Library Talks

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 15 thousand miles, they visited everywhere from amusement parks to Amazon warehouses. In an interview with host Aidan Flax-Clark, Bruder shares her surprising findings, plus more van puns! 

Direct download: 2018.06.26_Bruder_v2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

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 their work.

Direct download: 2018.06.19_McCraney_Love_v2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

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.

Direct download: 2018.06.12_Saunders_v2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

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 From annual reports of the Women's Prison Association to an unpublished autobiography of a survivor of the NYC draft riots, Horn walks us through some of her findings from the NYPL archives used to write this chilling story, and how it sheds light on the same issues of today.

Direct download: Stacy_Horn_v2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

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