The Free Library Podcast is an easy way to participate in the author events and lectures that take place at the Parkway Central Library. Visit Author Events to find upcoming events.
The Author Events Series presents Jaap de Roode | Doctors by Nature: How Ants, Apes, and Other Animals Heal Themselves REGISTER Ages before the dawn of modern medicine, wild animals were harnessing the power of nature's pharmacy to heal themselves. Doctors by Nature reveals what researchers are now learning about the medical wonders of the animal world. In this visionary book, Jaap de Roode argues that we have underestimated the healing potential of nature for too long and shows how the study of self-medicating animals could impact the practice of human medicine. Drawing on illuminating interviews with leading scientists from around the globe as well as his own pioneering research on monarch butterflies, de Roode demonstrates how animals of all kinds--from ants to apes, from bees to bears, and from cats to caterpillars--use various forms of medicine to treat their own ailments and those of their relatives. We meet apes that swallow leaves to dislodge worms, sparrows that use cigarette butts to repel parasites, and bees that incorporate sticky resin into their hives to combat pathogens. De Roode asks whether these astonishing behaviors are learned or innate and explains why, now more than ever, we need to apply the lessons from medicating animals--it can pave the way for healthier livestock, more sustainable habitats for wild pollinators, and a host of other benefits. Doctors by Nature takes readers into a realm often thought to be the exclusive domain of humans, exploring how scientists are turning to the medical knowledge of the animal kingdom to improve agriculture, create better lives for our pets, and develop new pharmaceutical drugs. Jaap de Roode is Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Biology at Emory University, where he is director of the Infectious Diseases across Scales Training Program, which trains graduate students in interdisciplinary science to study and control infectious disease. The 2024/25 Author Events Series is presented by Comcast. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 4/22/2025)
The Author Events Series presents Katie Kitamura | Audition: A Novel REGISTER In Conversation with Adam Dalva One woman, the performance of a lifetime. Or two. An exhilarating, destabilizing Möbius strip of a novel that asks whether we ever really know the people we love. Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She's an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He's attractive, troubling, young-young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day – partner, parent, creator, muse – and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately. Taut and hypnotic, Audition is Katie Kitamura at her virtuosic best. Katie Kitamura is the author of four previous novels, most recently A Separation and Intimacies, which was longlisted for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award and was a finalist for a Joyce Carol Oates Prize. She is a recipient of the Rome Prize in Literature, a Lannan fellowship, and many other honors, and her work has been translated into twenty-one languages. She teaches in the creative writing program at New York University. Adam Dalva's writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The New York Review of Books. He serves on the board of the National Book Critics Circle and is a Contributing Fiction Editor of The Yale Review. The 2024/25 Author Events Series is presented by Comcast. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 4/9/2025)
The Author Events Series presents Dr. Anthony Fauci | On Call: A Doctor's Journey in Public Service THIS EVENT IS NOW SOLD OUT! In Conversation with Dave Davies Anthony Fauci is arguably the most famous - and most revered - doctor in the world today. His role guiding America sanely and calmly through Covid (and through the torrents of Trump) earned him the trust of millions during one of the most terrifying periods in modern American history, but this was only the most recent of the global epidemics in which Dr. Fauci played a major role. His crucial role in researching HIV and bringing AIDS into sympathetic public view and his leadership in navigating the Ebola, SARS, West Nile, and anthrax crises, make him truly an American hero. His memoir reaches back to his boyhood in Brooklyn, New York, and carries through decades of caring for critically ill patients, navigating the whirlpools of Washington politics, and behind-the-scenes advising and negotiating with seven presidents on key issues from global AIDS relief to infectious disease preparedness at home. ON CALL will be an inspiration for readers who admire and are grateful to him and for those who want to emulate him in public service. He is the embodiment of "speaking truth to power," with dignity and results. Dave Davies is a regular contributor and guest host for NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. In addition to his work on Fresh Air, Davies spent more than three decades covering city government and state and local politics in Philadelphia, for WHYY-FM, KYW Newsradio and the Philadelphia Daily News. Davies is a graduate of the University of Texas. The 2024/25 Author Events Series is presented by Comcast. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 4/3/2025)
The Author Events Series presents Maria Shriver | I Am Maria REGISTER In Conversation with Dr. Martha Beck Special Guests: Bob Roth & Kate Baer Please join us in celebrating Maria Shriver's I Am Maria: My Reflections and Poems on Heartbreak, Healing, and Finding Your Way Home. A book like no other, I Am Maria weaves Shriver's hard-earned wisdom with her own deeply personal poetry. I Am Maria reminds readers there is strength and love on the other side of all of our hardest days. Maria will be joined in conversation by Martha Beck, and the evening will feature meditation, music, and intimate discussions about life's defining moments-the heartbreaks that shape us, the healing that transforms us, and the journey back to ourselves. Drawing from her own life experiences, I Am Maria tells the story of how Maria emerged from heartbreak and uncertainty-universal moments in every life lived fully-with renewed clarity and strength. The poems in this collection speak to timeless themes of love, loss, longing, and healing, offering readers a comforting reminder that hope can be found even after the most difficult moments. Maria's legacy is built on social impact, deep empathy, and a profound understanding of human connection. Through her leadership, activism, and media presence, she continues to inspire and uplift others. Now, with the release of I Am Maria, she offers these deeply personal poems as a guide for those navigating their own life journeys. Through her intimate reflections, Maria invites readers to shed self-criticism, embrace every part of themselves, and discover the profound healing that comes with forgiveness and self-compassion. The book encourages readers to rediscover poetry as a tool for self-exploration, paving the way to uncover a deeper version of themselves. Maria Shriver is a mother and grandmother, a Peabody and Emmy Award-winning journalist and producer. She is the author of seven New York Times bestselling books, the former First Lady of California, an NBC News Special Anchor, founder of Shriver Media, The Women's Alzheimer's Movement, co-founder of the brain health brand MOSH, and the publisher of The Open Field. When she's not thinking or writing, she can be found hanging with her kids and grandkids. Dr. Martha Beck, PhD, is a bestselling author, coach, and speaker. She has spent a lifetime offering powerful, practical, and entertaining teachings that help people improve every aspect of their lives. Oprah Winfrey has called her ''one of the smartest women I know.'' The founder of Wayfinder Life Coach Training, Martha is a passionate and engaging speaker, and her teachings are very popular for their unique blend of science, spirituality, and humor. The 2024/25 Author Events Series is presented by Comcast. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. All tickets come with a copy of the book! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 4/2/2025)
The Author Events Series presents Laurie Woolever | Care and Feeding: A Memoir REGISTER In Conversation with Reem Kassis In this moving, hilarious, and insightful memoir, Laurie Woolever traces her path from a small-town childhood to working at revered restaurants and food publications, alternately bolstered and overshadowed by two of the most powerful men in the business. But there's more to the story than the two bold-faced names on her resume: Mario Batali and Anthony Bourdain. Behind the scenes, Laurie's life is frequently chaotic, an often pleasurable buffet of bad decisions at which she frequently overstays her welcome. Acerbic and wryly self-deprecating, Laurie attempts to carve her own space as a woman in this world that is by turns toxic and intoxicating. Laurie seeks to try it all--from a seedy Atlantic City strip club to the Park Hyatt Tokyo, from a hippie vegetarian co-op to the legendary El Bulli--while balancing her consuming work with her sometimes ambivalent relationship to marriage and motherhood. As the food world careens toward an overdue reckoning and Laurie's mentors face their own high-profile descents, she is confronted with the questions of where she belongs and how to hold on to the parts of her life's work that she truly values: care and feeding. Laurie Woolever has written about food and travel for the New York Times, GQ, Saveur, and many others. Reem Kassis is a Palestinian writer and author of the best-selling and award-winning cookbooks The Palestinian Table (2017) and The Arabesque Table (2021) and the children's book We Are Palestinian (2023). Her writing regularly appears in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post in addition to various news outlets, magazines and academic journals. She grew up in Jerusalem, then obtained her undergraduate and MBA degrees from UPenn and Wharton and her MSc in social psychology from the London School of Economics. She now lives in the Philadelphia area with her husband and three daughters. The 2024/25 Author Events Series is presented by Comcast. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 3/18/2025)
The Author Events Series presents Laurie Woolever | Care and Feeding: A Memoir REGISTER In Conversation with Reem Kassis In this moving, hilarious, and insightful memoir, Laurie Woolever traces her path from a small-town childhood to working at revered restaurants and food publications, alternately bolstered and overshadowed by two of the most powerful men in the business. But there's more to the story than the two bold-faced names on her resume: Mario Batali and Anthony Bourdain. Behind the scenes, Laurie's life is frequently chaotic, an often pleasurable buffet of bad decisions at which she frequently overstays her welcome. Acerbic and wryly self-deprecating, Laurie attempts to carve her own space as a woman in this world that is by turns toxic and intoxicating. Laurie seeks to try it all--from a seedy Atlantic City strip club to the Park Hyatt Tokyo, from a hippie vegetarian co-op to the legendary El Bulli--while balancing her consuming work with her sometimes ambivalent relationship to marriage and motherhood. As the food world careens toward an overdue reckoning and Laurie's mentors face their own high-profile descents, she is confronted with the questions of where she belongs and how to hold on to the parts of her life's work that she truly values: care and feeding. Laurie Woolever has written about food and travel for the New York Times, GQ, Saveur, and many others. Reem Kassis is a Palestinian writer and author of the best-selling and award-winning cookbooks The Palestinian Table (2017) and The Arabesque Table (2021) and the children's book We Are Palestinian (2023). Her writing regularly appears in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post in addition to various news outlets, magazines and academic journals. She grew up in Jerusalem, then obtained her undergraduate and MBA degrees from UPenn and Wharton and her MSc in social psychology from the London School of Economics. She now lives in the Philadelphia area with her husband and three daughters. The 2024/25 Author Events Series is presented by Comcast. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 3/18/2025)
The Author Events Series presents Fawn Weaver | Love & Whiskey: The Remarkable True Story of Jack Daniel, His Master Distiller Nearest Green, and the Improbable Rise of Uncle Nearest REGISTER In Conversation with Michelle Miller Embark on a captivating journey with Love & Whiskey. New York Times bestselling author Fawn Weaver unveils the hidden narrative behind one of America's most iconic whiskey brands. This book is a vibrant exploration set in the present day, delving into the life and legacy of Nearest Green, the African American distilling genius who played a pivotal role in the creation of the whiskey that bears Jack Daniel's name. Set against the backdrop of Lynchburg, Tennessee, this narrative weaves together a thrilling blend of personal discovery, historical investigation, and the revelation of a story long overshadowed by time. Through extensive research, personal interviews, and the uncovering of long-buried documents, Weaver brings to light not only the remarkable bond between Nearest Green and Jack Daniel but also Daniel's concerted efforts during his lifetime to ensure Green's legacy would not be forgotten. This deep respect for his teacher, mentor, and friend was mirrored in Jack's dedication to ensuring that the stories and achievements of Nearest Green's descendants, who continued the tradition of working side by side with Jack and his descendants, would also not be forgotten. Love & Whiskey is more than just a recounting of historical facts; it's a live journey into the heart of storytelling, where every discovery adds a layer to the rich tapestry of American history. Weaver's pursuit highlights the importance of acknowledging those who have shaped our cultural landscape; yet remained in the shadows. As Weaver intertwines her present-day quest with the historical threads of Green and Daniel's lives, she not only pays homage to their legacy but also spearheads the creation of Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey. This endeavor has not only brought Nearest Green's name to the forefront of the whiskey industry but has also set new records, symbolizing a step forward in recognizing and celebrating African American contributions to the spirit world. Love & Whiskey invites readers to witness a story of enduring friendship, resilience, and the impact of giving credit where it's long overdue. It's an inspiring tale of how uncovering the past can forge new paths and how the spirit of whiskey has connected lives across generations. Join Fawn Weaver on this extraordinary adventure, as she navigates through the layers of history, friendship, and the unbreakable bonds formed by the legacy of America's native spirit, ensuring the stories of Nearest Green and his descendants live on in the heart of American culture. The 2024/25 Author Events Series is presented by Comcast. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 3/19/2025)
The Author Events Series presents Chris Hayes | The Sirens' Call REGISTER In Conversation with Kate Shaw We all feel it--the distraction, the loss of focus, the addictive focus on the wrong things for too long. We bump into the zombies on their phones in the street, and sometimes they're us. We stare in pity at the four people at the table in the restaurant, all on their phones, and then we feel the buzz in our pocket. Something has changed utterly: for most of human history, the boundary between public and private has been clear, at least in theory. Now, as Chris Hayes writes, "With the help of a few tech firms, we basically tore it down in about a decade." Hayes argues that we are in the midst of an epoch-defining transition whose only parallel is what happened to labor in the nineteenth century: attention has become a commodified resource extracted from us, and from which we are increasingly alienated. The Sirens' Call is the big-picture vision we urgently need to offer clarity and guidance. Because there is a breaking point. Sirens are designed to compel us, and now they are going off in our bedrooms and kitchens at all hours of the day and night, doing the bidding of vast empires, the most valuable companies in history, built on harvesting human attention. As Hayes writes, "Now our deepest neurological structures, human evolutionary inheritances, and social impulses are in a habitat designed to prey upon, to cultivate, distort, or destroy that which most fundamentally makes us human." The Sirens' Call is the book that snaps everything into a single holistic framework so that we can wrest back control of our lives, our politics, and our future. Chris Hayes is the Emmy Award-winning host of All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC and the New York Times bestselling author of A Colony in a Nation and Twilight of the Elites. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and children. Kate Shaw is a Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, where she teaches and writes about the presidency, the law of democracy, the Supreme Court, and reproductive rights and justice. Her scholarly writing has appeared, among other places, in the Harvard Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, and the Northwestern University Law Review, and her popular writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Atlantic. She co-hosts the Supreme Court podcast Strict Scrutiny and is a Contributing Opinion Writer with the New York Times. The 2024/25 Author Events Series is presented by Comcast. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Extra copies of the books will be available for purchase at the library on event night. All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 3/3/2025)
The Author Events Series presents Marlene Daut | The First and Last King of Haiti REGISTER In Conversation with Grace Sanders Johnson Slave, revolutionary, traitor, king, and suicide, Henry Christophe was, in his time, popular and famous the world over. Born in 1767 to an enslaved mother on the Caribbean island of Grenada, Christophe first fought to overthrow the British in North America, before helping his fellow enslaved Africans in Saint-Domingue, as Haiti was then called, to gain their freedom from France. Yet in an incredible twist of fate, Christophe ended up fighting with Napoleon's forces against the very enslaved men and women he had once fought alongside. Later, reuniting with those he had betrayed, he offered to lead them and made himself their king. But it all came to a sudden and tragic end when Christophe--after nine years of his rule as King Henry I--shot himself in the heart, some say with a silver bullet. Why did Christophe turn his back on Toussaint Louverture and the very revolution with which his name is so indelibly associated? How did it come to pass that Christophe found himself accused of participating in the plot to assassinate Haiti's first ruler, Dessalines? What caused Haiti to eventually split into two countries, one ruled by Christophe in the north, who made himself king, the other led by President Pétion in the south? The First and Last King of Haiti is a riveting story of not only geopolitical clashes on a grand scale but also of friendship and loyalty, treachery and betrayal, heroism and strife in an era of revolutionary upheaval. Marlene Daut is Professor of French and African Diaspora Studies at Yale University. She teaches courses in anglophone, francophone Caribbean, African American, and French Colonial and historical studies. Grace L. Sanders Johnson is a historian, visual artist, and associate professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her areas of study include modern Caribbean history, transnational feminisms, oral history, and environmental humanities. Her most recent work can be found in several journals including Her most recent work can be found in several journals including Palimpsest: A Journal on Women, Gender, and the Black International (2024), Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism (2023), Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism (2022), American Anthropologist (2022), and Caribbean Review of Gender Studies (2018). Sanders Johnson is the author of White Gloves, Black Nation: Women, Citizenship, and Political Wayfaring in Haiti (University of North Carolina Press, 2023) which won the 2023 Haitian Studies Association Best Book Award, and honorable mention for the 2024 Mary Nickliss Prize in U.S. Women's and/or Gender History from the Organization of American Historians; White Gloves, Black Nation is also one of the top 5 finalist for the 2024 African American Intellectual History Pauli Murray Book Prize and Choice Journal's 2024 list of Outstanding Academic Titles. The 2024/25 Author Events Series is presented by Comcast. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 2/13/2025)
The Author Events Series presents Brian Kelly | How to Win at Travel REGISTER In Conversation with Haley Sacks In How to Win at Travel, Brian Kelly shares his greatest tips and strategies to experience the world in ways you never thought possible. This comprehensive guide is a road map with all of the knowledge and tools you need to become an expert traveler. Get practical advice on a range of topics, including how to find the cheapest flights; effectively leverage airline, hotel, and credit card loyalty programs; conquer your fear of flying; beat jet lag; and score free flights and upgrades. Kelly also covers the ins and outs of travel insurance and getting the right credit cards to make your travel more affordable and enjoyable. He discusses the art of dealing with travel mishaps, speaks to the technology you need to manage modern travel, and shares ideas for pinpointing the best destination for you. Whether you're a young adult traveling solo, a road warrior business traveler, a growing family looking for new experiences, or a retiree ready to explore the world, reach for this guide to plan an unforgettable trip. Easy to read, informative, and inspirational, How to Win at Travel is the definitive travel guide for your next adventure, no matter how big or small. The 2024/25 Author Events Series is presented by Comcast. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 2/3/2025)
The Author Events Series presents Judy Giesberg & Lee Hawkins | Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families AND I Am Nobody's Slave: How Uncovering My Family's History Set Me Free REGISTER In Conversation with Cherri Gregg Judith Giesberg draws on the archive that she founded--containing almost five thousand letters and advertisements placed by members of the Freedom Generation--to compile these stories in a narrative form for the first time. Her in-depth research turned up additional information about the writers, their families, and their enslavers. With this critical context, she recounts the moving stories of the people who placed the advertisements, the loved ones they tried to find, and the outcome of their quests to reunite. This story underscores the cruelest horror of slavery--the forced breakup of families--and the resilience and determination of the formerly enslaved. Thoughtful, heart-wrenching, and illuminating, Last Seen finally gives this lesser-known aspect of slavery the attention it deserves. I Am Nobody's Slave tells the story of one Black family's pursuit of the American Dream through the impacts of systemic racism and racial violence. This book examines how trauma from enslavement and Jim Crow shaped their outlook on thriving in America, influenced each generation, and how they succeeded despite these challenges. To their suburban Minnesotan neighbors, the Hawkinses were an ideal American family, embodying strength and success. However, behind closed doors, they faced the legacy of enslavement and apartheid. Lee Hawkins, Sr. often exhibited rage, leaving his children anxious and curious about his protective view of the world. Thirty years later, his son uncovered the reasons for his father's anxiety and occasional violence. Through research, he discovered violent deaths in his family for every generation since slavery, mostly due to white-on-Black murders, and how white enslavers impacted the family's customs. Hawkins explores the role of racism-triggered childhood trauma and chronic stress in shortening his ancestors' lives, using genetic testing, reporting, and historical data to craft a moving family portrait. This book shows how genealogical research can educate and heal Americans of all races, revealing through their story the story of America--a journey of struggle, resilience, and the heavy cost of ultimate success. The 2024/25 Author Events Series is presented by Comcast. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 2/6/2025)
The Author Events Series presents Juan Williams | New Prize for These Eyes REGISTER In Conversation with Marsha Levick In New Prize for These Eyes, award-winning author Juan Williams shines a light on this historic, new movement. Who are its heroes? Where is it headed? What fires, furies, and frustrations distinguish it from its predecessor? In the 20th century, Black activists and their white allies called for equal rights and an end to segregation. They appealed to the Declaration of Independence's defiant assertion that "all men are created equal." They prioritized legal battles in the courtroom and legislative victories in Congress. Today's movement is dealing with new realities. Demographic changes have placed progressive whites in a new role among the largest, youngest population of Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians in the nation's history. The new generation is social media savvy, and they have an agenda fueled by discontent with systemic racism and the persistent scourge of police brutality. Today's activists are making history in a new economic and cultural landscape, and they are using a new set of tools and strategies to do so. Williams brilliantly traces the arc of this new civil rights era, from Obama to Charlottesville to January 6th and a Confederate flag in the Capitol. An essential read for activists, historians, and anyone passionate about America's future, New Prize for These Eyes is more than a recounting of history. It is a forward-looking call to action, urging Americans to get in touch with the progress made and hurdles yet to be overcome. Juan Williams is a prizewinning journalist and historian. He is the author of the bestselling civil rights history Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years 1954-1965, which accompanied the PBS series of the same name. He also wrote the landmark biography of the first African American on the Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary, as well as the New York Times bestsellers Enough and Muzzled: The Assault on Honest Debate. Williams worked for The Washington Post as a celebrated national political correspondent, White House correspondent, and editorial writer. His NPR talk show took ratings to a new high. He has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Ebony. He is currently senior political analyst for Fox News Channel and a columnist for The Hill. The 2024/25 Author Events Series is presented by Comcast. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 1/28/2025)
The Author Events Series presents Uché Blackstock | Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine REGISTER In Conversation with Dr. Joel Bervell The rousing, captivating story of a Black physician, her career in medicine, and the deep inequities that still exist in the U.S. healthcare system. Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, it never occurred to Uché Blackstock and her twin sister, Oni, that they would be anything but physicians. In the 1980s, their mother headed an organization of Black women physicians, and for years the girls watched these fiercely intelligent women in white coats tend to their patients and neighbors, host community health fairs, cure ills, and save lives. What Dr. Uché Blackstock did not understand as a child--or learn about at Harvard Medical School, where she and her sister had followed in their mother's footsteps, making them the first Black mother-daughter legacies from the school--were the profound and long-standing systemic inequities that mean just 2 percent of all U.S. physicians today are Black women; the racist practices and policies that ensure Black Americans have far worse health outcomes than any other group in the country; and the flawed system that endangers the well-being of communities like theirs. As an ER physician, and later as a professor in academic medicine, Dr. Blackstock became profoundly aware of the systemic barriers that Black patients and physicians continue to face. Legacy is a journey through the critical intersection of racism and healthcare. At once a searing indictment of our healthcare system, a generational family memoir, and a call to action, Legacy is Dr. Blackstock's odyssey from child to medical student to practicing physician--to finally seizing her own power as a health equity advocate against the backdrop of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement. The 2024/25 Author Events Series is presented by Comcast. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 1/22/2025)
The Author Events Series presents Caroline Eden | Cold Kitchen: A Year of Culinary Travels REGISTER In Conversation with Jonathan Deutsch From the author of Red Sands, a New Yorker "Best Cookbook of the Year," a cozy, thoughtful memoir recalling food and travel in Eastern Europe and Central Asia from a basement Edinburgh kitchen, featuring a delicious recipe at the end of each chapter. A welcoming refuge with its tempting pantry, shelves of books, and inquisitive dog, Caroline Eden's basement Edinburgh kitchen offers her comfort away from the road. Join her as she cooks recipes from her travels, reflects on past adventures, and contemplates the kitchen's unique ability to tell human stories. This is a hauntingly honest, and at times heartbreaking, memoir with the smell, taste, and preparation of food at its heart. From late night baking as a route back to Ukraine to capturing the beauty of Uzbek porcelain, and from the troublesome nature of food and art in Poland to the magic of cloudberries, Cold Kitchen celebrates the importance of curiosity and of feeling at home in the world. Caroline Eden is a writer, book critic, and the award-winning author of Red Sands: Reportage and Recipes through Central Asia, from Hinterland to Heartland, a New Yorker Book of the Year; Black Sea: Dispatches and Recipes-Through Darkness and Light; and Samarkand: Recipes and Stories from Central Asia & the Caucasus. She has travelled extensively to countries such as Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, and Bangladesh, documenting her experiences across multiple publications including Financial Times, the Guardian, and the Times Literary Supplement, as well as on BBC Radio 4's "From Our Own Correspondent." She lives in Edinburgh. Jonathan Deutsch, Ph.D., CHE, CRC is Professor and Vice Chair of Health Sciences, which encompasses Culinary, Food, Nutrition, Exercise and Health Sciences at Drexel University. He is the Founding Program Director of Drexel's Food Innovation and Entrepreneurship Programs. He is past President of the Upcycled Food Foundation and previously was the inaugural James Beard Foundation Impact Fellow, leading a national curriculum effort on food waste reduction for chefs and culinary educators. He was named a Food Waste Warrior by Foodtank. Before moving to Drexel, Deutsch built the culinary arts program at Kingsborough Community College, City University of New York (CUNY) and the Ph.D. concentration in food studies at the CUNY Graduate Center and School of Public Health. At Drexel, he directs the Drexel Food Lab, a culinary innovation and food product research and development lab focused on solving real world food system problems in the areas of sustainability, health promotion, and inclusive dining. He is the co-author or -editor of eight books. A classically trained chef, Deutsch worked in a variety of settings including product development, small luxury inns and restaurants. When not in the kitchen, he can be found behind his tuba. The 2024/25 Author Events Series is presented by Comcast. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 1/16/2025)
SOLD OUT The Author Events Series presents Melissa Fitzgerald & Mary McCormack | What's Next: A Backstage Pass to the West Wing REGISTER WHAT'S NEXT: A Backstage Pass to The West Wing, Its Cast and Crew, and Its Enduring Legacy of Service (Dutton; on sale August 13, 2024), by cast members Melissa Fitzgerald (aka Assistant to the Press Secretary Carol Fitzpatrick) and Mary McCormack (aka Deputy National Security Advisor Kate Harper), features a foreword by creator Aaron Sorkin and an introduction by Allison Janney (aka White House press secretary and later WH chief of staff C.J. Cregg). The book offers an exclusive behind-the-scenes look into The West Wing's creation and legacy, with a particular emphasis on the show's commitment to service that was embodied not only in the cast members' devotion to different causes, which is still ongoing, but also with the strong bonds of friendship and feeling of family that made being part of the show so special and that still endure to this day Melissa Fitzgerald is an actor, producer, and social justice advocate. As an actor, Melissa is best known for her seven-year role as Carol on the award-winning television series The West Wing. While in Hollywood, Melissa cofounded Voices in Harmony, a mentoring program that uses theater to work with historically underserved teens. In 2013, Melissa left Hollywood to champion justice system reform at All Rise, where she is at the forefront of engaging the public in the expansion of treatment courts and advancing justice system responses for individuals impacted by substance use and mental health disorders. Mary McCormack is an actor, producer, and activist. A Tony-nominated Broadway actress, she is known for a diversity of roles across film, television, and theater. Mary is an outspoken advocate for a whole host of causes, from social justice and women's rights to veterans' issues and criminal justice reform. She lives in Los Angeles. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night The views expressed by the authors and moderators are strictly their own and do not represent the opinions of the Free Library of Philadelphia or its employees. (recorded 9/11/2024)
The Author Events Series presents Carrie Rickey | A Complicated Passion, The Life and Work of Agnès Varda REGISTER In conversation with Gary Kramer Born in Los Angeles, Carrie Rickey is an award-winning film critic, art critic, and film historian. She was the film critic at the Philadelphia Inquirer for twenty-five years and has also written for Artforum, Art in America, Film Comment, the New York Times, the Village Voice, and Politico. She has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in Philadelphia. A Complicated Passion, The Life and Work of Agnès Varda is the first major biography of the storied French filmmaker, who was hailed by Martin Scorsese as ''one of the Gods of cinema.'' Over the course of her sixty-five-year career, the longest of any female filmmaker, Agnès Varda (1928 – 2019) wrote and directed some of the most acclaimed films of her era, from her tour de force Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), a classic of modernist cinema, to the beloved documentary The Gleaners and I (2000) four decades later. She helped to define the French New Wave, inspired an entire generation of filmmakers, and was recognized with major awards at the Cannes, Berlin, and Venice Film Festivals, as well as an honorary Oscar at the Academy Awards. In this lively biography, former Philadelphia Inquirer film critic Carrie Rickey explores the ''complicated passions'' that informed Varda's charmed life and indelible work. Rickey traces Varda's three remarkable careers - as still photographer, as filmmaker, and as installation artist. She explains how Varda was a pioneer in blurring the lines between documentary and fiction, using the latest digital technology and carving a path for women in the movie industry. She demonstrates how Varda was years ahead of her time in addressing sexism, abortion, labor exploitation, immigrant rights, and race relations with candor and incisiveness. She makes clear Varda's impact on contemporary figures like Ava DuVernay, Greta Gerwig, Barry Jenkins, the Safdie brothers, and Martin Scorsese, who called her one of the Gods of cinema. And she delves into Varda's incredibly rich social life with figures such as Harrison Ford, Jean-Luc Godard, Jim Morrison, Susan Sontag, and Andy Warhol, and her nearly forty-year marriage to the celebrated director Jacques Demy. A Complicated Passion is the vibrant biography that Varda, regarded by many as the greatest female filmmaker of all time, has long deserved. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night The views expressed by the authors and moderators are strictly their own and do not represent the opinions of the Free Library of Philadelphia or its employees. (recorded 9/16/2024)
The Author Events Series presents Francis Collins | The Road to Wisdom: On Truth, Science, Faith, and Trust REGISTER In conversation with Kathleen Hall Jamieson In The Road to Wisdom, Francis Collins reminds us of the four core sources of judgement and clear thinking: truth, science, faith, and trust. Drawing on his work from the Human Genome Project and heading the National Institutes of Health, as well as on ethics, philosophy, and Christian theology, Collins makes a robust, thoughtful case for each of these sources--their reliability, and their limits. Ultimately, he shows how they work together, not separately--and certainly not in conflict. It is only when we relink these four foundations of wisdom that we can begin to discern the best path forward in life. Thoughtful, accessible, winsome, and deeply wise, The Road to Wisdom leads us beyond current animosities to surer footing. Here is the moral, philosophical, and scientific framework with which to address the problems of our time--including distrust of public health, partisanship, racism, response to climate change, and threats to our democracy--but also to guide us in our daily lives. This is a book that will repay many readings, and resolve dilemmas that we all face every day. Francis S. Collins is a physician and geneticist. His groundbreaking work has led to the discovery of the cause of cystic fibrosis, among other diseases. In 1993 he was appointed director of the international Human Genome Project, which successfully sequenced all 3 billion letters of our DNA. He went on to serve three Presidents as the Director of the National Institutes of Health. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night Ticket price includes processing fees The views expressed by the authors and moderators are strictly their own and do not represent the opinions of the Free Library of Philadelphia or its employees. (recorded 9/26/2024)
The Author Events Series presents Paola Mendoza | Solis: A Companion to Sanctuary REGISTER In conversation with AJ Hikes From the authors of Sanctuary comes a haunting near-future companion tale about undocumented immigrants subjected to deadly experiments in a government labor camp and the four courageous rebels who set into place a daring plan to liberate them. Paola Mendoza is a proud immigrant from Colombia. She is an award-winning filmmaker, best-selling author and has organized some of the largest and most impactful cultural and political movements in the past decade, including the Women's March, Families Belong Together & Trans Prom. She uses art to disrupt and disarm, to change our thinking, and to advance movements for immigrants, reproductive justice and the LGBTQ community. Her work has been supported by The Ford Foundation, Just Films, Pop Culture Collaborative, Opportunity Agenda, and Race Forward, among many others. She co-authored the New York Times bestseller Together We Rise: Behind the Scenes at the Protest Heard Around the World. Her YA novel, Sanctuary, was a critical darling and is currently being adapted into a motion picture. Her most recent YA title, SOLIS (the sequel to Sanctuary), will be released in the Fall. Paola's work has been published in The New York Times, USA Today, Huffington Post, Glamour, InStyle, Elle and Teen Vogue. Her films Igualada, Entre Nos, On the Outs & Free Like the Birds have garnered international and critical acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival just to name a few. Paola is a founder of The Resistance Revival Chorus, The Meteor and The Soze Agency.. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! (recorded 10/10/2024)
From the critically acclaimed artist, designer, and author of the bestsellers The Principles of Uncertainty, My Favorite Things, and Women Holding Things comes a moving meditation in words and pictures on remorse, joy, ancestry, and memory. REGISTER In Conversation with Alex Conner Maira Kalman's most autobiographical and intimate work to date, Still Life with Remorse is a beautiful, four-color collection combining deeply personal stories and 50 striking full-color paintings in the vein of her and Alex Kalman's acclaimed Women Holding Things. Tracing her family's story from her grandfather's birth in Belarus and emigration to Tel Aviv--where she was born--Maira considers her unique family history, illuminating the complex relationship between recollection, regret, happiness, and heritage. The vibrant original art accompanying these autobiographical pieces are mostly still lifes and interiors which serve as counterpoints to her powerful words. In addition to vignettes exploring her Israeli and Jewish roots, Kalman includes short stories about other great artists, writers, and composers, including Leo Tolstoy, Franz Kafka, Gustav Mahler, and Robert Schumann. Through these narratives, Kalman uses her signature wit and tenderness to reveal how family history plays an influential role in all of our work, lives, and perspectives. A feat of visual storytelling and vulnerability, Still Life with Remorse explores the profound hidden in the quotidian, and illuminates the powerful universal truths in our most personal family stories. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! (recorded 10/29/2024)
The Author Events Series presents Andre Robert Lee | A Conversation with the Documentary Filmmaker and Author REGISTER In Conversation with Cherri Gregg André Robert Lee most recently served as the Executive Producer of Notes From America With Kai Wright. The show is broadcast from WNYC, the largest public radio station in America. André was the driving force behind the show's expansion from 80 NPR stations to over 120 stations. André was tasked with reshaping and redesigning the live radio show. He is also a Film Maker, Keynote Speaker, Consultant, Writer, and Educator. André has committed his entire career to building an army of change agents. His process includes Many Things; New York City Public Schools, The Ford Foundation, Miramax Films, Urbanworld, Film Movement, Diana Ross, BET, Universal, PBS, HBO, Sundance, Picturehouse, and Dreamworks. André directed and produced The Prep School Negro and served as producer on the documentary I'm Not Racist...Am I? André created The Election Effects Project for Paramount TV. André told the story of incarcerated youth in Richmond with the award-winning film Virtually Free. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. The views expressed by the authors and moderators are strictly their own and do not represent the opinions of the Free Library of Philadelphia or its employees. (recorded 11/6/2024)
The Author Events Series presents The Intertextual Self: New Approaches to the Memoir REGISTER Memoirists most often focus on the authenticity of their own voice and experience, and how best to render on the page the intersection of memory and current insight. This traditional approach creates engaging and compelling personal narratives – singular texts of the self. But a new approach seems to be emerging, one in which writers grapple with other texts that have informed their experiences, shaped their thinking, and served as lenses through which to interpret their own lives. This event features three highly accomplished and daring authors who have taken this approach to their memoirs, highlighting how they absorbed other texts and made them integral to telling their own stories. Authors Chris Campanioni (A and B and Also Nothing, 2nd Ed.), Tyler Mills (The Bomb Cloud), and Leah Souffrant (Entanglements) represent a new generation of writers who have turned to an even wider range of texts to help them identify, craft, and share their own stories. Each of their strikingly original memoirs also include visual art created by the authors. Chris Campanioni was born in Manhattan in 1985 and grew up in a very nineties New Jersey. His research connecting media studies with studies of migration has been awarded a Mellon Foundation fellowship and the Calder Prize and his writing has received the International Latino Book Award, the Pushcart Prize, and the Academy of American Poets College Prize. He lives in Brooklyn. Leah Souffrant is a writer and artist committed to interdisciplinary practice. She is the author of Entanglements: Threads woven from history, memory, and the body (Unbound Edition Press 2023) and Plain Burned Things: A Poetics of the Unsayable (Collection Clinamen, PULG Liège 2017). The range of Souffrant's work involves poetics, visual studies and art, translation, and critical work in literature, feminist theory, and performance. With Abby Paige, she is a founding member of the LeAB Iteration Lab for theater art and performance. Her awards include the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry and her scholarship was recognized by the Center for the Study of Women & Society. Souffrant's poetry has been a finalist for the National Poetry Award. She keeps an art studio in Brooklyn and teaches writing at New York University. Born in Chicago, Tyler Mills (she/her) is the author of City Scattered (Snowbound Chapbook Award, Tupelo Press 2022), Hawk Parable (Akron Poetry Prize, University of Akron Press 2019), Tongue Lyre (Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award, Southern Illinois University Press 2013), and co-author with Kendra DeColo of Low Budget Movie (Diode Editions Chapbook Prize, Diode Editions 2021). Her memoir, The Bomb Cloud, received a Literature Grant from the Café Royal Foundation NYC. A poet and essayist, her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Guardian, The New Republic, The Believer, and Poetry, and her essays in AGNI, Brevity, Copper Nickel, River Teeth, and The Rumpus. She lived and taught in New Mexico four years, most recently serving as the Burke Scholar for the Doel Reed Center for the Arts in Taos, NM, and now teaches for Sarah Lawrence College's Writing Institute and the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. She lives in Brooklyn, NY. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night. (recorded 12/5/2024)
The Author Events Series presents Lori Ginzberg | Tangled Journeys REGISTER In conversation with Tamala Edwards In 1830 Richard Walpole Cogdell, a husband, father, and bank clerk in Charleston, South Carolina, purchased a fifteen-year-old enslaved girl, Sarah Martha Sanders. Before her death in 1850, she bore nine of his children, five of whom reached adulthood. In 1857, Cogdell and his enslaved children moved to Philadelphia, where he bought them a house and where they became, virtually overnight, part of the African American middle class. An ambitious historical narrative about the Sanders family, Tangled Journeys tells a multigenerational, multiracial story that is both traumatic and prosaic while forcing us to confront what was unseen, unheard, and undocumented in the archives, and thereby inviting us into the process of American history making itself. Lori D. Ginzberg is Professor Emeritus of History and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Pennsylvania State University, as well as the author of several books, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton: An American Life and Untidy Origins: A Story of Woman's Rights in Antebellum New York. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night The views expressed by the authors and moderators are strictly their own and do not represent the opinions of the Free Library of Philadelphia or its employees. (recorded 11/14/2024)
Congregation Rodeph Shalom 615 North Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19123 Enter at 1339 Green Street, Philadelphia, PA 19123 The Author Events Series presents Malcolm Gladwell | Revenge of the Tipping Point REGISTER In conversation with Michelle Miller In Malcolm Gladwell's newsest book, he visits the phenomenon of social epidemics and examines the ways in which we have learned to tinker with and shape the spread of ideas, viruses, and trends-sometimes with great success, sometimes with disastrous consequences. Malcolm Gladwell is the author of five New York Times bestsellers - The Tipping Point, Blink,Outliers, What the Dog Saw, and David and Goliath. He is also the co-founder of Pushkin Industries, an audio content company that produces the podcasts Revisionist History, which reconsiders things both overlooked and misunderstood, and Broken Record, where he, Rick Rubin, and Bruce Headlam interview musicians across a wide range of genres. Gladwell has been included in the TIME 100 Most Influential People list and touted as one of Foreign Policy's Top Global Thinkers. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Ticket price includes book with purchase and processing fees The views expressed by the authors and moderators are strictly their own and do not represent the opinions of the Free Library of Philadelphia or its employees. (recorded 10/24/2024)
The Author Events Series presents Bill Clinton | Citizen: My Life After the White House REGISTER In Conversation with Jonathan Capehart A powerful, candid, and richly detailed memoir from an American icon, revealing what life looks like after the presidency: triumphs, tribulations, and all. On January 20, 2001, after nearly thirty years in politics--eight of them as president of the United States--Bill Clinton was suddenly a private citizen. Only fifty-four years old, full of energy and ideas, he wanted to make meaningful use of his skills, his relationships with world leaders, and all he'd learned in a lifetime of politics, but how? Just days after leaving the White House, the call came to aid victims of a devastating earthquake in India, and Clinton hit the ground running. Over the next two decades, he would create an enduring legacy of public service and advocacy work, from Indonesia to Louisiana, Northern Ireland to South Africa, and in the process reimagine philanthropy and redefine the impact a former president could have on the world. Citizen is Clinton's front-row, first-person chronicle of his postpresidential years and the most significant events of the twenty-first century, including 9/11 and the runup to the Iraq War, the Haiti earthquake, the Great Recession, the January 6 insurrection, and the enduring culture wars of our times. With clarity and compassion, he also weighs in on the unprecedented challenges brought on by a global pandemic, ongoing income inequality, a steadily warming planet, and authoritarian forces dedicated to weakening democracy. Yet Citizen is more than a political memoir. These pages capture Clinton in a rare and unforgettable light: not only as a celebrated former president and a foundation leader, but as a father, grandfather, and husband. He recounts his support for Hillary Clinton during her time as senator, secretary of state, and presidential candidate, and shares the frustration and pain of the 2016 election. In this landmark publication, the highly anticipated follow-up to the best-selling My Life, Clinton pens an illuminating account of American democracy on a global stage, offering a frank reflection on the past and, with it, a fearless embrace of our future. Citizen is a self-portrait of equal parts eloquence, insight, and candor, a testament to one man's unwavering commitment to family and nation. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jonathan Capehart is host of ''The Saturday Show with Jonathan Capehart'' and ''The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart'' which air Saturday's and Sunday's, respectively, at 6pm ET on MSNBC. Capehart was deputy editorial page editor of the New York Daily News (2002 to 2004) and served on its editorial board from 1993 to 2000. In 1999, his editorial campaign to save the Apollo Theater earned him and the board the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing. Capehart left the Daily News in July 2000 to become the national affairs columnist at Bloomberg News, and took leave from this position in February 2001 to serve as a policy adviser to Michael Bloomberg in his first successful campaign for New York City Mayor. His memoir will be published by Twelve Books in January 2025. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! (recorded 11/20/2024)
In conversation with author and Pennsylvania State Senator, Nikil Saval In The Hollow Parties, Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld present a comprehensive history of the rise of American mass party politics through the Jacksonian era up through the years of Barack Obama to the presidency of Donald Trump. They posit that today's Democrat and Republican parties, at once overbearing and ineffectual, have emerged from the interplay of multiple party traditions that reach back to the founding, and they offer a vision for how these groups might fulfill their promise. An associate professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University, Daniel Schlozman studies political parties, American political development, social movements, and political history. He is the author of When Movements Anchor Parties: Electoral Alignments in American History, a member of the Scholars Strategy Network, and a trustee of the Maryland Center for Economic Policy. Sam Rosenfeld is an associate professor of political science at Colgate University, where he researches party politics and American political development. He is the author of The Polarizers: Postwar Architects of Our Partisan Era, and his writing has also appeared in The American Prospect, The New Republic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Vox, among many other places. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 5/21/2024)
In conversation with Wil Haygood Paul Hendrickson's books include Sons of Mississippi, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award; Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934–1961, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist; and The Living and the Dead: Robert McNamara and Five Lives of a Lost War, a National Book Award finalist. A creative writing teacher at the University of Pennsylvania for more than 25 years and a feature writer at The Washington Post for the two decades before that, he is the recipient of writing fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Lyndhurst Foundation, among other institutions. In Fighting the Night, Hendrickson tells the story of his father's World War II service as a nighttime fighter pilot and the sacrifices he, his family, and his generation made on behalf of their country. Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist Wil Haygood has, over a storied 30-year career, worked at the Boston Globe, The Washington Post, and as a globetrotting investigative reporter. He is most famous for his 2008 Washington Post article, ''A Butler Well Served by This Election,'' about the White House steward who bore witness to some of 20th century America's most notable events and figures. He later expanded the article into a bestselling book that was adapted into the critically acclaimed film The Butler, starring Forest Whitaker. Haygood is also the author of Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World and popular biographies of Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Sugar Ray Robinson, Thurgood Marshall, and Sammy Davis, Jr. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 5/16/2024)
Meelya Gordon Memorial Lecture In conversation with Tamala Edwards, anchor, 6abc Action News morning edition. ABC News' Chief Anchor, the host of This Week with George Stephanopoulos, and co-anchor of Good Morning America, George Stephanopoulos joined the network in 1997 as an analyst for This Week. He previously served in the Clinton administration as the senior advisor to the president for policy and strategy. His book All Too Human, a political memoir about his time on the campaign trail and in the White House, was a no. 1 New York Times bestseller. A member of the board of directors at the Michael J. Fox Foundation and former Rhodes Scholar, Stephanopoulos' many honors include three Emmy Awards, a DuPont Award, three Murrow Awards, and two Cronkite Awards. In The Situation Room, he offers an insider's perspective on the highly restricted space in which 12 presidents have made their most critical, history-changing decisions. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 5/17/2024)
In conversation with Laura McGrath, Assistant Professor of English at Temple University ''Among our greatest contemporary writers'' (The Miami Herald), Claire Messud is the author of The Emperor's Children, a cutting portrait of life among Manhattan's junior intelligentsia that was longlisted for the Booker Prize. Her other acclaimed and bestselling novels include When the World Was Steady, The Hunters, The Last Life, The Woman Upstairs, and The Burning Girl. A PEN/Faulkner Award finalist, the recipient of Guggenheim and Radcliffe fellowships, and the winner of the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Messud teaches writing at Harvard University. Named one of the most anticipated books of 2024 by The Guardian, Oprah Daily, and New York magazine, This Strange Eventful History follows the seven-decade arc of an itinerant French Algerian colonial family born on the wrong side of history and forced to reckon with their interpersonal and larger political legacies. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 5/15/2024)
''His generation's most gifted writer of love's complicated, contradictory power'' (Los Angeles Times), Colm Tóibín is the author of an impressive list of novels, short stories, essays, plays, poetry, and criticism. His novels The Master, The Testament of Mary, and Brooklyn were shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and the last was adapted into a popular BAFTA Award-winning film of the same name. The Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University, Tóibín earned an Irish PEN Award and was named the Laureate for Irish Fiction for 2022–2024 by the Arts Council of Ireland, among scores of other honors. Set 20 years after the events of the international bestseller Brooklyn, Long Island finds the enigmatic émigré protagonist of that book alone in her marriage and facing the travails of middle age and unfulfilled dreams. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 5/13/2024)
In conversation with Annie Duke An ''unflappable and genial point-person'' (The New York Times), Jen Psaki served as the thirty-fourth White House Press Secretary under President Biden until May 2022. Currently the host of MSNBC's Sunday afternoon and Monday evening program, Inside with Jen Psaki, she spent the previous twenty years in public service. This includes stints as White House Communications Director under President Obama, as the spokesperson for the State Department under then Secretary of State John Kerry, work on three presidential campaigns, and numerous other campaign and communication roles. In Say More, Psaki employs her trademark wit and clearheaded analysis to reveal the surprising lessons she learned in the press room and from America's top leaders. Annie Duke is the bestselling author of Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away and Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts. A former professional poker player, she won a World Series of Poker bracelet and is the only woman to have won the World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions. She currently works with First Round Capital Partners, a seed stage venture fund, and teaches executive education at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2023 she completed her PhD in cognitive psychology. Duke is also the co-founder of The Alliance for Decision Education, a nonprofit whose mission is to improve lives by empowering students through decision skills education. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 5/10/2024)
In conversation with Karen Heller, former national features writer and current contributor for The Washington Post, formerly a metro and features columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and a finalist for the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in commentary. A journalist at The New York Times for more than 25 years, Frank Bruni has been the paper's Rome bureau chief, head restaurant critic, White House correspondent, and staff writer for its Sunday magazine, among other positions. In 2011 he became the Times' first openly gay op-ed columnist. His bestselling books include Ambling into History: The Unlikely Odyssey of George W. Bush; Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-Time Eater; Where You Go is Not Who You'll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania; and The Beauty of Dusk, a memoir about adjusting to suddenly losing sight in his right eye. Also currently a professor of public policy at Duke University and the writer of a popular weekly Times newsletter, Bruni formerly worked as a Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer for the Detroit Free Press. In The Age of Grievance, he examines the ways in which the blame game has come to define American politics and culture. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 5/9/2024)
In conversation with award winning broadcaster and journalist, Tracey Matisak. ''America's most compelling popular historian'' (The Christian Science Monitor), Erik Larson is the bestselling author of eight critically acclaimed books, including The Splendid and the Vile, a chronicle of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz; In the Garden of Beasts, the story of the first American ambassador to Nazi Germany; The Devil in the White City, a history of the serial killer who stalked attendees of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago; and Dead Wake, the tale of the 1915 sinking of the RMS Lusitania. A former features writer for The Wall Street Journal and a contributing writer for Time magazine, he has contributed articles to The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Harper's, among other publications. In The Demon of Unrest, Larson delves into the five pivotal months preceding the Civil War to expose the controversies, crises, and personalities that led America into its bloodiest war. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 5/5/2024)
Featuring: Lydia Abarça, Sheila Rohan, Marcia Sells, Karlya Shelton, and Khadija Tariyan (daughter of Gayle McKinney Griffith) In conversation with Shelly Power, The Dr. Carolyn Newsom Executive Director, Philadelphia Ballet Karen Valby's The Swans of Harlem tells the remarkable and-until now-rarely written about true story of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, a trailblazing troupe of Black men and women who performed some of ballet's most iconic works for the such audiences as the Queen of England, the White House, and Stevie Wonder. This history focuses on five foundational members of the group and their enduring bond, including Lydia Abarça, the first Black prima ballerina with a major international dance company, the first Black ballerina on the cover of Dance magazine, and an Essence cover star; and her equally accomplished friends, Gayle McKinney, Sheila Rohan, Marcia Sells, and Karlya Shelton. Valby is a frequent contributor to Vanity Fair, and has also published work in The New York Times, O Magazine, Glamour, Fast Company, and EW, where she spent fifteen years writing about culture. Shelly Power brings to Philadelphia Ballet, formerly Pennsylvania Ballet, her experiences in various artistic and executive leadership roles at Prix de Lausanne in Switzerland and Houston Ballet Academy. Since joining Philadelphia Ballet in 2018, Ms. Power has restructured the organization's administrative functions with new, innovative partnerships, with the goal of promoting that ballet is for everyone. Ms. Power received a Bachelor of Science in Interdisciplinary Studies, with a focus on business, psychology, and fine arts from the University of Houston. She furthered her education at Rice University's Leadership Institute for Non-Profit Executives and Case Western Reserve University's Weatherhead School of Management's Advanced Certification in Non-Profit Management. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 5/2/2024)
In conversation with Dr. Jason Karlawish In partnership with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society The clinical consulting director of support groups at The CaringKind (formerly The Alzheimer's Association), Dasha Kiper has an MA in clinical psychology from Columbia University. For the past decade she has worked with dementia patients, counseled caregivers, led support groups, trained and supervised mental health professionals, and counseled former caregivers who now lead support groups. Informed by her work as both a counselor and work as a caregiver herself, Travelers to Unimaginable Lands employs a wide range of compassionate stories to combat the myth of the so-called perfect caregiver. These ''moving and often surprising'' (The Wall Street Journal) case histories meld science and storytelling to show that caregivers don't just witness cognitive decline in their loved ones with dementia-they are its invisible victims. Dr. Jason Karlawish is the author of The Problem of Alzheimer's: How Science, Culture, and Politics Turned a Rare Disease into a Crisis and What We Can Do About It. A Professor of Medicine, Medical Ethics and Health Policy, and Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania, he is Co-Director of the Penn Memory Center, where he cares for patients. He also serves on the board of directors for The Greenwall Foundation, a grant-based organization dedicated to expanding bioethics knowledge. His essays have appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Forbes, and The Philadelphia Inquirer, among other places. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 4/30/2024)
In conversation with Beth Kephart A ''master of illusion, and one of the best storytellers around'' (NPR), Amy Tan is the author of the beloved novels The Joy Luck Club, a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, for which she also co-wrote the film adaptation screenplay; The Kitchen God's Wife; The Hundred Secret Senses, and The Valley of Amazement. Her prolific body of work also includes the memoir Where the Past Begins, several other novels and works of nonfiction, two children's books, and essays and stories that appeared in scores of periodicals and anthologies. In The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Tan pecks out a thoughtful ode to birding and the hidden beauty that lives around us, nested together with her own soaring illustrations. 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 ode to all things Philly; and Wife | Daughter | Self, an interlocking essay collection about her various identities. A writing professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the co-founder of Junction workshops, she is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, a Pew Fellowship, and the Speakeasy Poetry Prize, among other honors. Her latest book is an illustrated memoir, My Life In Paper. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 4/29/2024)
In 2006, Bakari Sellers defeated a twenty-six-year incumbent State Representative to become the youngest member of the South Carolina state legislature and the youngest African American elected official in the nation. The state's 2014 Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, he currently heads the strategic communication and public affairs team at the Strom Law Firm in Columbia, South Carolina and works as a CNN political analyst. Recently named to TIME's ''40 Under 40'' list, he is the author of the New York Times bestseller My Vanishing Country, a memoir and historical analysis of the lives of America's often-overlooked black working-class, and hosts the Bakari Sellers Podcast, a twice-weekly show that addresses a variety of cultural and political topics. In The Moment, Sellers examines the politics and policies that most affect the future of Black Americans, including inequities in education, healthcare, and policing. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 4/25/2024)
In conversation with Robert E. Hamilton, Head of Eurasia Research - Eurasia Program, Foreign Policy Research Institute Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Endowed Lecture The White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times, David E. Sanger has been a member of three Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist teams, including in 2017 for international reporting. His bestselling books include The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power; Confront and Conceal: Obama's Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power; and The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age, which was adapted into an award-winning HBO documentary. Sanger is also a regular contributor to CNN and teaches national security policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. In New Cold Wars, he offers an in-depth account of the United States' high-stakes struggles against two very dissimilar adversaries-Xi Jinping's China and Vladimir Putin's Russia. Colonel (Retired) Robert E. Hamilton, Ph.D., is the Head of Research at the Foreign Policy Research Institute's Eurasia Program and an Associate Professor of Eurasian Studies at the U.S. Army War College. In a 30-year career in the U.S. Army, spent primarily as an Eurasian Foreign Area Officer, he served overseas in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Germany, Belarus, Qatar, Afghanistan, the Republic of Georgia, Pakistan and Kuwait. He is the author of numerous articles and monographs on conflict and security issues, focusing principally on the former Soviet Union and the Balkans. He is a graduate of the German Armed Forces Staff College and the U.S. Army War College and holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Military Academy, a Master's Degree in Contemporary Russian Studies and a Ph.D. in Political Science, both from the University of Virginia. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 4/18/2024)
In conversation with Patrick Behrer, Research Economist, Development Economics, World Bank How the subtle but significant consequences of a hotter planet have already begun-from lower test scores to higher crime rates-and how we might tackle them today. In Slow Burn, R. Jisung Park draws upon vast amounts of raw data and novel economics to examine the consequences of climate change on an astonishing array of social groups and institutions. An assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, environmental and labor economist he holds positions in the School of Social Policy and Practice and the Wharton School of Business. He has spent more than a decade investigating and writing about economic inequalities and outcomes created by climate change. A Rhodes Scholar, a research affiliate at the Institute of Labor Economics, and a faculty fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, Park has consulted with such organizations as the World Bank and the New York City Departments of Education and Health. Patrick Behrer is an Economist in the Sustainability and Infrastructure team of the World Bank's Development Research Group. Behrer's work focuses on the economics of air pollution, climate change, and climate adaptation. His work has focused on the impacts of air pollution and climate change on human capital formation and the relationship between agriculture and air pollution. His work leverages big data from online and administrative sources and recent advances in satellite remote sensing technology. Prior to joining the World Bank in 2021, he was a post-doctoral fellow at the Center on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford University. He received his Ph.D. in 2020 from Harvard University in Public Policy. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 4/17/2024)
Dennis Yi Tenen is an associate professor of English at Columbia University, where he also serves as co-director of the Center for Comparative Media. Affiliated with Columbia's Data Science Institute, he is a former fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society and worked as a Microsoft engineer in the Windows group, where he wrote code that runs on millions of personal computers around the world. His articles, which span topics ranging from literary theory to computational narratology, can be found in such journals as Amodern, New Literary History, and boundary2. In Literary Theory for Robots, Tenen takes readers on a centuries-spanning trip through automation to explore the relationship between writers and emerging technologies. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 4/11/2024)
In conversation with award-winning journalist and broadcaster Tracey Matisak Acclaimed for her study of the intersections of pop music, contemporary Black U.S. culture, and sex and gender, sociologist Tricia Rose is the author of Longing to Tell, The Hip Hop Wars, and, most notably, Black Noise, which is considered a foundational text for the academic study of hip hop. She is the Chancellor's Professor of Africana Studies and the director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown University, and she has presented seminars and workshops on a wide range of topics to scholarly and general audiences. The recipient of grants and fellowships from the Mellon, the Robert Wood Johnson, the Ford, and the Rockefeller Foundations, Rose has been widely profiled and featured on several national media outlets. In Metaracism, she presents a definitive map of the vast and often obscured practices, policies, and beliefs that proliferate systemic racism in the United States. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 4/10/2024)
Praised for her ''darkly funny and painfully sharp'' (Los Angeles Times) fiction, Lydia Millet is the author of the novel A Children's Bible, shortlisted for the National Book Award and a New York Times Top 10 book of 2020; the story collection Love in Infant Monkeys, a Pulitzer Prize finalist; and the novel Dinosaurs, a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Her other honors include awards from PEN Center USA and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is a longtime editor and staff writer at the Center for Biological Diversity. We Loved It All, named a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by Oprah Daily and Literary Hub, is a memoir that ponders the richness of the human experience amidst the environmental calamities that threaten life on Earth. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 4/9/2024)
Barbara Gohn Day Memorial Lecture In conversation with Rebeca L. Hey-Colón, Professor of Latinx Studies, Temple University Awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Obama in 2013, poet, essayist, and fiction writer Julia Alvarez is renowned for her lyrical, poignant, politically insightful books. These many works include How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, which details the lives of four sisters before and after their exile from the Dominican Republic; In the Time of the Butterflies, a million-copy bestseller that was selected by the National Endowment for the Arts for its national Big Read program; and Afterlife, a novel that explores the notion of keeping faith with our fellow humans in a broken world. Alvarez's many awards include the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Achievement in American Literature, a Latina Leader Award in Literature from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, and the Hispanic Heritage Award in Literature. In The Cemetery of Untold Stories, Alvarez explores the very nature of storytelling in the tale of a fiction writer who finds that her buried untold stories have taken on lives of their own. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 4/4/2024)
In conversation with award-winning journalist and broadcaster, Tracey Matisak Introduced by State Rep. Donna Bullock Stacey Abrams is the Ronald W. Walters Endowed Chair for Race and Black Politics at Howard University. After serving eleven years in the Georgia House of Representatives-seven as minority leader-she became the 2018 Democratic nominee for governor of Georgia, where she won more votes than any Democrat in the state's history. Dedicated to civic engagement, she is the creator of multiple nonprofit organizations devoted to democracy protection, voting rights, and effective public policy. Abrams has also co-founded successful companies, including a financial services firm, an energy and infrastructure consulting firm, and a media company, Sage Works Productions, Inc. Her books include the New York Times nonfiction bestsellers Lead from the Outside and Our Time Is Now, and a thriller, titled While Justice Sleeps. Her latest thriller, Rogue Justice, follows the continuing intrigues of While Justice Sleeps' protagonist, Supreme Court law clerk Avery Keene, as she unravels a conspiracy involving a slew of federal judges. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 4/5/2024)
''A fountain of observations'' (The Boston Globe), Sloane Crosley is the author of three New York Times bestselling essay collections, How Did You Get This Number, Look Alive Out There, and I Was Told There'd Be Cake, which was a finalist for the 2009 Thurber Prize for American Humor. Exploring various aspects of life's disappointments, morality, and modern love, her novels Cult Classic and The Clasp were named best books of the year by numerous publications. Crosley is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, a former editor of The Best American Travel Writing series, and her other work has appeared in The New York Times, Bon Appetit, The Village Voice, McSweeney's, Vice, and Smithsonian. In Grief Is for People, she offers an elegiac examination of loss in the aftermath of her close friend's death by suicide. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 4/3/2024)
In conversation with Herman Beavers M. Nzadi Keita is the author of the poetry collection Brief Evidence of Heaven, a finalist for the Phillis Wheatley Poetry Prize that explored the life of Anna Murray Douglass, Frederick Douglass' first wife. Her other poems and essays have appeared in such publications as A Face to Meet the Faces: A Persona Poetry Anthology, Killens Review of Arts and Letters, and Poet Lore. She formerly taught creative writing, American literature, and Africana studies at Ursinus College, and was an adviser to the award-winning documentary BaddDDD Sonia Sanchez and to Mural Arts Philadelphia. Keita's latest collection of poetry, Migration Letters, is a reflection on Black working-class identity and culture from the 1960s to now. A professor of English and Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Herman Beavers teaches 20th Century and Contemporary African American literature and poetry writing. He is the author of the scholarly monograph Geography and the Political Imaginary in the Novels of Toni Morrison, the poetry chapbook Obsidian Blues, and his poems have appeared in Cleaver Magazine, Versadelphia, and The American Arts Quarterly, among other publications. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 4/2/2024)
Pine Tree Foundation Endowed Lecture Fareed Zakaria is the host of CNN's flagship domestic and international affairs program Fareed Zakaria GPS, which has aired around the world since its debut in 2008. Also a weekly columnist for the Washington Post, he formerly served as editor of Newsweek International, managing editor of Foreign Affairs, a Time magazine columnist, an analyst for ABC News, and the host of PBS's Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria. He is the author of four New York Times bestsellers, including Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World, The Post-American World, The Future of Freedom, and In Defense of a Liberal Education. In Age of Revolutions, Zakaria melds historical study with contemporary analysis to map the ways in which societal upheavals and political paradigm shifts define our current culture of polarization. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 3/28/2024)
In conversation with Airea Dee Matthews Hanif Abdurraqib is the author of A Little Devil in America, a sweeping look at Black music, art, and culture that won the Carnegie Medal and the Gordon Burns Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award. His other works include the essay collection They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, which was named a best book of 2017 by Esquire, the Chicago Tribune, and NPR, among other outlets; Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest, a New York Times bestseller and a National Book Critics Circle Award and Kirkus Prize finalist; and the poetry collection A Fortune for Your Disaster, winner of the 2020 Lenore Marshall Prize. His other essays, poems, and criticism have been published in a wide array of media. In There's Always This Year, Abdurraqib offers an emotional and historical meditation on basketball-who makes it, who we think should be successful in the game, and the very notion of role models. Airea D. Matthews is the 2022–23 Philadelphia Poet Laureate and directs the poetry program at Bryn Mawr College. Her collection Simulcra won the 2016 Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize and her work has appeared in The New York Times, Best American Poets, Gulf Coast, Harvard Review, and VQR, among other journals. Matthews' other honors include a 2022 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship, a 2020 Pew Fellowship, and the 2016 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award. Her latest work, Bread and Circus, addresses themes of income inequality, commodification, and conventional economic theories through poetry, prose, and imagery. The book was nominated for an LA Times Poetry Book Prize. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 3/27/2024)
Rahul Mehta's debut poetry collection, Feeding the Ghosts, explores the solace to be found in the everyday beauty sometimes overshadowed by larger calamity, as well as the author's identities, relationships, and culture. Also the author of the novel No Other World and the short story collection Quarantine, Mehta has contributed work to an array of publications, including the Kenyon Review, The Sun, the Massachusetts Review, and the New York Times Magazine. A creative writing teacher at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and named to Out magazine's 2011 ''Out 100'' list of inspiring individuals, they have earned a Lambda Literary Award and an Asian American Literary Award. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 3/26/2024)
In conversation with Jo Piazza Acclaimed for her ''knack for writing beautiful stories that speak to the anxiety of forging a new road for oneself'' (Bustle), Rebecca Serle is the New York Times bestselling author of One Italian Summer, In Five Years, The Dinner List, and the young adult novels The Edge of Falling and When You Were Mine. Serle also adapted her YA book series Famous in Love into a hit television series of the same name and her book When You Were Mine was the basis of the 2022 film Rosaline. A tale of romantic aspiration and exasperation, Expiration Dates is a novel in which for each potential partner she meets, a woman magically receives a slip of paper that lists his name and the amount of time that they will be together. Jo Piazza is the international bestselling author of twelve books, including the Good Morning America Book Club pick We Are Not Like Them with Christine Pride. She's also the host of the critically acclaimed Under the Influence podcast. Her work has been featured in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, among other publications. Her new book is The Sicilian Inheritance. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 3/25/2024)
In conversation with Lexy Bloom ''A delicious new Gilded Age family drama-almost a satire-set in the leafy enclaves of Brooklyn Heights'' (Vogue), Jenny Jackson's Pineapple Street tells the story of three women navigating the shoals of forbidden love, gender expectations, family money, and too much tennis. A New York Times bestseller and a Good Morning America Book Club Pick, it was named a best book of 2023 by numerous publications and media outlets, including Time, NPR, Town & Country, Elle, Harper's Bazaar, and the BBC. A vice president and executive editor at Alfred A. Knopf, Jackson is a graduate of Williams College and the Columbia Publishing Course. Lexy Bloom is Editorial Director at Knopf Cooks and Senior Editor at Alfred A. Knopf, where she works with writers such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Haruki Murakami, Orhan Pamuk, Deb Perelman, Hetty McKinnon, Bill Buford, and many more Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 3/21/2024)
In conversation with author and Pennsylvania State Senator, Nikil Saval In Solidarity, Astra Taylor and Leah Hunt-Hendrix offer a comprehensive look at not just the popular and ethereal idea of solidarity, but how it can be used by political organizing movements to affect real societal change. Also a lively history of such movements from Ancient Roman revolts to Occupy Wall Street and BLM, it reveals the nuts-and-bolts methods through which solidarity is built and sustained. Leah Hunt-Hendrix earned a PhD in Religion, Ethics, and Politics from Princeton University, where she wrote her dissertation on the Ethics of Solidarity. In 2012 she co-founded Solidaire, a nationwide network of philanthropists who fund progressive movements; and in 2017, she co-founded Way to Win, an organization devoted to electoral strategy. A Senior Advisor at the American Economic Liberties Project and a member of the Board of Directors of the Solutions Project, she is an advisor to her family foundation, the Sister Fund. The cofounder of the Debt Collective, a union of debtors, Astra Taylor is the director of several documentaries and the author of The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart, Democracy May Not Exist But We'll Miss It When It's Gone, and The People's Platform, winner of an American Book Award. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and n+1, among other publications. She sits on the editorial board of Hammer & Hope and is an advisor to Lux Magazine. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! The views expressed by the authors and moderators are strictly their own and do not represent the opinions of the Free Library of Philadelphia or its employees. (recorded 3/19/2024)
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