Enoch Pratt Free Library Podcast

The DaVinci Code for the Lincoln assassination, David O. Stewart's debut novel explores the dark forces behind the John Wilkes Booth conspiracy in an attempt to solve one of the most intriguing puzzles in American history. Blending real and historical characters, The Lincoln Deception is a superbly-researched and gripping mystery. Stewart is the author of three award-winning nonfiction books of American history: American Emperor, Impeached and The Summer of 1787.

Recorded On: Tuesday, September 10, 2013

The 2013 Mencken Memorial Lecture - "An Anatomy of Addiction: Sigmund Freud, William Halsted and the Miracle Drug Cocaine (with a guest appearance by H. L. Mencken," presented by Dr. Howard Markel.

Dr. Markel is the George E. Wantz Distinguished Professor of the History of Medicine and Director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan.He is also a professor of psychiatry, public health, history and pediatrics. He has been a regular contributor for National Public Radio's Science Friday. Dr. Markel's most recent book, An Anatomy of Addiction, was a New York Times bestseller. He is the author of numerous books including The H. L. Mencken Baby Book.

Recorded On: Saturday, September 7, 2013

Piotr Gwiazda has published two books of poetry, Messages (2012) and Gagarin Street (2005), as well as a critical study, James Merrill and W.H. Auden: Homosexuality and Poetic Influence (2007). His translation of Polish poet Grzegorz Wróblewski’s book of prose poems, Kopenhaga, is forthcoming from Zephyr Press. He was Writer in Residence at the James Merrill House in Stonington in the fall of 2008. He teaches at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Joseph Ross is the author of two poetry collections: Meeting Bone Man (2012) and Gospel of Dust (2013). His poems appear in many anthologies and literary journals including Poet Lore, Tidal Basin Review, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and Drumvoices Revue. He has received three Pushcart Prize nominations and is the winner of the 2012 Pratt Library / Little Patuxent Review Poetry Contest. He teaches English at Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C., and writes regularly at www.JosephRoss.net.

Read poems by Piotr Gwiazda here, here, and here.
Read poems by Joseph Ross here and here.

Recorded On: Wednesday, August 7, 2013

As teenagers in a Lagos secondary school, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love. Their Nigeria is under military dictatorship, and people are fleeing the country if they can. Ifemelu goes to America to study. She suffers defeats and triumphs, finds and loses relationships and friendships, all the while feeling the weight of something she never thought of back home: race. Obinze had hoped to join her, but post-9/11 America will not let him in and he plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London.

Fifteen years later Obinze is a wealthy man in a newly democratic Nigeria, while Ifemelu has achieved success as a writer of an eye-opening blog about race in America. When Ifemelu returns to Nigeria and reunites with Obinze, they face the toughest decisions of their lives.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is the author of the story collection The Thing Around Your Neck and two novels, Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun, which won the Orange Prize and was a National Book Critics Circle finalist. She earned a master's degree in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University and an M.A. in African Studies from Yale University. A recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, she divides her time between the United States and Nigeria.

Presented in partnership with the Maryland Humanities Council.

Recorded On: Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Writing for Jet and Ebony for 53 years, longer than any other journalist, Washington bureau chief Simeon Booker was on the front lines of virtually every major event of the civil r4ights movement. In Shocking the Conscience, Booker tracks the freedom struggle not from the usual ignition points but starts with a massive voting rights rally in Mound Bayou, Mississippi in 1955. He vowed that lynchings would not be ignored beyond the black press, and his coverage of Emmett Till's death galvanized the movement. This is the story of the century that changed everything about journalism, politics, and more in America, as only the dean of the black press could tell it.

Simeon Booker was the first full-time African American reporter for the Washington Post. "The dean of black journalists," he retired after  53 years at Jet and Ebony in 2007 at the age of 88. Booker was inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame in 2013.

Shocking the Conscience was written with Carol McCabe Booker.

Recorded On: Wednesday, July 24, 2013