Enoch Pratt Free Library Podcast

Maureen Corrigan, book critic for NPR's "Fresh Air" and Gatsby lover extraordinaire, offers a fresh perspective on what makes Gatsby great: its literary achievements, its debt to hard-boiled crime fiction, and its commentaries on themes of race, class, and gender.

Corrigan serves as critic-in-residence at Georgetown University. She is the author of Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading.

Recorded On: Thursday, September 18, 2014

When Eileen Tumulty, raised by her Irish immigrant parents in Queens, meets Ed Leary, a scientist, she thinks she's found the perfect partner to deliver her to the cosmopolitan world she longs to inhabit. After they marry, Eileen quickly discovers that Ed doesn't aspire to the same American Dream. Through the Learys, novelist Matthew Thomas charts the story of the American Century: the promise of domestic bliss and economic prosperity that captured hearts and minds after WWII.

A graduate of the University of Chicago, Matthew Thomas has an M.A. from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and an MFA from the University of California, Irvine. We Are Not Ourselves is his first novel.

Recorded On: Monday, September 22, 2014

In Notes from a Colored Girl, Karsonya Wise Whitehad examines the life and experiences ofEmilie Frances Davis, a freeborn twenty-one-year-old mulatto woman, through a close reading of three pocket diaries she kept from 1863 to 1865. Whitehead explores Davis' worldviews and politics, her perceptions of both public and private events, her personal relationships, and her place in Philadelphia's free black community in the 19th century.

Karsonya (Kaye) Wise Whitehead is an assistant professor of Communication and African and African American Studies in the Department of Communication at Loyola University Maryland and a three-time New York Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker.

Recorded On: Wednesday, September 17, 2014

On July 12, 1862, Abraham Lincoln spoke for the first time of his intention to free the slaves; on January 1, 1863, he signed the Emancipation Proclamation. These six months were perhaps the most tumultuous of Lincoln's presidency during which he fought with his generals, disappointed his cabinet, and sank into painful bouts of depression. In Lincoln's Gamble, Todd Brewster provides an authoritative and riveting account of this critical period as Lincoln searches for the right moment to enact his proclamation and turn the tide of the war.

Todd Brewster has served as Don E. Ackerman Director of Oral History at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, He worked as an editor for Time and Life and as senior producer for ABC News. He is the coauthor with the late Peter Jennings of the bestselling books The Century and In Search of America.

Recorded On: Tuesday, September 16, 2014

As parents, Michele Stephenson and Joe Brewster, M.D., recognized that all black boys must confront and surmount the "achievement gap," regardless of how wealthy or poor their parents are. To understand why this occurred, they filmed their son, Idris, as he struggled through high school and produced an award-winning documentary, "American Promise." In their book, Promises Kept, they discuss the reasons for the gap; practical, innovative solutions to close it; and a call to action to eliminate it.

A 10 minute video from the New York Times, An Education in Equality, was shown during the presentation.

Talking About Race is presented in partnership with Open Society Institute-Baltimore.

Recorded On: Monday, September 15, 2014