Library Talks

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.

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Direct download: 2018.07.31_Collins_v1.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

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. 

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Direct download: 2018.07.24_World_in_Words.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

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. 

Direct download: 2018.07.17_Roxane_Gay_Aja_Monet_v2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

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 relationships between writing and political activism, plus Roy reads from "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness."

Direct download: 2018.07.17_Roy_Nguyen_v2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

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 of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy," he argues that non-democratic surges are not the root causes of our problems but rather symptoms. Peter Beinart has written of his concern for the current presidential administration that is "evidence of a global authoritarian turn, a shedding of checks and balances."

Direct download: 2018.07.03_Democracy_v2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

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