Free Library Podcast

Emily Nagoski  is the author of the New York Times bestseller Come as You Are, a self-help manual lauded by critics and readers for its ability to ''offer up hard facts on the science of arousal and desire in a friendly and accessible way'' (The Guardian). With her sister, Amelia Nagoski, she is also the co-author of Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. She earned an MS in counseling...

Susan Muaddi Darraj  won the 2016 American Book Award, the 2016 Arab American Book Award, and was a finalist for the Palestine Book Award for A Curious Land, a collection of linked stories that follows the denizens of a Palestinian West Bank village. She is also the author of a story collection titled The Inheritance of Exile, and Farah Rocks, the first children's book series to feature a Palestin...

In conversation with Kristen Graham, education reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer Public education reporter  Benjamin Herold 's stories, features, and investigative exposés have appeared in Education Week, PBS NewsHour, The Hechinger Report, NPR, and the Public School Notebook, among other publications. The recipient of a master's degree in urban education from Temple University and first plac...

In conversation with CJ Hauser Featured as an Editor's Choice in The New York Times Book Review,  Annie Liontas ' debut novel, Let Me Explain You, follows the bridge-burning patriarch of a Greek American family who believes he has only days to live. Liontas is the co-editor of the anthology A Manner of Being: Writers on their Mentors, and has contributed writing to The New York Times Book Review, ...

In conversation with Airea D. Matthews, 2022-2023 Philadelphia Poet Laureate and Co-Director of the Creative Writing Program at Bryn Mawr With an artist's perspective and a ground-level view of people in extremis across the world, writer Anna Badkhen offers ''rich and lucid prose [that] illustrates her journey as vividly as might a series of photographs'' (Christian Science Monitor). Her immersive...

In conversation with Airea D Matthews Hailed by Tara Westover as ''Dazzling. Potent Vital. A light shining on the path of self-deliverance,''  Safiya Sinclair 's memoir How to Say Babylon recounts her struggle to break free from her rigid Rastafarian upbringing and her father's repressive control, set against the backdrop of a larger story of colonialism in Jamaica. Sinclair is also the author of...

Co-sponsored by Committee of Seventy In conversation with Cherri Gregg, host/news anchor for WHYY radio Dannagal Goldthwaite Young is the author of Irony and Outrage: The Polarized Landscape of Rage, Fear, and Laughter in the United States. A professor of communication and political science at the University of Delaware and a former Distinguished Research Fellow with the Annenberg Public Policy Ce...

In conversation with Reem Kassis A chef, writer, video producer, and community advocate, Sohla El-Waylly hosts Mystery Menu for The New York Times Cooking YouTube channel and The History Channel's Ancient Recipes with Sohla, and serves as a judge on HBO Max's The Big Brunch. She formerly worked as an assistant food editor at Bon Appétit, where she frequently appeared in the magazine's cooking vide...

In conversation with Ernest Owens A writer, activist, and media strategist dedicated to Black transgender liberation, Raquel Willis has served as director of communications for Ms. Foundation for Women, a national organizer for the Transgender Law Center, and executive editor of Out magazine. In 2017, she spoke at the National Women's March that took place just after the presidential election of D...

Renowned for her ability ''to generalize from her personal experience to the greater human one'' (The Washington Post), Beth Kephart is the author of more than 30 books across a wide range of genres, including poetry, young adult fiction, and, most notably, the memoir. These works include the award-winning how-to-guide Handling the Truth; A Slant of Sun, a National Book Award finalist; Love, an od...

In conversation with Dorothy Roberts One of the country's foremost authorities in civil rights, Black feminist legal theory, race, and the law, Kimberlé Crenshaw is a law professor at UCLA and Columbia Law School, where in 1996 she founded the African American Policy Forum. She is the co-author of Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women and Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Over...

In conversation with Airea D. Matthews The winner of three Grammy Awards and three NAACP Image Awards,  Tariq Trotter , aka  Black Thought , is the MC and co-founder of The Roots. The Philly-based hip-hop group has produced 11 albums and is the house band for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Trotter's solo work includes three volumes of Streams of Thought, collaborative albums with Danger M...

Sigrid Nunez won the 2018 National Book Award for The Friend, a ''beautiful'' novel ''crammed with a world of insight into death, grief, art, and love'' (The Wall Street Journal) in which a woman is forced to adopt her deceased best friend's Great Dane. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Berlin Prize, the Rome Prize in Literature, and a Whiting Award, she is also the author of What Are Yo...

In conversation with Tamala Edwards, anchor, 6abc Action News morning edition Jonathan Karl is the author of the instant New York Times bestsellers Front Row at the Trump Show and Betrayal, behind-the-scenes accounts of Donald Trump and his allies' unprecedented actions while in office and the chaotic events that followed the 2020 presidential election. The co-anchor of This Week with George Steph...

In conversation with Errin Haines Stephanie Land is the author of the bestseller Maid, a memoir that ''nails the sheer terror that comes with being poor, the exhausting vigilance of knowing that any misstep or twist of fate will push you deeper into the hole'' (The Boston Globe). The inspiration for a popular and critically acclaimed Netflix series of the same name, Barack Obama picked it as one o...

In conversation with Marc Lamont Hill Tanisha Ford 's Our Secret Society is a biography of Mollie Moon, the socialite, powerbroker, and founder of the National Urban League Guild, who was a key fundraiser for the Civil Rights Movement. It also serves as a social history and who's who of Black Americans from the 1930s through the 1960s, as Moon moved in New York and Harlem society circles that incl...

In conversation with Nomi Eve ''Filled with so much universal experience, such haunting imagery, such urgent matters of life and death'' (The New York Times), Alice McDermott' s bestselling novels include Someone; Charming Billy, winner of the 1998 National Book Award; That Night; At Weddings and Wakes; and After This, all of which were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She is also the author of W...

Watch the video here . ''A marvelous epitaph to a monumental family, makers of several worlds and keepers of none'' (The Wall Street Journal), Joseph Sassoon 's eponymous historical volume The Sassoons charts the remarkable 19th-century rise and 20th-century fall of his illustrious ancestors. During the 19th century, the Sassoon family, once known as ''the Rothschilds of the East,'' built a global...

Acclaimed for his ability to ''elevate the unseen aspects of private experience into a vigorous and challenging conversation about what we all share'' (San Francisco Chronicle), David Brooks has written an op-ed column for The New York Times since 2003. Also a writer for The Atlantic, he formerly served as an editor and columnist at The Weekly Standard and The Wall Street Journal. He frequently ap...

In conversation with Rebeca L. Hey-Colón, Professor of Latinx Studies, Temple University Cristina García  is the author of eight ''languid and sensual, curt and surprising'' (The New York Times Book Review) novels, including The Lady Matador's Hotel, The Agüero Sisters, and Dreaming in Cuban, which was a finalist for the National Book Award.  She has also written three books for young readers and...

Watch the video here . Renowned for her ''extraordinarily honest, searing and hilarious'' (San Francisco Chronicle) takes on modern life, Roz Chast has published more than 1,000 cartoons in The New Yorker since 1978. She has written or illustrated more than a dozen books, including Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, a bestselling multi-genre narrative about her aging parents that won th...

Melissa Broder is the author of Milk Fed, the ''sensuous and delightfully delirious tale'' (O, The Oprah Magazine) of a calorie-obsessed lapsed Jewish woman who falls under the spell of a zaftig Orthodox frozen yogurt store employee. Her other work includes the novel The Pisces, an essay collection titled So Sad Today, and four collections of poetry. Her poems have appeared in a multitude of publi...

In conversation with Julian E. Zelizer Rachel Maddow  is host of the Emmy Award–winning The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, as well as the #1 New York Times best­selling author of Drift and Blowout, and the New York Times bestselling co-author of Bag Man. She has also written, produced, and hosted three original podcasts for MSNBC-Rachel Maddow Presents: Bag Man, Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra, and mo...

In conversation with comedian and author James "Murr" Murray Surely You Can't Be Serious is a behind-the-scenes making-of oral history of the 1980 comedy classic Airplane!, as told by its equally legendary writers and directors David Zucker , Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker. Featuring anecdotes by the film's stars, it also delves into the making of fan-favorite scenes and the organic (read: pre-Int...

In conversation with Andy Kahan Meelya Gordon Memorial Lecture ''As good as any piece of literature can get'' (Chicago Sun Times), Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award, and is one of the most acclaimed books about the Vietnam War. His other books include If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home; In the Lake...