Enoch Pratt Free Library Podcast

The Prince of Los Cocuyos is a poignant, funny, and inspiring memoir from Richard Blanco, the first Latino, and openly gay, poet to read at a presidential inauguration. In it he explores his coming-of-age as the child of Cuban immigrants and his attempts to understand his place in America while grappling with his burgeoning artistic and sexual identities.

Richard Blanco has received numerous awards and honors, including an honorary doctorate from Macalester College and being named a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow. His award-winning books include City of a Hundred Fires, Directions to the Beach of the Dead, and Looking for the Gulf Motel.

Recorded On: Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Born in Leningrad in 1972, Gary Shteyngart came to the U.S. seven years later. His loving but mismatched parents dreamed that he would become a lawyer or Wall Street player, something their curious, diminutive, distracted son was not cut out to do. Shteyngart shares his American immigrant experience with self-deprecating humor and moving insights in Little Failure.

Gary Shteyngart is the award-winning author of Absurdistan (selected as one of the 10 best books of the year by the New York Times Book Review and Time) and The Russian Debutante's Handbook, winner of the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction and the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction.

Recorded On: Friday, October 24, 2014

Donald Miller's new book, Supreme City, is the story of Manhattan's growth and transformation in the 1920s and the brilliant people behind it. Chronicling the era immortalized by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Miller shows how Midtown Manhattan was transformed into the entertainment and communications center of New York and a business district that rivaled Wall Street.

Donald Miller is the bestselling author of nine books, the John Henry MacCracken Professor of History at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, and one of the most respected authorities on World War II and U.S. history. His book on Chicago, City of the Century, was the basis for an award-winning PBS series of the same name, and another PBS documentary, Victory in the Pacfic, was based in part on his book D-Days in the Pacific. HBO is currently making his book Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany into a miniseries produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks.

Recorded On: Wednesday, October 22, 2014

In the tradition of Elizabeth George, Louise Penny, and P. D. James, New York Times bestselling author Deborah Crombie delivers a powerful tale of intrigue, betrayal, and lies that will plunge married London detectives Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James into the unspeakable darkness that lies at the heart of murder.

Deborah Crombie's first Kincaid/James novel, A Share in Death, received Agatha and Macavity nominations for Best First Novel of 1993. Her fifth novel, Dreaming of the Bones, was a New York Times Notable Book for 1997 and won the Macavity award for Best Novel.

Local mystery author Marcia Talley will moderate the conversation with Deborah Crombie.

Recorded On: Monday, October 20, 2014

Recorded On: Thursday, October 16, 2014