Enoch Pratt Free Library Podcast

Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a national daily independent award-winning news program airing on over 800 TV and radio stations in North America. Goodman is the first journalist to receive the Right Livelihood Award, widely known as the 'Alternative Nobel Prize' for "developing an innovative model of truly independent grassroots political journalism that brings to millions of people the alternative voices that are often excluded by the mainstream media."

Goodman is the author of four New York Times bestsellers. Her latest book is Breaking the Sound Barrier.

Recorded On: Friday, October 22, 2010

In the vastly white, Southern world of NASCAR, black drivers are rare and black-owned teams nearly nonexistent. During his decade and a half owning and running Miller Racing, Leonard T. Miller made it his goal to win NASCAR races and create opportunities for black drivers. His new book, Racing While Black, chronicles the travails of selling marketing plans to skeptics and scraping by on the thinnest of budgets, as well as the triumphs of speeding to victory and changing the way racing fans view skin color.

Leond T. Miller spent 21 years as a commercial airline pilot. He and his father, Leonard W. Miller, own Miller Racing Group and were the first African-Americans to win a track championship in NASCAR history.

Recorded On: Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Recorded On: Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Eugene Robinson won the Pulitzer Prize in 2009 for his insightful commentary on race, President Obama, and the 2008 election. He has reported for the Washington Post for over 25 years and writes a twice-weekly column.

In his new book, Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America, Robinson argues that, over decades of desegregation, affirmative action, and immigration, the concept of "Black America" has shattered, and America's agenda for racial progress has fundamentally changed. Now instead of one "Black America," there are four distinct groups: a mainstream middle-class majority; a large abandoned minority with less hope than ever of escaping poverty; a small transcendent elite with enormous wealth and power; and newly emmergent groups of mixed-race individuals and recent black immigrants who question what "black" even means.

Recorded On: Tuesday, October 12, 2010

The stories of Ocean State roll over the reader like a wave. Family pleasures, marriage, the essential moments and mysteries of a seemingly ordinary world that break into magical territory before we can brace ourselves -- Jean McGarry puts us in life's rough seas with what the New York Times has called a "deft, comic, and devastatingly precise" hand.

From Kirkus Reviews: "McGarry's prose is fresh, her plots unpredictable, her dialogue wry."

Jean McGarry teaches in The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. Ocean State is her eighth book of fiction.

Recorded On: Tuesday, October 5, 2010

In Fierce Angels, Dr. Sheri Parks explores the mythology of the "strong black woman" in both black and mainstream cultures and the ways in which it both empowers and burdens women today. In real life and fictionalized entertainment, black women are expected to embrace the dichotomy of the selfless caregiver and unstoppable crusader while neglecting their own needs.

Dr. Parks is an award-winning teacher and public speaker. She is associate professor and co-director of graduate studies of the American Studies Department at the University of Maryland College Park.

Recorded On: Wednesday, September 29, 2010

The bestselling author of Bringing Down the House tells the story of the accidental creation of Facebook and the amazing tale of what followed. Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg were Harvard undergraduates and best friends, brilliant at math but awkward with the opposite sex. Their quest for admission to one of Harvard's elite clubs led them on a real life adventure and ruined their friendship.

A graduate of Harvard, Ben Mezrich has written 11 books, both fiction and nonfiction.

Recorded On: Monday, September 21, 2009

Recorded On: Thursday, September 23, 2010

In Half Empty, a collection of witty, wise and poignant essays, David Rakoff examines the realities of our sunny contemporary culture and finds that the best is not yet to come, adversity will triumph, justice will not be served, and your dreams won't come true. Ranging from the personal to the universal, the stories come from Rakoff's reporting and his own experiences.

David Rakoff is the author of Don't Get Too Comfortable and Fraud. He wrote for GQ, New York Times Magazine, and other publications and was a regular contributor to Public Radio International's "This American Life."

The award-winning humorist died August 9th, 2012 after battling a long illness.  His final work titled Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die; Cherish, Perish is slated to be published in 2013.

Recorded On: Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Recorded On: Tuesday, September 14, 2010