Library Talks (general)

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.

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

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 Library with John Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary magazine.

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

Envisioning the archives of the future with the Chicago-based artist, who was joined by Nettrice Gaskins, director of the STEAM Lab at the Boston Arts Academy, and Greg Carr, a professor at Howard University.


Jones may be known as a liberal activist, but his new book, "Beyond the Messy Truth," is a call to action for all Americans seeking a way out of our ideological and cultural divisions. He spoke about it at the Library with CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin.

Direct download: Van_Jones___You_have_to_keep_open_the_possibility_for_redemption._.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

Ulysses S. Grant has for decades routinely listed as one of our worst presidents. Ron Chernow says the legacy of the Civil War hero and 18th president is deeply misunderstood, making the case in both his latest book and in this conversation with Richard Stengel, former managing editor of TIME magazine.<\P>

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

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

Direct download: Nasty_Women.mp3
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Twenty years in the making, Greater Gotham is Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Mike Wallace's follow-up to his 1999 Gotham. He spoke about the New York City history, which covers 1898 to 1918, with the New Yorker's Jelani Cobb.

Direct download: Mike_Wallace_Greater_Gotham.mp3
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The Booker Prize–winning novelist discusses his twelfth, and most recent, novel, The Golden House.

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

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

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

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

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