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Library Talks

294 episodes - English - Latest episode: 14 days ago - ★★★★ - 307 ratings

Join The New York Public Library and your favorite writers, artists, and thinkers for smart talks and provocative conversations from the nation’s cultural capital.

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Episodes

A Modern-day Gothic Horror Story

October 28, 2018 10:00 - 45 minutes - 62 MB

The bestselling English novelist of "The Essex Serpent," Sarah Perry, stopped by the Library to talk about her newest novel,"Melmoth." The books origins lie in an obscure 19th-century Gothic novel of the same name and an illness that upended her life. She discussed how the earlier novel and her personal experiences combined to birth the phantasmagoric nightmare at the heart of Melmoth's plot.

Making Movements Intersectional

October 21, 2018 10:00 - 55 minutes - 76.6 MB

Darnell L. Moore and Charlene Carruthers are two dynamic leaders and organizers committed to intersectional liberation in movements for Black lives. They are also friends and writers. Moore and Carruthers recently spoke at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and read from each other's recent works: Moore's debut memoir "No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free", and Carruthers's "Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, & Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements."

Why Men Fight with Thomas Page McBee

October 14, 2018 10:00 - 44 minutes - 60.8 MB

While training for a charity boxing match at Madison Square Garden, writer Thomas Page McBee gained insight into how masculinity operates in the ring and in society— McBee became the first known trans man to box in the historic venue. He stopped by the Library to talk about this experience, the subject of his new book Amateur: A True Story About What Makes a Man.  Amanda Hess, a critic-at-large for the New York Times joined McBee to discuss the meaning of toxic masculinity,violence, and w...

Righteous Rage with Rebecca Traister

October 07, 2018 10:00 - 52 minutes - 72.1 MB

In her new book, "Good and Mad" Rebecca Traister uncovers the history of women's anger in American politics—from the suffragettes to #MeToo. She argues that this collective fury is often the hidden force that drives political change, but rarely has it ever been hailed as fundamentally transformative or patriotic. To discuss her book and what it says about our current political state, Traister was joined by Aminatou Sow, co-host of the podcast "Call Your Girlfriend." 

The Secret Memoir of Bill Cunningham

September 30, 2018 10:00 - 53 minutes - 73.6 MB

When famed fashion and society photographer Bill Cunningham died in 2016, he left behind not only an incredible archive of New York Times columns and photographs, but two identical copies of a secret memoir that he apparently hoped someone would find. His family discovered the book, which Cunningham himself titled Fashion Climbing. The Library celebrated its release with the book’s editor, Christopher Richards, and New Yorker critic Hilton Als, who wrote its preface. They were joined by ar...

The Elite Charade of Changing the World

September 23, 2018 10:00 - 47 minutes - 65.1 MB

The world’s leading philanthropists are constantly working to “make the world a better place,” leading passionate campaigns against everything from climate change to poverty that had once been the province of governments. Journalist Anand Giridharadas asks whether those rich and powerful people who have most benefitted from “our highly inequitable status quo” are in fact the best candidates to take on these challenges. When are their solutions democratic and universal, and when do they refle...

Looking for the Real Lolita

September 16, 2018 10:00 - 42 minutes - 58.7 MB

Vladimin Nabokov's "Lolita" is one of the most widely-read classics of twentieth century; however, few are familiar with the true story of an eleven-year-old-girl named Sally Horner, whose story bears an eerie resemblance to that of Nabokov's Dolores Hayes. In "The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel that Scandalized the World," author Sarah Weinman traces the connections between these two girls and their stories. Weinman stopped by NYPL to revisit her research using th...

Notes from the Reading Life: Tim Gunn and Min Jin Lee

September 09, 2018 10:00 - 54 minutes - 74.2 MB

Tim Gunn is the Emmy Award-winning former producer of "Project Runway," where for 16 seasons he mentored contestants with charm and care. But when he isn’t busy making it work, chances are he has his nose in a book. In a live conversation series presented in collaboration with the National Book Foundation, Gunn spoke about some of the most powerful books in his life, the reads that have stayed with him since his early teens. His conversation partner: fellow avid reader—and best-selling nov...

The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire

September 02, 2018 10:00 - 56 minutes - 78.1 MB

Before the Pulse Nightclub shooting in 2016, there was The Up Stairs Lounge fire. Author Robert Fieseler sets the largely overlooked tragedy of the Up Stairs Lounge arson that killed 32 people in its rightful historical place with "Tinderbox:The Untold Story of The Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation." The 1973 mass murder dragged a closeted, blue-collar gay community into the national public eye, that shortly after was forgotten—until now. Fieseler discussed how he discov...

Coming This Sunday: New Name, New Look

August 28, 2018 10:00 - 1 minute - 2.17 MB

Exciting news! Starting next episode, "The New York Public Library Podcast" will be renamed "Library Talks." We'll still be featuring the same public talks recorded live at NYPL with today's top writers and thinkers—we're just updating with a new logo, name, and release date. Weekly episodes will now be released Sunday mornings to round out the weekend and inspire you for the week ahead. Stay tuned for the new changes in your feed this Sunday September 2nd! Questions or comments? You can c...

There's No Such Thing As Now

August 21, 2018 10:00 - 52 minutes - 72.6 MB

Carlo Rovelli is an Italian theoretical physicist. In his new book, The Order of Time,  Rovelli asks "Why do we remember the past and not the future…What ties time to our nature as persons, to our subjectivity?" Rovelli is the head of the Quantum Gravity group at the Centre de Physique Théorique of Aix-Marseille University and has devoted his life's work to understanding what time might truly be. Author and philosopher, Jim Holt spoke with Rovelli about the past, future, and why there isn't...

Two Sisters' Path Toward Radical Islam

August 14, 2018 10:00 - 51 minutes - 71.3 MB

Norwegian journalist Åsne Seierstad's most recent book, Two Daughters: A Father, his Daughters, and their Journey into the Syrian Jihad, is a heart-pounding thriller tracing the radicalization of two teenage girls. In 2013, the two Somali youth abandoned their family and their adopted home in Oslo to travel into Syria and become part of a jihadist movement. As soon as they disappeared, their father dedicated his existence to finding them and bringing them home. Seierstad explains the family ...

Chronicling Illness with Porochista Khakpour and Eileen Myles

August 07, 2018 10:00 - 59 minutes - 81.1 MB

For as far back as she can remember, writer Porochista Khakpour has been sick. She was recently diagnosed with late-stage Lyme disease and has written her first memoir about her illness, Sick. Khakpour sat down with one of her literary heroes Eileen Myles for a conversation about her experience with the disease and how it has affected her as a writer, activist, and lover of New York City. Khakpour says "it's a diaristic book and I wanted there to be a lot of honesty... a lot of capturing mys...

Love and Lanyards with Billy Collins

July 31, 2018 10:00 - 1 hour - 83 MB

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins stopped by the Library earlier this Spring to read some of his work, share a few tips on the creative process, and land a few jokes. He sat down with Paul Holdengräber for a conversation about their favorite writers and his career, from the back pages of Rolling Stone magazine to the Library of Congress. Plus, Collins reads some of his recent work. The best way to support this podcast is with a gift to The New York Public Library. Click here to donate.

Literacy is a Human Right with The World in Words Podcast

July 24, 2018 10:00 - 46 minutes - 63.2 MB

Earlier this spring, our friends from The World in Words Podcast recorded a live show at NYPL's very own Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library. The podcast, hosted by  is about languages and the people who speak them. For this special episode, hosts Nina Porzucki and Patrick Cox shared stories about the history of Braille, why whale calls go viral like pop songs, and the difficulties of preserving languages in the U.S. through generations.  Subscribe to The World in Words Podcas...

Roxane Gay and Aja Monet Tell Their Truth

July 17, 2018 10:00 - 59 minutes - 82.2 MB

Roxane Gay's latest book, "Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture," is a collection of first-person essays that directly tackle rape, sexual assault and harassment. With writer and organizer, Aja Monet, Gay discusses how their stories fit into the national conversation about sexual assault, the pitfalls of the #MeToo Movement, the pressure to "perform one's trauma," and the complex work that still needs to be done towards healing and justice. 

Remembering to Listen with Arundhati Roy & Viet Thanh Nguyen

July 10, 2018 10:00 - 1 hour - 82.9 MB

Twenty years after Arundhati Roy won the Booker Prize for "The God of Small Things," she returned to writing fiction in 2017 with her novel "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness." The book was hailed for its ability to juggle “the vast, violent, circling, driving, ridiculous, insane, unfeasible, public turmoil of a nation.” Roy spoke with Viet Thanh Nguyen, whose novel "The Sympathizer" won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2016. Together they discussed Roy's life before she became a writer, the...

A Future for Democracy?

July 03, 2018 10:00 - 46 minutes - 63.4 MB

New York Public Library President Anthony Marx brings together political analysts from the right and left to ask what the future holds for American democracy and for democracies around the world. Peter Beinart is a contributing editor at "The Atlantic" and associate professor of journalism and political science at the City University of New York. Jonah Goldberg is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and senior editor at "National Review." In Goldberg's new book, "Suicide o...

Finding Hope on the Road in "Nomadland"

June 26, 2018 10:00 - 45 minutes - 62.2 MB

Bernstein Book Award finalist, "Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-first Century" tells the stories of a growing population of "workampers"—retirement-age Americans who live and work on the road full-time, taking seasonal jobs and living out of RVs, vans, and travel trailers. Author Jessica Bruder found that the best way to get to know her nomadic subjects was to join them. In a secondhand vehicle she named "Van Halen," Bruder lived and worked alongside the workampers. Traveling over...

Tarrell Alvin McCraney & Donja R. Love Lift Up Black Queer Narratives

June 19, 2018 10:00 - 57 minutes - 78.3 MB

Playwrights Tarell Alvin McCraney and Donja R. Love stopped by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture earlier this spring. McCraney is the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of "Moonlight" and a MacArthur Fellow. Love is an award-winning playwright, poet, and filmmaker from Philadelphia. In a conversation with NYU professor of theatre, Michael D. Dinwiddie, they discussed Black joy, the legacy of queer writers and playwrights and the people in their lives who have influenced thei...

Sliding Off the Couch with George Saunders

June 12, 2018 10:00 - 55 minutes - 76.7 MB

Until recently, George Saunders  was best known for his short stories and essays. Then his first novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, won the 2017 Man Booker Prize. Saunders spoke with Paul Holdengräber about the book as well as the broader arc of his life and career, covering everything from comedy to fathers to Buddhism to reporting on Trump rallies.

The Harrowing History of Roosevelt Island

June 05, 2018 10:00 - 31 minutes - 43.1 MB

Before there was Rikers Island, there was Blackwell's—today known as Roosevelt Island. Historian Stacy Horn's newest book Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad, and Criminal in 19th-Century New York is the first in-depth look at its dark past. In addition to a penitentiary, the small strip of land housed an almshouse, mental institution, and a number of hospitals for the poor—which, as one can imagine, lead to disturbing outcomes for the city's most disenfranchised people. From annual reports of...

Kevin Young & Claudia Rankine Discuss "Brown"

May 29, 2018 10:00 - 54 minutes - 75.4 MB

Kevin Young, Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and New Yorker poetry editor, recently published a new collection of poems titled "Brown: Poems." From James Brown to John Brown v. the Topeka Board of Ed., Young meditates on all things "brown" and the ways culture shaped his personal experience growing up in Kansas. Joining him to discuss the book was Claudia Rankine, professor of poetry at Yale University and the author of "Citizen: An American Lyric." Rankine ask...

Remembering Tom Wolfe and the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

May 24, 2018 20:57 - 50 minutes - 68.8 MB

Literary icon and friend of The New York Public Library, Tom Wolfe passed away last week at the age of 88. Wolfe became a Library Lion in 1981, and is the author of many books, including The Bonfire of the Vanities and The Right Stuff. Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test was first released in 1968, chronicling American counterculture. Half a century later, TASCHEN released an abridgment of the text, with photographs and ephemera from the era. Wolfe's last appearance at the Library was...

Masha Gessen Explains Horror, Humor and Hope for the Future

May 22, 2018 10:00 - 44 minutes - 61.2 MB

Masha Gessen’s book The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia is the winner of the Library’s 2018 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism. A defining account of Russia’s post-Soviet era, it asks how the country’s prospects for democracy disappeared under the rule of Vladimir Putin. Taking on a novelistic approach, Gessen wove together the stories of four protagonists born in the last decade of the Soviet Union, earning last year’s National Book Award for Non...

Zora Neale Hurston's Story of the Last Slave Ship Survivor

May 15, 2018 10:00 - 50 minutes - 68.7 MB

Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” is one of Zora Neale Hurston’s most important works of non-fiction that has never been published until today. Hurston recorded the story in Alabama in the late 1920s. It's a collection of interviews with a man named Kossola, also known as Cudjo Lewis, one of the last known living survivors of the Atlantic slave trade. To discuss the book's history and Hurston's legacy, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture welcomed Dr. Cheryl Sterli...

A Goddess Reimagined

May 08, 2018 10:00 - 45 minutes - 31.2 MB

Madeline Miller's first novel, The Song of Achilles, transformed The Iliad from a vast impersonal epic into an intimate and poignant love story. Now Miller turns her mind to Homer's other great work, and one of mythology's most riveting figures, in Circe. It's the retelling of The Odyssey in which a fierce young woman is at the center. Madeline Miller discusses her writing process, witchcraft, and why this story resonates today with classicist and translator Emily Wilson, the first woman to ...

Trump's Doghouse has a Revolving Door

May 01, 2018 10:00 - 39 minutes - 89.9 MB

Joshua Green's Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Nationalist Uprising, was one of the first books to shed light on the Trump campaign and Bannon's influence on their way to the White House. A finalist for NYPL's 2018 Helen Berstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, Green stopped by the Library to talk about what it was like to interview the President, what actually motivates his former Chief Strategist and how getting kicked out of the White House doesn't necessaril...

Why Net Neutrality Matters

April 24, 2018 10:00 - 51 minutes - 117 MB

Last December, the Federal Communications Commission voted 3–2 to repeal net neutrality—which left many people wondering "why should we be concerned about the repeal and what can be done about it?" Library President Tony Marx convened a panel of experts to help shed light on the issue including: Susan Crawford,  Professor at Harvard Law School and member of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Broadband Task Force; Jessica Rosenworcel, Commissioner to the Federal Communications Commission; and Tim Wu, Pro...

Sheelah Kolhatkar has Inside Information

April 17, 2018 10:00 - 53 minutes - 123 MB

Sheelah Kolhatkar is a staff writer at The New Yorker and is a former hedge fund analyst. Her book, Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street, tells the story of Steven A. Cohen and his involvement in the largest insider-trading scandal in U.S history. The book is one of the five finalists selected for NYPL's Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism. Kolhatkar dropped by the Library to discuss how she wrote this...

Isabella Rossellini Shares Her Eggs

April 10, 2018 10:00 - 43 minutes - 100 MB

Actor Isabella Rossellini raises chickens; evolutionary biologist Menno Schilthuizen studies them. In My Chickens Rossellini unexpectedly breeds 38 yellow chicks of diverse heritage breeds and capitalizes on the opportunity to study their traits, behavior, and history. In Darwin Comes to Town, Schilthuizen posits that the strange and rapid adaptations made by animals in urban environments suggest that evolution is perhaps not the slow grinding process biologists have long believed in. From h...

Building Movements with Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and Shaun King

April 03, 2018 10:00 - 1 hour - 138 MB

How have social justice movements evolved in the fifty years after Martin Luther King Jr.'s death? Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is an author and professor of African American Studies at Princeton University whose research examines race and public policy. Shaun King is a writer for The Intercept and prominent public activist speaking out against police brutality. They discussed race in America, why movements succeed or fail, Martin Luther King Jr.'s fluctuating reputation during his life and after...

Reforming America's Prisons

March 27, 2018 10:00 - 1 hour - 83.5 MB

New York Public Library President Anthony Marx brought together criminal-justice-reform advocates from the right and left to discuss the complex issues of American incarceration—Reginald Dwayne Betts, an award-winning writer and current Ph.D. candidate at Yale Law School, and Pat Nolan, Director of the American Conservative Union Foundation’s Center for Criminal Justice Reform. Although they come from opposite ends of the political spectrum, both have direct experience within the prison syst...

Dr. John Carlos Has No Regrets

March 20, 2018 10:00 - 56 minutes - 77.4 MB

Civil Rights leader and legendary athlete, Dr. John Carlos, made history on the Olympic podium in 1968. After medaling in the 200 meter race in Mexico City, he and Tommie Smith raised their fists in the Black Power salute during the national anthem. Marking fifty years since that iconic moment, Dr. Carlos spoke with Sports Editor of The Nation and co-author of his memoir, Dave Zirin. Dr. Carlos shares his story of meeting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the hardships he faced after the '68 Olymp...

Debut Novelist Akwaeke Emezi Recenters Reality

March 13, 2018 10:00 - 52 minutes - 72.4 MB

Akwaeke Emezi is an Igbo and Tamil writer and video artist.  "Freshwater" ​is Emezi's debut novel and one of the most anticipated books of 2018. The partially autobiographical story follows a young person, Ada, from Nigeria to American college, where a traumatic event reveals the hidden powers of the spirits within her. Emezi discussed the novel with Glory Edim, founder of the book club and digital platform, Well-Read Black Girl. She traced the origin story behind Freshwater, decolonizing id...

Michelle McNamara and Patton Oswalt's search for the Golden State Killer

March 06, 2018 11:00 - 51 minutes - 70.3 MB

The comedian and actor Patton Oswalt shares the posthumous true-crime masterpiece written by his wife Michelle McNamara, who died suddenly at the age of 46 in 2016. McNamara, a true crime reporter and creator of TrueCrimeDiary.com, spent years tracking a serial killer she dubbed the Golden State Killer. Between 1976 and 1986 he committed 50 sexual assaults and 10 murders up and down California. Oswalt wrote, “I can't help feeling that somewhere, in her final pages, she left enough clues for ...

Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner

February 27, 2018 11:00 - 52 minutes - 72.3 MB

In 1971 when Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers and revealed the true story of American involvement in Vietnam, he was holding on to a much larger and more terrifying set of American secrets than he was letting on. Ellsberg had to wait almost fifty years to bring them to light. What those secrets were and why they remained hidden for so long are revealed in his new book The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.

Neel Mukherjee Tells Ghost Stories

February 20, 2018 11:00 - 36 minutes - 50.1 MB

Aidan Flax-Clark speaks with author Neel Mukherjee about his new novel, "A State of Freedom" and his evolving notions of home, autonomy, migration, and ghosts. ”A ghost is someone who belonged to a particular world who had an unhappy or tragic or violent ending to that particular life and hasn’t found a resting place in another world,” Mukherjee says, “this could be a very a good working definition for who a migrant is.”

Tayari Jones Redefines American Marriage

February 13, 2018 11:00 - 47 minutes - 64.7 MB

You may have read about Tayari Jones’s latest novel on quite a few “most anticipated books of 2018” lists, and for good reason. Inspired by her research into the painful realities of American incarceration, Jones’ “An American Marriage” blends equal parts heartbreak and humor to tell  the love story of a young couple whose marriage is tested by an unexpected calamity. It was recently selected by Oprah Winfrey for the Oprah Book Club. In a conversation with Isaac Fitzgerald, founding editor o...

Black Lives Matter Co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors

February 06, 2018 11:00 - 53 minutes - 74.2 MB

To celebrate the publication of When They Call You A Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir, Patrisse Khan-Cullors and her co-author asha bandele stopped by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Akiba Solomon, Editorial Director of Colorlines, interviews the two about the history of Black Lives Matter, from hashtag to global movement.

Networking with Niall Ferguson and Gillian Tett

January 30, 2018 11:00 - 50 minutes - 69.1 MB

What do Mark Zuckerburg and Martin Luther have in common? Historian and political commentator Niall Ferguson explains in his newest book The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook. Ferguson stopped by The New York Public Library to speak with Gillian Tett, U.S. Managing Editor of the Financial Times, about the power and limitations of networks throughout history, our news feeds and censorship. 

The Hunt for Timothy Leary

January 22, 2018 21:28 - 50 minutes - 69.6 MB

How did a former Harvard professor turned counterculture icon become an international fugitive? Authors Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis explain the larger-than-life story of Timothy Leary, the middle-aged acid enthusiast of the early 1970s, who famously preached "turn on, tune in, drop out." The PEN award-winning writers of Dallas 1963, talked with Aidan Flax-Clark about their research at NYPL and remarkable true story at the heart of their newest book, The Most Dangerous Man in America:...

Jessica B. Harris and Carla Hall

January 16, 2018 11:00 - 45 minutes - 62.9 MB

The James Beard Award–winning food historian and cookbook writer was at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture this past fall to talk about her memoir, My Soul Looks Back, with chef and co-host of ABC's The Chew, Carla Hall.

Naomi Klein & Martin Breum: Climate Change and the Arctic Imagination

January 09, 2018 11:00 - 1 hour - 61.4 MB

The best-selling journalist speaks with Danish reporter on the Arctic, Martin Breum, about melting ice and global solutions for our changing climate.

Masha Gessen—The Stories of a Life

January 02, 2018 11:00 - 35 minutes - 32.6 MB

The journalist and 2017 National Book Award Winner delivered the Library's annual Robert B. Silvers Lecture. The talk is named in honor of the co-founding editor of the New York Review of Books, who died in March 2017. With unexpected candor and intimacy, Gessen traced her own life as a sequence of choices and explored how notions of choice affect ideas about immigration, identity, and purpose.

Muhammad Yunus & Jeffrey Sachs

December 12, 2017 11:00 - 1 hour - 69.1 MB

Is self-interest the only force motivating business? Or can altruism be an equally powerful driver? It's a question that Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Prize–winning father of microcredit, answers in his latest book, A World of Three Zeros: The New Economics of Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment, and Zero Net Carbon Emissions. He spoke with fellow economist Jeffrey Sachs.

Nikki Giovani & Joy-Ann Reid

December 05, 2017 11:00 - 1 hour - 62.7 MB

The titan of American poetry was at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in November to talk about her latest collection, A Good Cry. She spoke with Joy-Ann Reid, the host of MSNBC's AM Joy. 

Stephen Greenblatt & Tony Kushner: Adam and Eve in the Teeth of Time

November 28, 2017 11:00 - 1 hour - 62.2 MB

The Pulitzer Prize–winning literary historian and Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright discuss Greenblatt's latest book, The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve, "a life history of one of the most extraordinary stories ever told." Exploring the power of narrative to travel from myth into reality, Greenblatt and Kushner traced the tale from its biblical origins through its imaginings in the minds of writers and artists from St. Augustine to Albrecht Dürer to John Milton. 

Kevin Young & Bunk—Hoaxes, Hooey, Hocum; Cons, Plagiarists, and Forgers

November 21, 2017 11:00 - 1 hour - 65.9 MB

The Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the Poetry Editor of The New Yorker speaks with Garnette Cadogan about his most recent work of nonfiction, Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News. Young traces the particularly American tradition of cons, hoaxes, and fakes, from P. T. Barnum to today.

Anne Applebaum: Fighting Against the Great Forgetting

November 14, 2017 11:00 - 1 hour - 61.8 MB

The Soviet famine of the early 1930s killed around 5 million people; almost 4 million of them were Ukrainians. As Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum demonstrates in her latest book, Red Famine, it wasn't fate or chance that skewed those numbers so heavily—it was something much more deliberate, and much more sinister. And the story behind it was, until recently, in danger of disappearing. Applebaum spoke about recovering it at the New York Public Lib...

Guests

Neil Gaiman
6 Episodes
Colson Whitehead
2 Episodes
Elizabeth Alexander
2 Episodes
James McBride
2 Episodes
Joyce Carol Oates
2 Episodes
Marilynne Robinson
2 Episodes
Noam Chomsky
2 Episodes
Salman Rushdie
2 Episodes
Tom Wolfe
2 Episodes
Toni Morrison
2 Episodes
Zadie Smith
2 Episodes
Alice Waters
1 Episode
Anna Deavere Smith
1 Episode
Ann Patchett
1 Episode
Art Spiegelman
1 Episode
Arundhati Roy
1 Episode
Atul Gawande
1 Episode
Azar Nafisi
1 Episode
Billy Collins
1 Episode
Bob Dylan
1 Episode
Chuck Palahniuk
1 Episode
Colm Tóibín
1 Episode
Dan Savage
1 Episode
Douglas Coupland
1 Episode
Edwidge Danticat
1 Episode
Elizabeth Gilbert
1 Episode
Elvis Costello
1 Episode
Erica Jong
1 Episode
Eric Klinenberg
1 Episode
Erin Lee Carr
1 Episode
Eve Ensler
1 Episode
Geoff Dyer
1 Episode
George Balanchine
1 Episode
George Saunders
1 Episode
Gore Vidal
1 Episode
James Baldwin
1 Episode
James Shapiro
1 Episode
Janet Mock
1 Episode
Janine di Giovanni
1 Episode
Janine Di Giovanni
1 Episode
Jeffrey Eugenides
1 Episode
Jhumpa Lahiri
1 Episode
Joan Didion
1 Episode
John McPhee
1 Episode
John Waters
1 Episode
Luc Sante
1 Episode
Malcolm Gladwell
1 Episode
Margaret Atwood
1 Episode
Marina Abramović
1 Episode
Marjane Satrapi
1 Episode
Maya Angelou
1 Episode
Michael Chabon
1 Episode
Michael Cunningham
1 Episode
Monica Lewinsky
1 Episode
Muhammad Yunus
1 Episode
Naomi Klein
1 Episode
Nathaniel Kahn
1 Episode
Niall Ferguson
1 Episode
Oliver Sacks
1 Episode
Philip K. Howard
1 Episode
Rebecca Solnit
1 Episode
Richard Ford
1 Episode
Richard Price
1 Episode
Robert A. Caro
1 Episode
Ron Chernow
1 Episode
Ron Rash
1 Episode
Rosanne Cash
1 Episode
Roxane Gay
1 Episode
Sarah Lewis
1 Episode
Shane Bauer
1 Episode
Sharon Olds
1 Episode
Simon Winchester
1 Episode
Sonia Shah
1 Episode
Stephen Greenblatt
1 Episode
Suketu Mehta
1 Episode
Suzanne Farrell
1 Episode
Tom Brokaw
1 Episode
Tony Kushner
1 Episode
Van Jones
1 Episode
Wole Soyinka
1 Episode
Yanis Varoufakis
1 Episode
Zora Neale Hurston
1 Episode

Books

A Christmas Carol
5 Episodes
Uncle Tom's Cabin
1 Episode