Library Talks

The co-editors of the essay collection Nasty Women along with select contributors to it explore the complications of being an American woman in 2017. Featuring Kate Harding and Samhita Mukhopadhyay, with Kera Bolonik, Zerlina Maxwell, and Meredith Talusan. Moderated by Jezebel founder Anna Holmes.

Twenty years in the making, Greater Gotham is Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Mike Wallace's follow-up to his 1999 Gotham. He spoke about the New York City history, which covers 1898 to 1918, with the New Yorker's Jelani Cobb.

The Booker Prize–winning novelist discusses his twelfth, and most recent, novel, The Golden House.

The National Book Award–winning author spoke at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture about her most recent novel, Sing, Unburied, Sing. She was joined by Lisa Lucas, Executive Director of the National Book Foundation.

Two writers, two beautiful books, both on the subject of death. Atul Gawande's Being Mortal examines the lengths modern medicine must go to better humanize the final stages of our lives. Elizabeth Alexander's The Light of the World is the memoir of her husband Ficre's sudden and unexpected death, and Alexander's process of grieving and rebuilding that followed it.

The host and co-creator of Studio 360 discusses his new book, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, a 500-Year History. He spoke with NYU professor Kwame Anthony Appiah. Andersen argues that the roots of our post-truth, alternative facts present can be discovered in America's "promiscuous devotion to the untrue" and its instinct to believe in make believe, evident across four centuries of magical...

The filmmaker speaks about his groundbreaking documentary I Am Not Your Negro at the Schomburg Center with the Schomburg's Director, Kevin Young and LIVE from the NYPl's Paul Holdengräber.  

The Nigerian writer discusses her debut novel, Stay With Me, the haunting tale of a young couple whose childless marriage threatens to tear them apart. It was shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction and hailed by Michiko Kakutani as "powerfully magnetic and heartbreaking."  

Kendi discussed his National Book Award–winning work on the history of racist ideas in America with Khalil Gibran Muhammad, the Director Emeritus of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.  

MIT linguist, philosopher, and political theorist Noam Chomsky, in conversation with actor Wallace Shawn.

Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, and best-selling author Judy Collins came to the Library  back in February, to celebrate the publication of her most recent book, Cravings. "As an active, working alcoholic with an eating disorder," she writes, "I yearned for serenity and was tormented for much of my life by longings, addictions, and painful crises over food: bingeing, bulimia, weight loss and ga...

The Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright was joined in May by members of the Broadway cast of Sweat to talk about the play and the issues behind it at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Best-selling novelist Min Jin Lee on her latest book, the ups and downs of her career, the history of Koreans in Japan, and the treatment of Asians in America.

Philip Glass is a giant of twentieth-century American music, arguably of the most influential composers of his time. He spoke with LIVE from the NYPL's Paul Holdengräber last June about his memoir "Words Without Music." It is a riveting record of a life very well lived, and a fascinating conversation with a legendary artist.

Writer, activist, and podcast host Janet Mock joins for a discussion of her second memoir, Surpassing Certainty. She's interviewed by Lisa Lucas, the Executive Director of the National Book Foundation. The two talked about everything from Mock's time in the publishing industry to her work in a Honolulu strip club, from spam recipes and Zara dresses to the influence of writers like Maya Angelou and...

One of contemporary art's most towering figures guides us through his astonishing new exhibition at MASS MoCA.

In the 1920s, the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma become oil millionaires after black gold was discovered under their land. Discover the stories of the mysterious that followed and one of the FBI's earliest investigations.

Tracy K. Smith was named 22nd U.S. Poet Laureate last week. In 2016 she came by the Library to discuss her memoir, Ordinary Light.

This week, the second part of Jelani Cobb's lecture on politics, journalism, and history entitled "The Half-Life of Freedom: The Demagogues of American History."

New Yorker staff writer and Columbia Journalism School professor Jelani Cobb delivers a lecture on politics, journalism, and history entitled "The Half-Life of Freedom." This episode is part 1: "The Media and Alternative Facts."

Alec Baldwin spoke with NY Times critic-at-large Wesley Morris about his recent memoir, "Nevertheless," at LIVE from the NYPL.

Katherine Boo, Anand Giridharadas, and Philip Gourevitch are all past winners of the Library's Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, which celebrates its 30 anniversary this year. They came to the Library to speak on the shifting responsibilities, purposes, and even definitions of journalism.

Is the Trump Administration a dream or a nightmare for the Koch brothers? This week's episode asks and answers many questions about the intricate relationship between money and politics in American life with Jane Mayer, a New Yorker staff writer and winner of NYPL's 2017 Bernstein Award for her book "Dark Money."

Explore both the seeds and the fruits of our present American political condition with New Yorker writer George Packer, National Review editor Reihan Salam, and New York Public Library President Tony Marx.

Bernstein Award finalist Janine di Giovanni talks about her book, "The Morning They Came For Us: Dispatches from Syria," the story of Syria's civil war as told through the people who have lived through it.