His life in show business began at the age of 13 as a dancer on Bandstand.  He...

In conversation with Nate Chinen The author of Dirty Blvd.: The Life and Music of Lou Reed and editor of Patti Smith on Patti Smith: Interviews and Encounters,  Aiden Levy  played the baritone saxophone in the Stan Rubin Orchestra for 10 years. His writing has been published in The New York Times, The Village Voice, and JazzTimes, among other publications. Formerly a fellow at the Leon Levy Center...

Julie Dannenbaum Memorial Culinary Arts Lecture In conversation with Dena Heilik, head of Philbrick Hall, the Fiction and Movie department at Parkway Central. She also cohosts a monthly library Cookbook Club that has been running continuously for six years. Receiving praise from outlets like The New York Times and NPR, and counting Martha Stewart and Rachael Ray among her many fans, self-taught ho...

The national baseball writer for The New York Times since 2010, Tyler Kepner began his career as a teenager, interviewing players for a homemade magazine that garnered him national attention. His national bestseller K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches earned praise from fans, fellow sportswriters, and Hall of Fame pitchers alike. Also the author of The Phillies Experience: A Year-by-Year Chron...

In conversation with Tamala Edwards, anchor, 6abc Action News morning edition The first African American principal dancer in the history of the elite American Ballet Theatre, Misty Copeland is one of the world's most accomplished and recognizable artists. She is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Life in Motion, Ballerina Body, Black Ballerinas, and the children's books Bunheads and Fire...

Pine Tree Foundation Endowed Lecture In conversation with Richard Vague David Rubenstein is the co-founder and co-chairman of The Carlyle Group, one of the world's most successful private equity firms. The host of The David Rubinstein Show and Bloomberg Wealth with David Rubenstein on Bloomberg TV, he is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The American Story, How to Lead, and The American...

A couple of songs and stories from a memorable evening with Patti Smith and Tony Shanahan--and a great audience--at the library. (recorded 11/22/2022)

In conversation with former congressman Patrick Kennedy Neal Gabler is the author of Catching the Wind: Edward Kennedy and the Liberal Hour, a ''rich and insightful'' (The New York Times) account of the figure known as the most complex of the Kennedys. His other work includes An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood, Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality, and award-win...

In conversation with Tamala Edwards, anchor, 6ABC Action News morning edition Historian Kerri K. Greenidge is the author of Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter, a portrait of the post-Reconstruction civil rights activist. A New York Times Critics Top Books of 2019, it won the 2020 Mark Lynton History Prize. Greenidge is a professor at Tufts University, where she is co-direc...

In conversation with Varshini Prakash Active in grassroot campaigns for social change for more than seven decades, sociologist and Quaker organizer George Lakey was first arrested at a civil rights demonstration in 1963 and most recently arrested just last year during a march for climate justice. At 84, he only recently retired from Swarthmore College, where he was the Eugene M. Lang Visiting Prof...

In conversation with Jason Freeman, author events producer and editor Ralph Macchio is best known for his portrayal of Daniel LaRusso in the 1984 film The Karate Kid. This iconic piece of pop culture has spawned a slew of sequels and the No. 1 ranked Netflix show Cobra Kai, and has entered such phrases as ''wax on, wax off'' and ''sweep the leg, Johnny'' into the cultural lexicon. Also acclaimed f...

Attorney, advocate, and podcaster Rabia Chaudry is the author of the New York Times bestseller Adnan's Story, a true-crime analysis into the 2000 conviction of a young Baltimorean for the murder of his ex-girlfriend. Also the executive producer of The Case Against Adnan Syed, the HBO documentary series based on the book, Chaudry is the co-host and co-producer of the popular podcasts Undisclosed, T...

In conversation with Colum McCann ''The heir to Nabokov'' (The Sunday Telegraph), Irish novelist John Banville  won the Man Booker Prize for The Sea, a story of loss and the fickle nature of memory. His many other novels include The Book of Evidence, Mrs. Osmond, The Untouchable, and April in Spain. He has earned the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Irish PEN Award, the Franz Kafka Prize, and...

Andrew K. Diemer is the author of The Politics of Black Citizenship: Free African Americans in the Mid-Atlantic Borderland, 1817–1863, an examination of the ways in which free Black Philadelphians and Baltimoreans fought to defend their liberty before and during the Civil War. A history professor at Towson University, his articles and reviews have been published in the Journal of Military History,...

Ellis Wachs Endowed Lecture In conversation with Tamala Edwards, anchor, 6ABC Action News morning edition A former longtime columnist and foreign correspondent for The New York Times, Anand Giridharadas is the bestselling author of Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World, which was selected to numerous publications' ''best books of the year'' lists. His other books include The Tr...

In conversation with Valerie Erwin Charleston, South Carolina–based Kardea Brown hosts the Food Network's Delicious Miss Brown and OWN's The Great Soul Food Cookoff. She also is the creator of the pop-up New Gullah Supper Club, where her cuisine pays homage to her grandmother's cooking and her Gullah/Geechee heritage, which describes a distinct African American group that has preserved much of its...

Ross Gay is the author of The Book of Delights, a life-affirming collection of short lyric essays that reminds readers to appreciate so-called ordinary wonders, even during turbulent times. His several volumes of poetry include Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award; Be Holding, winner of the 2021 PEN America J...

In conversation with award-winning journalist and broadcaster Tracey Matisak Acclaimed for her ''balanced, perceptive, thoroughly researched and exceptionally well written'' (The New Yorker) nonfiction portraits of historical figures, Stacy Schiff won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for her biography Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), a narrative of the 52-year marriage of the legendary writer and his even mor...

In conversation with Tamala Edwards, anchor, 6ABC Action News morning edition Maggie Haberman was part of a team that won a 2018 Pulitzer Prize for its reportage of the investigations into then-President Donald Trump's, and his advisers', connections to Russia. She has also twice been part of a Pulitzer Prize finalist team: in 2021 for reporting on the Trump administration's response to the corona...

In conversation with Dorothy Roberts Referred to by Jelani Cobb as ''a Dean of American journalism,'' Charlayne Hunter-Gault has chronicled some of the past half-century's most important moments in Black life, culture, and politics. Often the only Black woman in the newsroom, she wrote for The New Yorker and The New York Times, where in 1968 she established the paper's Harlem bureau. Also a broadc...

In conversation with Laura McGrath, Assistant Professor of English at Temple University The winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature, Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk ''is one of the great novelists of his generation'' (The Washington Post). Characterized by examinations of identity, tensions between the East and West, modernism's clash with tradition, and a fascination with the creative arts, his n...

Tom Felton became internationally famous for his role as the bleach-blond bad guy Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter movie series. More than a decade after the premiere of the last film in the series, he and the other performers continue to cast a spell over fans around the world as an enduring pop culture phenomenon. Before his villainous turn at Hogwarts, he acted in such beloved films as The Borr...

The 24th United States Poet Laureate, Ada Limón is acclaimed for her explorations of the ''frightening mysteries and hopeful uncertainties of the everyday'' (The New York Times Book Review). Her many poetry collections include the National Book Critics Circle Award winner The Carrying; Bright Dead Things, a finalist for the National Book Award; and Big Fake World, winner of the Pearl Poetry Prize....