City Arts & Lectures

We're going back into the archives for a conversation with David Mitchell, recorded in 2021.  In novels like Cloud Atlas, and The Bone Clocks, Mitchell weaves together the supernatural and the natural. He's also one of the most structurally inventive writers of our time, featuring multiple genres in a single book.  On May 8, 2021, Mitchell talked to Pico Iyer, whose books include Aflame, The Art of Stillness and The Half-Known Life: In Search of Paradise. What transpired was a nuanced examination of creativity by two formidable writers.

A conversation about the evolving world of psychedelics. While scientific breakthroughs continue to reshape our understanding of how these substances work, psychedelics are also at the center of debates about religious freedom, mystical experiences, politics, and how we treat mental health.For more than thirty years, Michael Pollan has been writing about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect: on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in our minds. His acclaimed books include How to Change Your Mind, The Omnivore's Dilemma, and The Botany of Desire. Pollan co-founded the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics.Gül Dölen is professor at UC Berkeley in the Departments of Neuroscience and Psychology. Her research expertise and interests include behavioral and systems neuroscience, psychedelics, social behavior, evolution, synaptic plasticity, extracellular matrix, oxytocin and stroke, autism, PTSD, and addiction.Indre Viskontas is a cognitive neuroscientist with the University of San Francisco and a faculty member at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She has published groundbreaking work on the neural basis of memory and creativity, and co-hosts the podcast Inquiring Minds. Her past City Arts guests include Atul Gawande and Temple Grandin.

Shoshana von Blanckensee is a novelist whose debut work, Girls Girls Girls, explores coming of age, queer identity, and San Francisco in the 1990s. It follows Hannah, a young queer Jewish woman, as she embarks on a cross-country journey with her high school girlfriend - in search of acceptance and a vibrant queer community.On June 13, 2025, Shoshana von Blanckensee visited the KQED studios in San Francisco for a conversation with Poulomi Saha, an English professor and co-director of the Program in Critical Theory at UC Berkeley.

Shelley Sella is a board-certified OB-GYN who recently retired after decades as an abortion provider. Her book, Beyond Limits: Stories of the Third-Trimester Abortion Care, looks at one of the most highly politicized areas of medicine, upending many common myths about abortion care and the women who seek it.  On May 21, 2025, Sella came to KQED studios in San Francisco to talk to Gretchen Sisson,  a sociologist and the author of Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption. 

In 2017, 37-year-old Jacinda Ardern was elected the 40th Prime Minister of New Zealand, becoming the country's youngest Prime Minister in more than 150 years and the youngest woman to serve as head of government anywhere in the world.  She was first elected to Parliament in 2008 and left as Prime Minister in 2023. Her tenure as Prime Minister coincided with a tumultuous time in New Zealand, including a mass shooting, a volcanic eruption, and the COVID-19 pandemic. In her new memoir, A Different Kind of Power, Ardern describes how a Mormon girl plagued by self-doubt made political history and changed our assumptions of what a global leader can be - caring, empathetic, and effective.On June 9, 2025, The Right Honourable Dame Jacinda Ardern came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Maya Shankar, a cognitive scientist and host of the podcast A Slight Change of Plans.

Thomas Keller has built a collection of restaurants that have set new standards in the hospitality profession. As the first American-born chef to receive multiple three-star ratings from the Michelin Guide for The French Laundry and Per Se and one star for The Surf Club Restaurant, he is the most recognized American chef by Michelin. In 2011, he was designated a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, the first American male chef to be so honored. He is the author of six cookbooks, including The French Laundry Cookbook, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary.Alice Waters is the visionary chef and owner of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. She is the author of four cookbooks, including Chez Panisse Vegetables and Fanny at Chez Panisse. In 1994 she founded the Edible schoolyard at Berkeley's Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, a model curriculum that integrates organic gardening into academic classes and into the life of the school.On May 29, 2025,  Thomas Keller and Alice Waters came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an onstage conversation with Phil Rosenthal, the creator of the PBS documentary series “I'll Have What Phil's Having” and Netflix's “Somebody Feed Phil.” 

Alison Bechdel‘s cult following for her early comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For grew wildly in response to her graphic memoirs, the best-selling Fun Home, adapted into a Tony Award-winning musical, Are You My Mother?, and The Secret to Superhuman Strength. To many, her name is synonymous with the Bechdel Test, a metric to evaluate a film's representation of women. Her new book, Spent: A Comic Novel, hilariously skewers the absurdities of modern life while delivering a rollicking case for embracing life's messy truths before it's too late.  In Spent, a fictional version of Bechdel lives on a goat sanctuary in Vermont, where she is visited by the older versions of the central characters of Dykes to Watch Out For among others.  On May 27, 2025, Alison Bechdel came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to read from her work, show slides, and answer questions from her fans.  She was introduced by artist Wendy MacNaughton. 

Biographer Ron Chernow's acclaimed books include Alexander Hamilton, adapted into the Broadway musical Hamilton, and Washington: A Life, which received the Pulitzer Prize for Biography. With his new book Mark Twain, Chernow illuminates the colorful and complex life of the fame-seeking journalist, satirist, performer and political pundit. America's first literary celebrity, Twain was unique among his contemporaries for grappling so fully with the legacy of slavery, including with his most famous book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  On May 21, 2025, Ron Chernow came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an onstage conversation with Jonathan Bass. 

Long before he directed Wicked, In The Heights, or the groundbreaking film Crazy Rich Asians, Jon M. Chu was a movie-obsessed first-generation Chinese American helping at his parents' Chinese restaurant in Silicon Valley and forever facing the cultural identity crisis endemic to children of immigrants. Growing up on the cutting edge of 21st-century technology gave Chu the tools he needed to make his mark at USC film school and to be discovered by Steven Spielberg, but he soon found himself struggling to understand who he was. In Viewfinder: A Memoir of Seeing and Being Seen, Chu questions what it means when your dreams collide with your circumstances and how it's possible to succeed even when the world changes beyond all recognition.  On August 3, 2024, Jon M. Chu came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with writer, actor, comedian, and rapper Nora Lum, aka “Awkwafina,”, who starred in Crazy Rich Asians.  This program originally aired in August 2024. 

Our guest today is Anna Malaika Tubbs, a multidisciplinary expert on current and historical understandings of race, gender, and equity.  She is the author of “The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation” and the just-published “Erased: What American Patriarchy Has Hidden From Us”.  In both books, Tubbs examines society's limitations on women and the consequences of those systems of oppression.  Tubbs argues that this is no coincidence – it's as essential to maintaining power structures today as it was when the United States was founded.  But what can seem intractable doesn't need to be – Tubbs says “it's all made up, so let's make up something different”. On May 13, 2025, Anna Malaika Tubbs came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an onstage conversation with podcaster, human rights activist and social impact strategist Jamira Burley. 

Ross Gay is a writer with a mission: to help readers explore the beautiful complexities of joy, gratitude, and delight.  In his essays and poetry, Gay brings his overflowing kindness and relentless eye for details to community gardens, the lives of Black people, the artistry of basketball, and much more. He is the author of the poetry collections Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude and Be Holding, and the essay collections The Book of Delights, Inciting Joy and The Book of (More) Delights.On May 2, 2025, Ross Gay came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to read from his work and talk with poet and editor Aracelis Girmay.  

Alec Karakatsanis is a lawyer, writer, and the founder and executive director of the nonprofit Civil Rights Corps.  He graduated from Yale College and Harvard Law School, and served as a deputy public defender in the District of Columbia.  His books are "Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Injustice System" and the newly published "Copaganda", discussing how the news media's portrayal of crime narrows our perception of justice.  On April 28, 2025, Alec Karakatsanis came to the studios of KQED to talk to Lara Bazelon, a journalist and professor of law at the University of San Francisco. 

Vauhini Vara is a journalist, novelist, short story writer, and playwright. She began her journalism career as a technology reporter at the Wall Street Journal and later launched, edited and wrote for the business section of the New Yorker's website. Her latest book, Searches, is a work of journalism and memoir about how big technology companies are changing our understanding of our selves and our communities. Her debut novel, The Immortal King Rao, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize, and the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize. On April 15, 2025, Vauhini Vara came to the studios of KQED in San Francisco to talk about "Searches" and her writing journey with New York Times deputy business editor Pui-Wing Tam. 

This is a rebroadcast of a program that originally aired in August of 2023.  We've selected the encore to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, the turning point in the Vietnamese diaspora of which Ocean Vuong is a part.   Ocean Vuong‘s exquisitely crafted poetry and prose ask perennial and pressing questions about race, masculinity, addiction, trauma, and courage. His beloved novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, for which he recently finished writing the screenplay, tells the story of a queer Vietnamese refugee coming of age against the backdrop of violence, poverty, and addiction. Vuong is the author of the poetry collections Night Sky with Exit Wounds and his newest, Time is a Mother, “full of concentrated, kaleidoscopic riffs on the feelings and sounds, the delirious highs and darkest lows, that make up contemporary life” (The New Yorker).On June 9, 2023, Ocean Vuong came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an onstage conversation with Mike Mills, a filmmaker, graphic designer, and artist best known for the films Beginners, 20th Century Women, and most recently C'mon C'mon.  

Torrey Peters

 Our guest today is Gianna Toboni, an investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker whose new book “The Volunteer” is the unusual story of a Death Row inmate. In 2007, Scott Dozier was convicted of a pair of grisly murders, and sent to Nevada's Death Row.  Rather than fighting that sentence, Dozier sought to expedite his execution.  But despite his willingness to submit to the sentence, Dozier's death date was delayed and stayed over and over.  Toboni examines why the state didn't follow through on its own decision, and how America's system of capital punishment is rife with black market dealings, disputed drugs, and botched executions – all at a cost of billions of dollars.  Toboni argues that the system is failing those it intends to serve, including death penalty supporters and opponents.  On March 26, 2025, Gianna Toboni came to the KQED studios in San Francisco to talk with Lara Bazelon, an author and professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law. 

Ezra Klein is a columnist and podcast host at The New York Times and the author of Why We're Polarized. Derek Thompson is a staff writer at The Atlantic, host of the podcast Plain English and a news analyst with NPR.   Klein and Thompson's new book Abundance is a call to rethink big, entrenched problems that seem mired in systemic scarcity: from climate change to housing, education to healthcare. The history of the twenty-first century in America is one of growing unaffordability and shortage. After years of refusing to build sufficient housing, the entire country has a national housing crisis. After years of slashing immigration, we don't have enough workers. After decades of off-shoring manufacturing, we have a shortage of chips for cars and computers. Despite decades of being warned about the consequences of climate change, we haven't built anything close to the clean energy infrastructure we need.Progress requires the ability to see promise rather than just peril in the creation of new ideas and projects, and an instinct to design systems and institutions that make building possible. Klein and Thompson trace the political, economic, and cultural barriers to progress and how we can adopt a mindset directed toward abundance, and not scarcity, to overcome them.On March 26, 2025, Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an onstage conversation with Manny Yekutiel, a Bay Area restaurant owner and political organizer. 

Today, we'll listen to a conversation with four writers: journalist Michael Lewis, TV host and comedian W. Kamau Bell, novelist Dave Eggers and historian Sarah Vowell – all paying tribute to civil servants, government workers often un-recognized but essential to a functioning democracy. They were profiled in a series of articles in the Washington Post, all of which have been collected in a new book “Who is Government: The Untold Story of Public Service".  On March 19, 2025, the four contributors came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk about the government workers they profiled, what motivates public servants, and what the future might hold as the Trump administration slashes the federal workforce. 

Our guest today is poet, author, and meditator Diego Perez, better known by his pen name: Yung Pueblo. A popular voice in the self-improvement space, Pueblo is known for writing – in books and on social media – that focuses on personal development and healthy relationships. His newest book is How to Love Better: The Path to Deeper Connection Through Growth, Kindness, and Compassion.On March 14, 2025, Yung Pueblo came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Forrest Hanson, host of the podcast Being Well.

Our guest today is writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, revered in her home country of Nigeria and in the United States, thanks especially to the popularity of her 2013 novel Americannah, a book that straddles the cultures of America and Nigeria and considers the challenges, status, and perceptions of Africans abroad. Since then, Adichie has continued to write fiction and essays on a range of issues, from identity, to grief, to the role of women. Her Ted Talk, “We Should All Be Feminists,” has been viewed by millions and heard by even more when Beyonce sampled a portion in the song, “Flawless.”  Adichie is also the author of the novels Half of a Yellow Sun and Purple Hibiscus, the essays We Should All Be Feminists and Notes on Grief, and the story collection The Thing Around Your Neck.On March 7, 2025, Adchie came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to discuss her new novel, Dream Count, with Anna Malaika Tubbs, author of “Erased: What American Patriarchy Has Hidden from Us”, to be published in May 2025.

Laurie Woolever is a writer, cook, and former right-hand woman to the late Anthony Bourdain.  Woolever's memoir “Care and Feeding” chronicles her journey through the food world as she navigated addiction, a cultural reckoning, and unexpected tragedy. The intensity of restaurant kitchens and the rock-and-roll lifestyle of celebrity chefs make the book a highly entertaining read, as do Woolever's nuanced and tender reflections.  On March 3, 2025, Laurie Woolever spoke with Courtney Martin. 

Melissa Clark is the author of more than 30 cookbooks, and a writer at the New York Times, where she appears in a weekly cooking video series.  She's known for her passionate, but casual, approach to cooking, and her love of anchovies. Emily Weinstein is the editor-in-chief of NYT Cooking and Food whose latest book is “Easy Weeknight Dinners”.  On February 10, 2025, Melissa Clark and Emily Weinstein came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater to be interviewed by San Francisco Chronicle food critic MacKenzie Chung Fegan.  

Our guest today is Neko Case. The iconic alt-country musician is a founding member of the indie-rock band The New Pornographers. She's also released numerous records on her own, featuring music from multiple genres. Now, she's published a memoir about her poverty-stricken childhood, and the way art and a connection to nature have served as guides throughout her life. It's called "The Harder I Fight The More I Love You". On February 8, 2025, Case came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to poet, essayist and critic Hanif Abdurraqib. 

Our guest today is Jeffrey Toobin, bestselling author and CNN legal commentator. Toobin is well known for his ability to illuminate the complexities of our judicial system, and he's covered some of the country's most sensational news stories … from the O.J. Simpson trial, to Kenneth Starr's investigation of President Clinton, to Martha Stewart's legal battles. His newest book is called The Pardon: The Politics of Presidential Mercy. It's about what many consider the most controversial presidential pardon in American history - Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon – and its profound implications for our current political landscape, including the ways that Presidents Biden and Trump have exercised their executive power. On February 19, 2025, Toobin came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater to talk to lawyer and legal scholar Lara Bazelon.

Our guest today is Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Her books include Half of a Yellow Sun, The Thing Around Your Neck, and the 2013 novel Americannah, whose popularity propelled Adichie to literary stardom. Like Adichie herself, Americannah straddles the cultures of America and Nigeria, considering the status and perceptions of Africans abroad as well as what happens when they return to their home countries.  This month, Adichie will publish a new novel, Dream Count. As we look ahead to that, and Adichie's upcoming visit to City Arts & Lectures, we're re-broadcasting this 2014 conversation with her friend and fellow writer Dave Eggers.

Nate DiMeo is the creator and host of The Memory Palace, a podcast about people from America's past whose names might not be familiar, but whose lives changed the course of history. The show's episodes take the form of short, evocative essays, rich with detail and emotion. DiMeo's stories don't just describe historical events - they encourage listeners to imagine how people actually felt and experienced them at the time. On January 24, 2025, Nate DiMeo talked to Gretchen Sisson in the studios of KQED about The Memory Palace podcast, and its recently published book version.

Kevin Fagan is an award-winning journalist who recently retired from the San Francisco Chronicle. For his decades-long coverage of homelessness, Fagan spent extensive time on the streets, getting to know the people he reported on, and the paths their lives took. But his journalism didn't just draw just from those encounters – it was also shaped by his own experience of homelessness as a young man. On January 24, 2025, Fagan came to the KQED studios in San Francisco to talk to Gretchen Sisson about his book “The Lost and the Found”. 

We're celebrating the life of Cecile Richards with a re-broadcast of a portion of her 2018 appearance for City Arts & Lectures. Richards was a national leader for women's rights and social and economic justice. Richards, the daughter of legendary Texas Governor Ann Richards, started her career as a labor organizer.  She went on to serve as Deputy Chief of Staff to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and then as the President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund for over a decade. She was twice named one of TIME Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World.  Cecile Richards died on January 20, 2025.  This program was recorded on April 11, 2018, when Richards joined KQED's Mina Kim at the Nourse Theater in San Francisco to discuss her newly published memoir, Make Trouble.

John Mills is the CEO and Co-Founder of Watch Duty, an app that alerts users to nearby wildfires and firefighting efforts. The app's “reporters”  – many volunteers – include journalists, wildfire experts, and former fire service workers monitoring scanners, live video, and other data in order to provide up to the minute information. The app includes interactive maps that allow users to track evacuation zones and shelter locations. Recently, Watch Duty became the #1 downloaded free app on the Apple App store due to s surge in users during the Los Angeles wildfires.On January 27, 2025, John Mills talked to Alexis Madrigal about how he developed the app and its non-profit mission. 

Our guest is Ada Limón, the current United States Poet Laureate. Limon has published six books of poetry, including The Carrying, The Hurting Kind, and Bright Dead Things. Limon says that poetry isn't just meant to be read – it's meant to be read out loud - and this program also includes her reading several poems. On February 22, 2024, Limón came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Alexis Madrigal about the ways in which the natural world inspires her work – from the landscape of her youth in Sonoma County, California, to Kentucky, where she lives today.  This program originally aired in March 2024. 

Before his novel Erasure was adapted into the hit film American Fiction, Percival Everett was already one of the literary world's most acclaimed talents, appreciated for his inimitable characters and storylines, as well as his uncommon variety of genres. Since Everett's first novel in 1983, he has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, for Telephone, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, for The Trees. His newest novel, James, is a reimagining of Huckleberry Finn, and has already been touted as “a canon-shattering great book.” Cord Jefferson made his feature writing and directorial debut with American Fiction, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. His television credits include Watchmen, The Good Place, Succession, Station Eleven, Master of None, and The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore. On June 3, 2024, Cord Jefferson and Percival Everett came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed by Jelani Cobb. This program was originally heard in June of 2024. 

Our guest today is Gretchen Sisson, a sociologist at UC San Francisco who studies abortion and adoption. Her new book, “Relinquished”, is the culmination of a decade-long study in which Sisson interviewed mothers from across the country who had given their children up for adoption. Sisson examines the myths and realities associated with these mothers – for example, only 14% are teenagers. But the majority live in poverty - over half have an income of less than $5,000 a year, and some experts suggest up to 20% are homeless. On February 6, 2024, Gretchen Sisson came to the studios of KQED in San Francisco to talk about “Relinquished” with Lara Bazelon, a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law and the author of "Ambitious Like A Mother". This program was originally heard in February of 2024. 

Our guest today is john a. powell, an internationally recognized expert in the areas of civil rights and civil liberties. He's the former National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, and currently Director of the Othering & Belonging Institute at the University of California.  powell's new book is a guide to fostering connections in today's fragmented society - what powell calls “bridging.” The book includes powell's personal story of isolation and eventual connection with his own family. On December 9, 2024, john a. powell came to the KQED studios in San Francisco to talk with Courtney Martin about "The Power of Bridging; How to Build a World Where We All Belong". NOTE: powell prefers to use lower case in writing his name. 

Our guest is Rachel Kushner. Her writing includes novels like The Mars Room and The Flamethrowers, and essays on everything from prison abolition to art theory and motorcycle racing. Her fourth novel, Creation Lake, is Kushner's take on noir. It follows a young woman infiltrating a French anarchist collective. On December 12th, 2024, Kushner came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Jonah Wiener, a culture journalist and contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine. The conversation was wide-ranging, from her research process, to her travels in France, and her opinions on the Tesla Cybertruck. 

Robert Sapolsky - Encore

Since his 2016 debut poetry collection The Crown Ain't Worth Much, Hanif Abdurraqib's writing has earned him numerous accolades as a poet, essayist, and music critic. Easily moving from emotionally riveting examinations of Black identities to academic explorations of punk scenes to analyses of contemporary popular artists, Abdurraqib's work is full of uninhibited curiosity, revolutionary honesty, and a singular intelligence. His first essay collection, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was named a best book of 2017 by NPR, Pitchfork, the Los Angeles Review, and Esquire. His new memoir, There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension, traces his relationship with basketball while uncovering how we decide who is deserving of success.  On April 3, 2024, Hanif Abdurraqib came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Shereen Marisol Meraji. Meraji is a professor at UC Berkeley's School of Journalism, and a founder of NPR's award-winning podcast Code Switch.

Since 1978, when her very first cartoon appeared in The New Yorker Magazine, Roz Chast has been chronicling modern life's anxieties and absurdities. Neurotic characters with frizzy hair and mouths agape sit on sofas or walk along New York sidewalks worrying, observing, and making us laugh. Her more than a dozen books include Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?, a memoir about her parents aging, and a collaboration with Steve Martin called The Alphabet from A to Y with Bonus Letter Z!.  On November 2, 2023  Chast came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to share stories from her newest book, I Must Be Dreaming. 

Nikole Hannah-Jones is an award-winning journalist known for her groundbreaking work on the history and legacy of slavery, including school segregation and educational inequality.  In 2020, she won a Pulitzer Prize for her work on “The 1619 Project”. A series of articles for a special issue of the New York Times Magazine.  It was part of an initiative to reframe American history by centering the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans.  On November 22, 2024, Nikole Hannah-Jones came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Key Jo Lee of the Museum of the African Diaspora.  A new edition, “The 1619 Project: A Visual Experience” which incorporates art and photography, had been published a few weeks before. 

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio's first book, The Undocumented Americans, was hailed as not only a radical experiment in creative nonfiction, but also an important, complex portrait of the lives of undocumented people. Villavicencio melds stark memoir with wide ranging essays, conducting meticulous research through traveling around the country to meet “people who've paid a steep price for the so-called American Dream.” Her debut was a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and a New York Times notable book in 2020. Now Villavicencio has turned her attention to fiction, publishing her first novel, Catalina. The book tells the story of an undocumented student at Harvard who faces the deepening harshness of the world while ruthlessly observing the cultures of wealth and power that surround her. The book's mix of heartbreak and social justice proves Villavicencio is a singular and important voice in contemporary literature.On November 15, 2024, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an onstage conversation with Shereen Marisol Meraji, a professor at UC Berkeley's School of Journalism and a founder of NPR's podcast Code Switch.

Yotam Ottolenghi is a celebrated chef and bestselling cookbook author. He is the restauranteur and chef-patron of six London-based Ottolenghi delis, as well as the NOPI and ROVI restaurants. He is the author of ten bestselling and multi-award-winning cookbooks, including his latest, "Comfort". Ottolenghi has been a weekly columnist for the Guardian (UK) for over sixteen years and is a regular contributor to The New York Times. His commitment to the championing of vegetables, as well as ingredients once seen as ‘exotic', has led to what some call ‘The Ottolenghi effect'. This is shorthand for the creation of a meal which is full of color, flavor, bounty, and surprise.  On October 10, 2024, Yotam Ottolenghi came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an onstage conversation with fellow writer and cook Samin Nosrat, author of the James Beard Award-winning cookbook Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat and the host and executive producer of the Netflix original documentary series based on her book. 

Across his life, Richard Powers has been driven by an insatiable curiosity for humans and the world around us. This has led him from budding scientist to award-winning author, from Bangkok to the Netherlands, and has helped him win a Pulitzer Prize and a Macarthur Genius Grant. Powers is best known for his novels, including The Gold Bug Variations, named a Time Book of the Year, The Echo Maker, which received a National Book Award, and The Overstory, which received a Pulitzer Prize. Powers' fourteenth novel, Playground delves into the lives of artists, scientists, and teachers who choose to start seastedding, living on floating cities. On October 30, 2024, Richard Powers came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an onstage conversation with fellow novelist Kim Stanley Robinson, author of The Ministry for the Future.

Spoken word artist Marc Bamuthi Joseph and dancer Wendy Whelan discuss their remarkable new hybrid performance piece “Carnival of the Animals”, which addresses, among other things, the siege of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, through the lens of Camille Saint-Saens' 1886 musical composition.  Marc Bamuthi Joseph conceived and wrote the piece, and performs the spoken word portions, and Wendy Whelan performs the dance portions, which are choreographed by Francesca Harper.  Marc Bamuthi Joseph is the vice president and artistic director for social impact of the Kennedy Center in Washington DC.  He was formerly chief of programs and pedagogy at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.  Wendy Whelan is a longtime dancer and now the associate artistic director with New York City Ballet.  They have performed “Carnival of the Animals” in several locations around the US, and will bring the production to New York City in March 2025. On October 28, 2024, Marc Bamuthi Joseph and Wendy Whelan spoke with critic and author Steven Winn at the studios of KQED in San Francisco. 

 Our guest today is Ta-Nehisi Coates, an outspoken voice on issues of race and racism.  Coates was catapulted to fame after the publication of his book-length essay “Between the World and Me”.  His new book, “The Message”, features essays that intertwine his first trip to Africa, the banning of his books in South Carolina, and his experiences traveling to Palestine.  On October 23, 2024, Coates came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an on-stage conversation with Daniel Sokatch, CEO of the New Israel Fund, an organization committed to equal justice for all inhabitants of Israel. 

Since the publication of his first book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell has garnered influence and fame through his fascinating analyses of our world. The New York Times Book Review wrote that “in the vast world of nonfiction writing, Malcolm Gladwell is as close to a singular talent as exists today.” A Guggenheim fellow, and a finalist for both the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle award, Gladwell's books reveal his endless interests and insights, from the influence of our unconscious on our decisions, to what lies behind the rise and fall of everything from crime to epidemics. Gladwell's writings made him a New York Times bestseller for five books, and created the term “Gladwellian perspective” to describe the numerous authors, and people, who are influenced by Gladwell In the fall of 2024, Gladwell returns to the ideas of his debut book, and his following rapid rise to fame, in Revenge of the Tipping Point. With two decades of experience as an author, public figure, and widely known thinker, Gladwell brings a new and intimate eye to his classic text.  On October 13, 2024, Malcolm Gladwell came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an onstage conversation with Caterina Fake. 

Our guest today is Judge David S. Tatel.  A former civil rights attorney, Judge Tatel has served for nearly 30 years on America's second-highest court, the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.  It's where many of American jurisprudence's most crucial cases are resolved – or teed up for the US Supreme Court.  Tatel has presided over some of the most important trials in recent decades, adjudicating on major issues like the First Amendment, voting rights, and the environment.  David Tatel has been blind for the last 50 of his 80-plus years.  On September 16, 2024, Judge David Tatel spoke with Gretchen Sisson about his new book “Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice”.  He began their conversation by talking about how his father's profession as a scientist, laid the foundations for his career in the law. 

Yuval Noah Harari is a historian, philosopher, and author, and one of the world's most influential public intellectuals working today. In books like Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, Harari examines topics like the future of humanity, and the connections between biology, myth, and power.  His latest book is Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks, from the Stone Age to AI. On October 1, 2024, Yuval Harari appeared at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to technology journalist, author, and podcaster Kara Swisher. 

Even before her explosively popular Substack Letters from an American, which has grown to more than two million subscribers since it began in 2019, historian Heather Cox Richardson was an important voice in discussions around post-Civil War American history. The author of seven books, Richardson's writing has focused on race, economics, and political ideology, including the story of the Republican Party and the Wounded Knee Massacre.  Most recently, she published the book Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America, a  deep dive into how a small group of wealthy people pushed the government towards authoritarianism, and how understanding the real history of America's most marginalized people can help us move back towards a real democracy.  On September 19, 2024, Heather Cox Richardson came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an on-stage conversation with Steven Winn. 

This week, we'll hear an encore broadcast of a 2016 appearance by Steve Silberman, a technology reporter whose work helped change the public perception of autism - and popularize the concept of neurodiversity.  Silberman's 2015 book “Neurotribes - The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity” uncovered a “secret history” of autism.  Silberman also found surprising answers to the crucial question of why the number of diagnoses has soared in recent years. Steve Silberman died on August 29, 2024, at the age of 66. This conversation with Roy Eisenhardt was recorded at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco on March 28, 2016. 

Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed as the 116th Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court in 2022. She earned both her undergraduate and law degrees with honors from Harvard University, before serving as a clerk for three federal judges, including Justice Stephen Breyer, whose seat on the Supreme Court she would ultimately go on to take. Jackson's career spans both the private and public sectors, including serving as Vice Chair and Commissioner of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, and as an assistant federal public defender.  On September 10, 2024, Jackson came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to University of California, Berkeley Professor john a. powell on the occasion of her just-published memoir, Lovely One. The book traces her family's ascent from segregation to her confirmation as the first Black woman ever to sit on the Supreme Court.

Our guests today are Daniel Handler and Sarah Manguso.Daniel Handler has written dozens of books – from adult novels like “The Basic Eight” and “Why We Broke Up”, to picture books and other collaborations with visual artists. But, he's best known as the author of “A Series of Unfortunate Events.” Handler wrote the best-selling children's novels – 13 in total –  under the pen name Lemony Snicket.  On July 24, 2024, Handler came to the KQED Studios in San Francisco to talk to his friend and fellow writer Sarah Manguso. Both Handler and Manguso had recently published new works - Handler's is a memoir titled “And Then? And Then? What Else?” Sarah Manguso's newest book is a novel called "Liars".

Ann Patchett is best known for her award-winning novel Bel Canto, “a book that works both as a paean to art and beauty and a subtly sly comedy of manners” (New York Times). She is also the author of the novels The Patron Saint of Liars, The Dutch House, Commonwealth, and the non-fiction books Truth and Beauty and This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. Her new novel, Tom Lake, is about the lives parents lead before their children are born, the choices we make that inform who we become, and what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. Patchett lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where she is co-owner of Parnassus Books, a popular independent bookstore.On September 8, 2023, Ann Patchett came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed on stage by writer and critic Steven Winn.  This program was originally broadcast on September 17, 2023.