Library Talks
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.
Episodes
Hillary Rodham Clinton sits down with author Jennifer Weiner to discuss books, politics, and much more.
Journalist and the author Sasha Issenberg sits down with the New York Times’ senior political correspondent Maggie Haberman to discuss his latest book, The Lie Detectives.
The Accidental Icon Lyn Slater, a fashion and culture influencer, talks about her new book, How to Be Old, and reflects on life in her 60s. She speaks with Chloé Cooper Jones, author of the bestselling memoir Easy Beauty.
Author and journalist Benjamin Balint sits down with Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Joshua Cohen to discuss Balint’s latest book Bruno Schulz, a fresh portrait of the Polish-Jewish writer and artist that draws on extensive new reporting and archival research.
The author of Sudden Death returns with a new novel that reimagines the destinies of Tenochtitlan.
Historian and author Heather Cox Richardson sits down with Andrew Delbanco to discuss her most recent book, Democracy Awakening.
The iconic feminist poet Judy Grahn re-explores the traditions of lesbian poetry from Sappho to Pat Parker and beyond.
Prize-winning author Vauhini Vara sits down with Leslie Jamison to discuss her first collection of short stories, This Is Salvaged.
Authors Ayana Mathis, author of The Unsettled, and Justin Torres, author of Blackouts, speak about their award-winning novels.
In this episode of Library Talks, author Kliph Nesteroff sits down with comedian Marc Maron to discuss his new book, Outrageous, which chronicles the controversies of American show business and the ongoing attempts to change what we watch, read, and hear.
Politicians and activists discuss the continuing push to revive the much-contested Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).
Mary Beard returns to the Library to talk with Tim Gunn about her new book, Emperor of Rome, her long-awaited follow up to the international bestseller SPQR.
In this episode of Library Talks, C Pam Zhang sits down with Padma Lakshmi to discuss her latest novel Land of Milk and Honey, which tells the story of climate disaster and a young chef discovering pleasure at the end of the world.
Zhang is the winner of the Academy of Arts and Letters Rosenthal Award and the Asian/Pacific Award for Literature, a Booker Prize nominee, and a finalist for numerous other prizes, including the the PEN/...
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Matthew Desmond’s latest book, Poverty, by America, reimagines the American debate on poverty, making an original and ambitious argument about why it persists here: because too many of us benefit from it.
In this episode of Library Talks, Desmond speaks with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Andrea Elliot to discuss his new ways of thinking around this morally urgent, uniquely American problem—and imag...
Acclaimed scholar and writer Alondra Nelson leads a discussion on the transnational impacts of artificial intelligence and the need for global collaboration. Speakers include Karen Kornbluh, Maria Ressa, Olatunbosun Tijani, Tim Wu
The new novel by award-winning author Luis Alberto Urrea, Good Night, Irene, tells an overlooked story of women’s heroism in World War II, inspired by the experiences of his own mother. Urrea speaks about his “moving and graceful tribute to heroic women” that asks whether a friendship forged on the front lines of war defines a life forever.
Sasha Velour is an iconic queen. Turns out she’s also a historian! In this episode of Library Talks, Velour sits down with drag historian Joe E. Jeffreys to discuss her new book, The Big Reveal: An Illustrated Manifesto of Drag, a treasure trove of revelations about radical queer expressions throughout time.
The revered entertainer and winner of RuPaul's Drag Race weaves together gender theory, politics, and memoir to tell the stor...
Welcome back!
The Library presents conversations with an incredible array of authors, performers, activists, and thinkers, and our Library Talks podcast brings some of those conversations to you. Today we are relaunching the show with Sherrilyn Iffill delivering the annual Robert B. Silvers Lecture, titled How America Ends and Begins Again.
Within this dangerous period of accelerated democratic unraveling, Sherrilyn Ifill argues th...
The Stonewall Riots were a flash point in LGBTQ history. After the riots that took place at the Stonewall Inn in June 1969, the LGBTQ civil rights movement went from handfuls of pioneering activists to a national movement mobilizing thousands.
On this special episode we’ll hear what happened over the nights of the riots through archival audio of iconic transgender rights activists Sylvia Rivera, Mars...
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