Enoch Pratt Free Library Podcast

Byron Pitts talks about his new book, Step Out on Nothing: How Family and Faith Helped Me Conquer Life's Challenges.

The speaker overcame a tough childhood and a debilitating stutter through faith and a few key people who "stepped out on nothing" to make a diffrence in his life. Pitts is chief national correspondent for CBS News and a contributing correspondent for 60 Minutes. He has received national and regional Emmy Awards and was named NABJ Journalist of the Year in 2002 for his coverage of the 9/11 attacks. From his challenged youth in Baltimore to his award-winning work as a journalist, Pitts' story will resonate with those who struggle with any sort of disability.

Recorded On: Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Journalist Gwen Ifill of Washington Week and The News Hour with Jim Lehrer and author of The Breakthrough: Politics & Race in the Age of Obama, and Sherrilyn A. Ifill, civil rights lawyer and law professor at the University of Maryland School of Law and author of On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-first Century, will discuss this pivotal moment in American history -- what has brought us to this moment, why our history is important, and how we can make this a new beginning for equity and social justice.

Recorded On: Thursday, June 4, 2009

Leonard Pitts reads from his new novel, Before I Forget.

In this novel from Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts, Mo Johnson, a faded soul star of the '70s with early-onset Alzheimer's, takes his 19-year-old son on a cross-country road trip to visit his estranged father. This in-depth anatomy of black fatherhood is a brilliantly plotted multigenerational road story spanning rural Mississippi in the '40s, South Central L.A. in the '50s, the '70s soul music scene, and present-day L.A., Vegas, and Baltimore.

Leonard Pitts writes for the Miami Herald. He is the author of Becoming Dad: Black Men and the Journey to Fatherhood.

Recorded On: Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Recorded On: Friday, November 14, 2008

Robert Egger is the Founder and President of the DC Central Kitchen, where unemployed men and women learn marketable culinary skills while foods donated by restaurants, hotels and caterers are converted into balanced meals. Since opening in 1989, the Kitchen has distributed over 20 million meals and helped over 700 men and women gain full-time employment. While Robert still maintains a day to day presence at the Kitchen, he devotes much of his time nationally, as the Director of the V3 Campaign (www.v3campaign.org), which is working to get the voice, value and votes of the nonprofit sector recognized in every election in America.

Recorded On: Wednesday, May 6, 2009

What does it mean for your organization?

Learn about the stimulus/recovery act that has been signed into law and about the many different funding flows that are related to it.  This session will give you a basic understanding of how your organization can utilize the funding coming from the stimulus package in order to best serve your customers.

Neil Bergsman from the Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations speaks about the state's budget and how nonprofits will be affected. Representatives from Maryland Governor's Grants Office, Volunteer Maryland, Department of Labor Licensing and Regulation, Department of Housing and Community Development, Governor's Office of Crime Control and Prevention, and the Maryland Energy Administration were also present to speak about funding through their agencies.

Download the Presentation Slides.

Recorded On: Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Michael Pollan talks about his most recent book, In Defense of Food.

Michael Pollan's last book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, launched a national conversation about the American way of eating. Now In Defense of Food shows us how to change it, one meal at a time.

Pollan proposes a new answer to the question of what we should eat that comes down to seven simple but liberating words: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." He shows us how we can start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives, enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy, and bring pleasure back to eating.

Recorded On: Saturday, May 16, 2009

Steve Luxenberg talks about his new book, Annie's Ghosts: A Journey Into a Family Secret.

Every family has a secret. Washington Post senior editor Steve Luxenberg discovered that his late mother, who had always claimed to be an only child, erased nearly every trace of a sister named Annie who lived in the family home until she was committed to a mental hospital at the age of 21. In his new book, Annie's Ghosts, he explores the personal motives and cultural forces that influenced his mother's decision to create and harbor the secret.

Steve Luxenberg has worked at the Washington Post for more than 20 years. Raised in Detroit, the primary setting for Annie's Ghosts, he now lives in Baltimore.

Recorded On: Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Chuck Palahniuk's 10th novel, Pygmy, is a cultural satire featuring a gang of adolescent terrorists trained by an unspecified totalitarian state to infiltrate America. Posing as foreign exchange students, Pygmy and his cohorts are planning something big, something truly awful, that will bring the country to its knees.

Palahniuk's bestselling books include The Fight Club, Snuff, and Choke. Aaron Henkin of WYPR will moderate the conversation with Chuck Palahniuk.

Recorded On: Thursday, May 7, 2009

Jill Jonnes talks about her new book, Eiffel's Tower: And the World's Fair Where Buffalo Bill Beguiled Paris, the Artists Quarreled, and Thomas Edison Became a Count.

Built in 1889 as the centerpiece of the World's Fair, the Eiffel Tower has been an iconic image of modern times, as much a beacon of technological progress as an enduring symbol of Paris and French culture. But as engineer Gustave Eiffel built the now-famous landmark, he stirred up a storm of vitriol from Parisian tastemakers, lawsuits, and predictions of certain structural calamity.  

Historian Jill Jonnes presents a compelling account of the tower's creation and Belle Epoque France: Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley transfixed Parisian audiences in sold-out shows at the tower's opening, Edison took stock of European technology, and Gaugin, van Gogh and Whistler mingled under the gaze of Gustave Eiffel and his tower.

Jill Jonnes is the author of Conquering Gotham, Empires of Light, and South Bronx Rising. She was named a National Endowmennt for the Humanities scholar and has received several grants from the Ford Foundation.

Recorded On: Tuesday, May 5, 2009