Enoch Pratt Free Library Podcast

Charles Heller's early childhood in Czechoslovakia was idyllic until, when he was three, Germany occupied his country. In his memoir, Heller narrates his family's story during those hellish years. Son of a mixed marriage, he was raised a Catholic and was unaware of his Jewish roots, even after his father escaped to join the British army and fifteen members of his family disappeared. Before being sent to a slave labor camp, Heller's mother hid him on a farm to avoid deportation. After the war, he left the horrors of the past to live the proverbial "American Dream" in the United States. Following Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution, two cataclysmic events brought Heller face-to-face with demons of his former life; he discovered and embraced his heritage which he had abandoned decades earlier.

An Annapolis resident, Charles Heller has had a varied career as an engineer, an entrepreneur, a teacher, and now as a writer.

Recorded On: Wednesday, November 28, 2012

In High Schools, Race, and America's Future, Lawrence Blum offers a lively account of a rigorous high school course on race and racism. Set in a racially, ethnically, and economically diverse high school, the book chronicles students' engagement with one another, with a rich and challenging academic curriculum, and with questions that relate powerfully to their daily lives.

Blum, an acclaimed moral philosopher whose work focuses on issues of race, reflects with candor, insight, and humor on the challenges and surprises encountered in teaching -- the unexpected turns in conversation, the refreshing directness of students' questions, the "aha" moments and the awkward ones, and the paradoxes of his own role as a white college professor teaching in a multiracial high school classroom. High Schools, Race, and America's Future provides an invaluable resource for those who want to teach students to think deeply and talk productively about race.

Lawrence Blum is the Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Education and a professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

Presented in partnership with Open Society Institute - Baltimore.

Recorded On: Tuesday, November 27, 2012

A Night of Mystery with Elizabeth George, author of Inspector Lynley Mysteries... as seen on PBS.  Part of the Pratt Presents... a fundraiser for child and teen literacy efforts.

Recorded On: Saturday, November 17, 2012

Environmentalist Eric Rutkow presents a remarkable and thoroughly researched book about how trees have shaped American history, and in turn how forests have been shaped by history,. He shows that trees were essential to the early years of the republic and indivisible from the country's rise as both an empire and a civilization. Rutkow writes about characters like Johnny Appleseed, Henry David Thoreau, and of course, George Washington and his cherry tree.

Eric Rutkow is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School. He has worked as a lawyer on environmental issues. Currently he is pursuing a doctorate in American history at Yale.

Recorded On: Thursday, November 15, 2012

Linda Pastan has written over 13 books, including the recent poetry collections The Last Uncle, Queen of a Rainy Country, and Traveling Light. She has received the Dylan Thomas award, a Pushcart Prize, the Bess Hokin Prize from Poetry, the Poetry Society of America's Alice Fay di Castagnola Award, and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. Her PM/AM: New and Selected Poems and Carnival Evening: New and Selected Poems 1968–1998 were finalists for the National Book Award, and The Imperfect Paradise was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. From 1991 to 1995 Pastan served as Poet Laureate of Maryland. She lives in Potomac, Maryland.

Myra Sklarew, former president of the artist community Yaddo and professor emerita of literature at American University, is the author of three chapbooks and seven collections of poetry, including Harmless, Lithuania: New & Selected Poems, The Witness Trees, and the forthcoming chapbook, If You Want to Live Forever. Awards include the PEN Syndicated Fiction Award and the National Jewish Book Council Award in Poetry. Her poetry has been recorded for the Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature, Library of Congress.

Read poems by Linda Pastan here and here.

Read poems by Myra Sklarew here.

Pastan photo credit: Margaretta K. Mitchell. Sklarew photo credit: Danielle Sklarew.

Recorded On: Wednesday, November 14, 2012

For more than two centuries, Americans have debated the concept of freedom of religion. Did the Founding Fathers intend to create a Christian nation, or a government based on total exclusion of religion in the public sphere?

In Endowed by Our Creator, Michael Meyerson shows that the framers of the Constitution understood that the American government should not acknowledge religion in a way that favors any particular creed or denomination. Nevertheless, the framers believed that religion could instill virtue and help to unify a diverse nation. Through their writings and their decisions, the framers affirmed that respect for religious differences is a fundamental American value. Now it is for us, Meyerson concludes, to determine whether religion will be used to alienate and divide or to inspire and unify our religiously diverse nation.

Michael I. Meyerson is Wilson H. Elkins Professor of Law and Piper & Marbury Faculty Fellow, University of Baltimore School of Law. He is the author of Liberty's Blueprint, a history of the writing of of the Federalist Papers.

Recorded On: Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Dr. Robert A. Hill is professor emeritus of history at UCLA and director of the Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers Project. He is internationally recognized as a leading authority on the life of Garvey and the history of the Garvey movement.

Recorded On: Thursday, November 1, 2012

Rob Kasper, former Baltimore Sun reporter and columnist, has produced a hoppy, refreshing account of the history of brewing in Baltimore, from ancient craft brewers in the 18th century, through the beer wars of the Victorian era, to mass production in the 20th century, then finally back to the craft brewers of today. Kasper uses interviews, vintage images, and a few recipes to pop the cap on Charm City's brewing history.

While at the Sun, Rob Kasper wrote often about the area's food and drink. The Association of Food Journalists cited his 2008 food columns as among the best in American and Canadian newspapers. He has also won two National Headliner Awards.

Recorded On: Thursday, October 25, 2012

Ellen Cassedy's longing to recover the Yiddish she'd lost with her mother's death led her to Lithuania, once the "Jerusalem of the North." What began as a personal journey broadened into a larger exploration of how the people of this country, Jews and non-Jews alike, are confronting their past in order to move forward into the future.

Ellen Cassedy has spent 10 years studying the world of the Lithuanian Holocaust. Her translations and articles have appeared in Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal, Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, Forward, and Hadassah.

Part of the Schapiro Lecture Series.

Recorded On: Wednesday, October 24, 2012

The winners of the Baltimore City Senior Citizens Poetry Contest 2012, sponsored by the Baltimore City Department of Recreation and Parks, are: Barbara Morrison, first place; Helen Szymkowiak, second place; Kate Richardson, third place; and Mary Dozier, honorable mention. They will read from their winning entries at this Free Fall Baltimore event.

Carla Dupree, one of the contest judges, will present a special tribute to her friend Lucille Clifton, former Maryland poet laureate.

Recorded On: Saturday, October 20, 2012