Free Library Podcast

The Author Events Series presents Jesse Wegman | The Lost Founder

In Conversation with Patrick Spero, Ph.D

New York Times journalist Jesse Wegman tells the story of James Wilson, a Founding Father whose bold vision shaped American democracy but whose legacy was lost to scandal.

As a young lawyer, James Wilson made a celebrated case for American independence in an essay that inspired the famous words ''We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'' He wrote the first draft of the Constitution and, along with the more famous James Madison, played perhaps the essential role in its ultimate creation.

Wilson believed that the people are the ultimate source of all power. He argued successfully for a strong central government and a powerful presidency, and fought unsuccessfully for a direct vote for the president and the Senate. Appointed as a justice to the first Supreme Court, he was later brought down by reckless land speculation and died of malaria in the back room of a North Carolina tavern while hiding from his creditors.

 

Instead of being remembered as one of the nation's great political thinkers, Wilson was virtually written out of history. But in The Lost Founder, Wegman brings to life the most prescient of the earliest patriots and makes a convincing argument that scandal should not diminish the life and impact of a brilliant, complicated man whose vision for his country could not be more relevant today. 

Jesse Wegman is a Senior Fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, where he writes about Supreme Court reform and constitutional amendments. From 2013 to 2025, he was a member of the New York Times editorial board, covering law and politics, the Supreme Court, democracy, and electoral reforms. His first book, Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College, was published in 2020. 

Patrick Spero, Ph.D., is the Chief Executive Officer of the American Philosophical Society and a scholar of early American history. Dr. Spero is the author of four books on the era of the American Revolution. They are Frontier Country: The Politics of War in Early Pennsylvania (2016), which was named a staff pick by the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2017, Frontier Rebels: The Fight for Independence in the American West, 1765-1776 (2018), winner of the Philadelphia Athenaeum's Literary Award and a finalist for the Journal of the American Revolution's best book of the year, The Scientist Turned Spy: Andre Michaux, Thomas Jefferson, and the Kentucky Conspiracy of 1793 (2024), and The Other Presidency: Thomas Jefferson and the American Philosophical Society (2024). 

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians.

Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night!

All tickets are non-refundable.

ADA-accessible seating is available at our events. If you require wheelchair seating or any other accessibility accommodations, please contact us in advance at [email protected]. (recorded 11/4/2026)

The Author Events Series presents Angela Nissel | Good Grief, Pass The Bread Mom is Dead

In Conversation with Tayyib Smith

Television writer, producer, and bestselling author of the acclaimed The Broke Diaries and Mixed charts her unexpected role as her terminally ill mother's caretaker in this funny, moving, and unforgettable memoir.

Angela Nissel always wanted her mother's approval. But two defining events created a barrier between them: renouncing Christianity and being admitted to a psychiatric ward- events that mirrored failed parenting to her mother.

Beating her depression, Angela moved to Los Angeles where she quickly achieved success as a television writer but soon after found herself dead broke and enduring a painful divorce. It was at this low point that she received heartbreaking news: her mother had cancer. Angela moves her mother to Los Angeles where she attempts to hide foreclosure notices and her live-in boyfriend while also trying to save her mother's life with everything from crystals to celebrity doctors. Still, her mother succumbs to her cancer.

In this poignant and hilarious memoir, Angela chronicles her odyssey as she tries to remain ''strong'' like her mother in the face of grief. Delightfully self-deprecating, unsparing in its honesty, yet filled with wacky humor and joy, Good Grief, Pass the Bread, Mom is Dead, is an unforgettable portrait of love, yearning, loss, and resilience that reveals the indelible power of introspection to save our lives.

Angela Nissel is author of the national bestselling comedic memoirs The Broke Diaries and Mixed, and a prolific television producer and writer whose credits include The Other Black Girl, Mixed-ish and Scrubs. Prior to her television career, she had illustrious careers as a temp for the IRS, a stripper, and a ''sleep apnea auditor'' watching people snore overnight in a local hospital. She lives in Los Angeles and enjoys beating people half her age in video games.  

Tayyib Smith is a dynamic entrepreneur working at the intersections of art, real estate, and economic vitality. As founding partner of The Growth Collective³, he focuses on breaking down systemic barriers in communities of color by providing essential advocacy, resources and capital. In real estate, his leadership at Smith & Roller Holdings promotes inclusive, holistic urban development. Through projects like Legacy Reclaimed - the 7th Ward Tribute and A Dream Deferred PHL, Smith highlights the power of cultural heritage in revitalizing neighborhoods. His board roles with  organizations such as Kensington Corridor Trust,  Prizm Art Fair, Black Star Projects  further demonstrate his commitment to fostering economic vitality through the arts.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians.

Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night!

All tickets are non-refundable.

ADA-accessible seating is available at our events. If you require wheelchair seating or any other accessibility accommodations, please contact us in advance at [email protected]. (recorded 11/3/2026)

The Author Events Series presents Anthony Roth Costanzo | Countertenor

In Conversation with Cherri Gregg

The sound of a countertenor-often described as ethereal and otherworldly-is both familiar and foreign. It is a high voice close to what we might expect from a female opera singer. Though we recognize the range from contemporary pop music and cartoons, from Michael Jackson to Mickey Mouse, experiencing its penetrating power unamplified in an opera house can be surprising, elemental, and profoundly moving.

In Countertenor, Anthony Roth Costanzo, one of the world's leading opera singers, takes us on a journey through his life, his education in art, and the history of his extraordinary voice type. Countertenors, he tells us, have helped define contemporary opera for more than half a century, having inherited a repertoire originally written for castrated men in the baroque period. Part oddity, part divinity, the castrati were surgically altered before puberty. They are key to understanding the development of opera as a form, from its very origins to its expansion in the public sphere. The striking beauty and sheer otherness of the high male voice provide fertile ground for creative invention and innovation, evocatively challenging conventional notions of gender, sexuality, and identity.

With wit, humor, and an irrepressible, irresistible energy, Anthony Roth Costanzo offers fascinating insights into the contours of the countertenor and his own extraordinary artistic career as both an opera singer and a savvy producer and curator. The result is a lively and stirring account of an art form in flux, in constant reinvention, of the excitement of new, boundary-pushing work, and of the development and triumph of a remarkable, uninhibited voice. 

The Grammy Award–winning countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo began performing professionally at the age of eleven and has since appeared in operas, concerts, recitals, and films and on Broadway. He has performed at many of the world's leading opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera and the Opéra national de Paris, and at a wide variety of venues, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Versailles, the Hollywood Bowl, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In June 2024 he began his tenure as general director and president of Opera Philadelphia and is also the artistic director of SongStudio at Carnegie Hall. He earned his master's degree and an honorary doctorate from the Manhattan School of Music and his bachelor's degree from Princeton University. 

Cherri Gregg is co-host of WHYY's flagship daily radio news show Studio 2. She is also the executive producer and creator of the Emmy Award winning Good Souls Project, WHYY's effort to highlight individuals serving as role models for compassion, generosity and service. 

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians.

Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night!

All tickets are non-refundable.

ADA-accessible seating is available at our events. If you require wheelchair seating or any other accessibility accommodations, please contact us in advance at [email protected]. (recorded 10/27/2026)

The Author Events Series presents Roz Chast | The Two Saddest Kitchens: A Comics Conversation

In Conversation with Jason Adam Katzenstein

#1 New York Times bestselling, award-winning author Roz Chast teams up with her fellow New Yorker cartoonist Jason Adam Katzenstein to rip the Tupperware lid off what's really going on in their kitchens.

''I don't think I've ever laughed so hard.'' – Ruth Reichl

The kitchen is the ''heart of the home,'' or at least it's supposed to be. But wait! What's that lurking under the sink? Behind the cabinets? In the back of the refrigerator?! When celebrated New Yorker cartoonists Roz Chast and Jason Adam Katzenstein confessed to each other that their kitchens were far from Martha Stewart perfect, they knew they couldn't be the only ones cracking under the pressure of their pressure cookers.

In The Two Saddest Kitchens, Roz and Jason combine their hilarious cartoon sensibilities to take (chicken) stock of everything from tragic pantries to the secret double life of Mr. Clean. Let Roz and Jason guide you through their divine kitchen comedy as they ponder the fancy utensils that will never be used, the recipes that will never be followed, and the dream kitchens that exist only on the astral plane, which is maybe for the best. 

ROZ CHAST‘s cartoons began appearing in the New Yorker in 1978. She is the author of the graphic memoirs Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, a #1 New York Times bestseller (100 weeks), a National Book Critics Circle Award and Kirkus Prize winner and finalist for the National Book Award; national bestseller I Must Be Dreaming; Going Into Town (Winner of the New York City Book Award); What I Hate: From A to Z; and her cartoon collections The Party, After You Left and Theories of Everything, among others. She was awarded the Harvey Hall of Fame Award, and in 2024 was awarded the National Humanities Medal. She lives in Connecticut and New York.

JASON ADAM KATZENSTEIN is a cartoonist and comedy writer whose work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, and MAD Magazine. He is the author and illustrator of the graphic memoir Everything Is an Emergency. He lives in New York.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians.

All tickets are non-refundable.

  (recorded 10/15/2026)

The Author Events Series presents Roz Chast | The Two Saddest Kitchens: A Comics Conversation

In Conversation with Jason Adam Katzenstein

#1 New York Times bestselling, award-winning author Roz Chast teams up with her fellow New Yorker cartoonist Jason Adam Katzenstein to rip the Tupperware lid off what's really going on in their kitchens.

''I don't think I've ever laughed so hard.'' – Ruth Reichl

The kitchen is the ''heart of the home,'' or at least it's supposed to be. But wait! What's that lurking under the sink? Behind the cabinets? In the back of the refrigerator?! When celebrated New Yorker cartoonists Roz Chast and Jason Adam Katzenstein confessed to each other that their kitchens were far from Martha Stewart perfect, they knew they couldn't be the only ones cracking under the pressure of their pressure cookers.

In The Two Saddest Kitchens, Roz and Jason combine their hilarious cartoon sensibilities to take (chicken) stock of everything from tragic pantries to the secret double life of Mr. Clean. Let Roz and Jason guide you through their divine kitchen comedy as they ponder the fancy utensils that will never be used, the recipes that will never be followed, and the dream kitchens that exist only on the astral plane, which is maybe for the best. 

ROZ CHAST‘s cartoons began appearing in the New Yorker in 1978. She is the author of the graphic memoirs Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, a #1 New York Times bestseller (100 weeks), a National Book Critics Circle Award and Kirkus Prize winner and finalist for the National Book Award; national bestseller I Must Be Dreaming; Going Into Town (Winner of the New York City Book Award); What I Hate: From A to Z; and her cartoon collections The Party, After You Left and Theories of Everything, among others. She was awarded the Harvey Hall of Fame Award, and in 2024 was awarded the National Humanities Medal. She lives in Connecticut and New York.

JASON ADAM KATZENSTEIN is a cartoonist and comedy writer whose work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, and MAD Magazine. He is the author and illustrator of the graphic memoir Everything Is an Emergency. He lives in New York.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians.

All tickets are non-refundable.

  (recorded 10/15/2026)

The Author Events Series presents Yiyun Li | Music Against the Night: A Novel

In Conversation with Weike Wang

In Dublin, as the eighteenth century nears its end, a young musical virtuoso comes of age. John Field, an awkward and sensitive child, is preternaturally gifted, and his family has visions of him becoming the next Mozart. His talent takes him far-to England, France, and then Russia, where he becomes a famous pianist and composes dreamy, languorous melodies that enchant the night air. John calls them nocturnes, but the prodigy who immortalizes them is Chopin.

Oceans away in Pondicherry, in French India, Adelaide Percheron has a startling rise of her own. Orphaned at a young age, she is raised by her imperious, enterprising grandmother. Her cousins give her the name Percherette, an impish reminder that despite their shared relations, Adelaide is not one of the crowd, owing to her parents' differing ancestry. Without a connection to aristocracy or the luxury of riches, only marriage seems to offer prosperity-until she sets her sights on a pianoforte. Driven by her secret love of music and a desire to see the world, Percherette engineers her exodus, escaping to Paris and later to Moscow, as Napoleon's army sets out to conquer the continent.

Drawing inspiration from the past but finding entirely new forms, Music Against the Night comes to life with the sweep and dimension of the Romantic era and a deep understanding of the demands of living and of art. 

Yiyun Li is the author of several works of fiction-Wednesday's Child; The Book of Goose; Must I Go; Where Reasons End; Kinder Than Solitude; Gold Boy, Emerald Girl; The Vagrants; and A Thousand Years of Good Prayers-and the memoirs Things in Nature Merely Grow and Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life. She is the recipient of many awards, including the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Memoir or Autobiography, a PEN/Faulkner Award, a PEN/Malamud Award, a PEN/Hemingway Award, a PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, a MacArthur Fellowship, and a Windham–Campbell Prize. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, A Public Space, The Best American Short Stories, and The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, among other publications. She teaches at Princeton University and lives in Princeton, New Jersey. 

Weike Wang is the author of 4 novels, the most forthcoming IRIS (Riverhead 2027).  She is the recipient of a Pen Hemingway, a Whiting award and a National Book Foundation 5 under 35.  Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper's Magazine, Best American Short Stories and has won two O. Henry Prizes. She earned her MFA from Boston University and her other degrees from Harvard. She currently lives in New York City and has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, Barnard College and Boston University. Weike is not on social media. 

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians.

Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night!

All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 10/20/2026)

The Author Events Series presents Malcolm Gladwell | The American Way of Killing: The Invention of an Epidemic

In Conversation with Tamala Edwards

Sheldon and Jill Bonovitz Lecture

SOLD OUT

Malcolm Gladwell returns with his most urgent book yet: a provocative investigation of America's epidemic of gun violence.

The United States has far more homicides than any of its peers around the world. Why?

In this groundbreaking book, Malcolm Gladwell explores the American "peculiarity"--how the world's wealthiest country came to suffer from a problem typically only seen in the world's poorest countries.

Drawing on original interviews, archival and social science research, and his trademark insight, Gladwell approaches the American paradox through a series of stories. What can we learn from the miracle of a young gunshot victim in Washington, D.C.? How have the legal troubles of a seventeenth-century English knight influenced American attempts at gun control? Why would a European police chief be baffled by the graduation ceremony at any American police academy?

In a sweeping narrative, Gladwell travels from a shooting range in North Carolina, to the South Side of Chicago, to an old plantation house in Alabama, painting a picture of a country that does not understand its most pressing social problem, and as result, does not understand how to fix it.

Malcolm Gladwell is the author of eight New York Times bestsellers: The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, What the Dog Saw, David and Goliath, Talking to Strangers, The Bomber Mafia, and Revenge of the Tipping Point. He is also the cofounder of Pushkin Industries, an audio-content company that produces Revisionist History, among other podcasts and audiobooks. He was born in England, raised in Canada, and lives outside New York with his family and a cat named Biggie Smalls. 

Tamala Edwards joined 6abc in January of 2005. She is the weekday co-anchor of Action News Mornings from 4 a.m to 7 a.m. and is a regular co-host of Inside Story, conducting probing interviews with newsmakers like Governor Tom Corbett, Senator Bob Casey, Mayor Michael Nutter and others, as well as moderating many election debates. Prior to joining 6abc, Tamala Edwards was the anchor of ABC's World News Now, and World News This Morning.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians.

All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 10/14/2026)

The Author Events Series presents Imbolo Mbue | Every Story is A Love Story

In Conversation with Justin McDaniel

From the New York Times bestselling author of Behold the Dreamers, a captivating novel about love lost-and the weight of regret

What if I'd never gotten into that car? What if I'd pulled out of the driveway five minutes earlier, or ten minutes later?

Three years ago, Wolo's wife was killed in a tragic car accident. In an instant, the great love of his life was gone, and so was their beautiful future. In the face of a loss that seemed insurmountable, Wolo has slowly rebuilt a semblance of a life: he goes to work, hangs out with a small circle of friends, and fends off the matchmaking efforts of the older women in his family. The grief that dogged him has, with time, become a little gentler.

Until a letter arrives one day, unbidden, threatening to upend his life once again. It is from Victoria, the woman who was behind the wheel that terrible day. Wolo's family pastor tells him the letter is the work of the devil; his mother expressly forbids him from making further mention of it; his father's second wife calls, from Cameroon, to tell him to destroy it. But Wolo ponders it for days, and ultimately agrees to meet with the woman who killed his wife. When he does, the compassion and deep remorse of the woman affects him in ways he had never imagined, and he begins to wonder if the long road to healing can be shared.  

What do we owe to those who have hurt us? Are we defined by our worst moments and our deepest regrets?  And, more than anything, can forgiveness ease our suffering? Moving and full of life, Every Story Is a Love Story charts the uneven path from heartbreak to healing. 

IMBOLO MBUE is the author of the New York Times bestseller Behold the Dreamers, which won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and was an Oprah's Book Club selection. Her second novel, How Beautiful We Were, about a fictional African village's fight against an American oil company, was named by the New York Times as ''One of the 10 Best Books'' of 2021. A native of Limbe, Cameroon, Mbue lives in New York. 

Justin McDaniel is a writer, teacher, and pedagogical innovator. He is the Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned his PhD in Sanskrit and Indian Studies from Harvard University. He has been a Fulbright, Mellon, Rockefeller, Templeton, Carpenter, and Guggenheim Fellow, and has won numerous teaching and advising awards including the Kahin Prize and the Becker Prize for writing. He was named one of the top ten most innovative professors in America by the Chronicle of Higher Education and one of the hundred top cultural influencers by Cultured Magazine in 2026. His work on pedagogical methods in the courses Existential Despair and Living Deliberately has been featured on NPR, Huffington Post, Washington Post, the New York Times and many other venues. He lives in Philadelphia. His latest book, Existential Despair (Crown, a division of Penguin Random House) will be published in January 2027.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians.

Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night!

All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 10/8/2026)

The Author Events Series presents Andy Beshear | Go and Do Likewise

In Conversation with Michael Smerconish

SOLD OUT

Join Governor Andy Beshear for a hopeful conversation about reclaiming faith as a force for good instead of harm and healing a divided nation through our shared values. Centered around his new book, GO AND DO LIKEWISE: How We Heal a Broken Country, Governor Beshear will share stories of healing, justice, forgiveness, welcoming, and moral clarity.

In GO AND DO LIKEWISE, Governor Beshear shares what his own faith has meant to him, how it has informed his family and his public life-and serves as a rebuke to how faith has been hijacked, profaned, misused, and corrupted by Donald Trump and other public figures. By regrounding faith in compassion and kindness, Beshear believes we can start to heal as a country.

Whether you support organized religion or simply believe in the golden rule, this evening is a powerful reminder of the values that can truly unite us. 

Governor Andy Beshear is a born-and-raised Kentuckian. Before he was elected Governor in 2019, Andy served as the state's Attorney General since 2015, working as a lawyer on behalf of the government for the people of Kentucky. Andy and his wife, Britainy, have two children, Will and Lila, and dog Winnie. His family attends Beargrass Christian Church, where both Andy and Britainy serve as deacons. He is a graduate of Vanderbilt with a bachelor's in political science and anthropology and holds a Juris Doctorate from the University of Virginia law school.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians.

Every ticket that includes a book comes with a pre-signed copy of GO AND DO LIKEWISE, published by St. Martins Press

Pre-signed copies of GO AND DO LIKEWISE will be available for purchase at the event.

All tickets are non-refundable.

  (recorded 9/23/2026)

The Author Events Series presents Andy Beshear | Go and Do Likewise

In Conversation with Michael Smerconish

SOLD OUT

Join Governor Andy Beshear for a hopeful conversation about reclaiming faith as a force for good instead of harm and healing a divided nation through our shared values. Centered around his new book, GO AND DO LIKEWISE: How We Heal a Broken Country, Governor Beshear will share stories of healing, justice, forgiveness, welcoming, and moral clarity.

In GO AND DO LIKEWISE, Governor Beshear shares what his own faith has meant to him, how it has informed his family and his public life-and serves as a rebuke to how faith has been hijacked, profaned, misused, and corrupted by Donald Trump and other public figures. By regrounding faith in compassion and kindness, Beshear believes we can start to heal as a country.

Whether you support organized religion or simply believe in the golden rule, this evening is a powerful reminder of the values that can truly unite us. 

Governor Andy Beshear is a born-and-raised Kentuckian. Before he was elected Governor in 2019, Andy served as the state's Attorney General since 2015, working as a lawyer on behalf of the government for the people of Kentucky. Andy and his wife, Britainy, have two children, Will and Lila, and dog Winnie. His family attends Beargrass Christian Church, where both Andy and Britainy serve as deacons. He is a graduate of Vanderbilt with a bachelor's in political science and anthropology and holds a Juris Doctorate from the University of Virginia law school.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians.

Every ticket that includes a book comes with a pre-signed copy of GO AND DO LIKEWISE, published by St. Martins Press

Pre-signed copies of GO AND DO LIKEWISE will be available for purchase at the event.

All tickets are non-refundable.

  (recorded 9/23/2026)