Free Library Podcast

Acclaimed for his ability to ''elevate the unseen aspects of private experience into a vigorous and challenging conversation about what we all share'' (San Francisco Chronicle), David Brooks has written an op-ed column for The New York Times since 2003. Also a writer for The Atlantic, he formerly served as an editor and columnist at The Weekly Standard and The Wall Street Journal. He frequently appears on PBS NewsHour, Meet the Press, and NPR's All Things Considered. His books include the bestselling Bobos in Paradise, The Social Animal, The Road to Character, and The Second Mountain, which posits that those who embrace lives of deeper commitment and service to others find greater fulfillment. In How to Know a Person, Brooks offers a creative guide for truly looking another person in the eyes and, through them, understanding something deeper about ourselves.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 11/1/2023)

In conversation with Rebeca L. Hey-Colón, Professor of Latinx Studies, Temple University

Cristina García is the author of eight ''languid and sensual, curt and surprising'' (The New York Times Book Review) novels, including The Lady Matador's Hotel, The Agüero Sisters, and Dreaming in Cuban, which was a finalist for the National Book Award.  She has also written three books for young readers and a collection of poetry, edited two Latinx literary anthologies, and her work has been translated into 15 languages. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writer's Award, and an NEA grant, García is currently the playwright-in-residence at Central Works Theater in Berkeley, and has previously taught at universities across the country. A follow-up novel set 20 years after Dreaming in Cuban, Vanishing Maps tracks the diasporic generations of a Cuban family as they grapple with the pull of home and each other.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 10/26/2023)

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Renowned for her ''extraordinarily honest, searing and hilarious'' (San Francisco Chronicle) takes on modern life, Roz Chast has published more than 1,000 cartoons in The New Yorker since 1978. She has written or illustrated more than a dozen books, including Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, a bestselling multi-genre narrative about her aging parents that won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was a National Book Award Finalist; Going into Town: A Love Letter to New York, an illustrated paean/guide/thank-you note to New York City; and several collected volumes of her published cartoons. Most recently, she illustrated New Yorker writer Patricia Marx's Why Don't You Write My Eulogy Now So I Can Correct It?: A Mother's Suggestions. In I Must Be Dreaming, Chast takes an illustrated journey to the enduring and elusive land of Nod to explore the secrets of the sleeping yet active mind.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 10/30/2023)

Melissa Broder is the author of Milk Fed, the ''sensuous and delightfully delirious tale'' (O, The Oprah Magazine) of a calorie-obsessed lapsed Jewish woman who falls under the spell of a zaftig Orthodox frozen yogurt store employee. Her other work includes the novel The Pisces, an essay collection titled So Sad Today, and four collections of poetry. Her poems have appeared in a multitude of publications, including Tin House and Guernica, and she is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize. In Death Valley, Broder weaves the tale of a woman who finds refuge from her sorrows through a mystical cactus in the high California desert.

Hilary Leichter's novel Temporary, longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award and a finalist for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Prize, tells the tale of a young woman who fills increasingly bizarre temp job positions. It was named one of 2020's best books by NPR, Vulture, and Elle, and was a New York Times Editors' Choice. A creative writing professor at Columbia University, Leichter has earned fellowships from Yaddo, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, n+1, The New York Times, and Harper's Magazine, among other places. Her latest novel, Terrace Story, tells the story of a family living in a cramped apartment who finds a miraculous and inexplicable terrace in their closet.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 10/25/2023)

In conversation with Julian E. Zelizer

Rachel Maddow is host of the Emmy Award–winning The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, as well as the #1 New York Times best­selling author of Drift and Blowout, and the New York Times bestselling co-author of Bag Man. She has also written, produced, and hosted three original podcasts for MSNBC-Rachel Maddow Presents: Bag Man, Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra, and most recently the six-episode series Rachel Maddow Presents: Deja News, which debuted in June at #1 on Apple Podcasts. In Prequel, Maddow traces the century-long proliferation of authoritarianism in America-often by shockingly well-financed and powerful groups----and the lessons history offers as we navigate our own disquieting times.

Political historian Julian E. Zelizer is the author and editor of 25 award-winning and bestselling books, including The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society; Fault Lines: A History of the United States Since 1974; and The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: A First Historical Assessment. A professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, a CNN political analyst, a regular guest on NPR's Here and Now, and the writer of more than 1300 op-eds, he has received fellowships from the Brookings Institution, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the New York Historical Society, among others. 

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 10/15/2023)

In conversation with comedian and author James "Murr" Murray

Surely You Can't Be Serious is a behind-the-scenes making-of oral history of the 1980 comedy classic Airplane!, as told by its equally legendary writers and directors David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker. Featuring anecdotes by the film's stars, it also delves into the making of fan-favorite scenes and the organic (read: pre-Internet) evolution toward its place in the pop culture pantheon. Zucker and company, also the auteurs of the cultishly adored Kentucky Fried Movie and Top Secret!, each branched out into further film success. Zucker himself went on to direct a plethora of film comedies, including The Naked Gun franchise, BASEketball, Scary Movie 3 & 4, and many others, as well as writing and producing Scary Movie 5. He is also the author of the memoir Before the Invention of Smiling, an unconventional version of his family history. What can we make out of his books? Well, we can make a hat, or a brooch, or a pterodactyl....

James Murray is one of the hosts of the long-running and popular TruTV improv program Impractical Jokers. Also the co-author of the Awakened and Area 51 Interns series of sci-fi novels, he has toured solo as a standup comedian, starred in TBS's The Misery Index, and appeared in numerous other television shows and films. 

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 10/23/2023)

In conversation with Andy Kahan

Meelya Gordon Memorial Lecture

''As good as any piece of literature can get'' (Chicago Sun Times), Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award, and is one of the most acclaimed books about the Vietnam War. His other books include If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home; In the Lake of the Woods; and Going After Cacciato, winner of the 1979 National Book Award. O'Brien is also the author of Dad's Maybe Book, a collection of advice for his two young sons. His first novel in more than 20 years, America Fantastica follows a disgraced online disinformation troll turned bank robber and his irrepressible bank teller kidnappee on their cross-country flight from a motley cast of uniquely American pursuers.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 10/24/2023)

In conversation with author and Pennsylvania State Senator, Nikil Saval

In Live to See the Day, Nikhil Goyal offers a searing portrait of three Puerto Rican children struggling to survive in Philadelphia's impoverished Kensington neighborhood. Drawing on nearly a decade of reportage, he follows the youths' personal-but not unique-journeys through violence, homelessness, incarceration, and substance abuse as they strive to defy their designated fate in the modern U.S.' socioeconomic system. A sociologist and policymaker, Goyal served as senior policy advisor on education and children for Chairman Senator Bernie Sanders on the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and Committee on the Budget, among other policy roles. He has contributed articles to such publications as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Nation, and he has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. 

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 10/19/2023)

Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Endowed Lecture

In conversation with David Boardman

In Collision of Power, Martin Baron tells the inside story of the monumental power struggle between the venerable newspaper The Washington Post, its demanding and ultra-wealthy owner Jeff Bezos, and the ceaselessly attacking President Donald Trump. The former editor of The Miami Herald and The Boston Globe, Baron became executive editor of The Washington Post in 2013 and remained in his post until 2021. During this time, he presided over such events as the paper's shift in ownership from the family that had owned it for 80 years, the former president referring to the press as ''the lowest form of humanity,'' and groundbreaking coverage, including the Spotlight investigation of Catholic priest child sexual abuse that would earn the publication awards and acclaim.

David Boardman is the dean of the Klein College of Media and Communication at Temple University. A former executive editor and senior vice president of The Seattle Times, he is founding chair of the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, the nonprofit that owns The Philadelphia Inquirer. He sits on the advisory boards of ProPublica and the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, and he has served six times as a juror for the Pulitzer Prizes. His many honors include the National Ethics Award from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Associated Press Managing Editors Public Service Award.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 10/17/2023)

In conversation with Binyamin Appelbaum

Angus Deaton won the 2015 Nobel Prize in economics for his study of poverty, consumption, and welfare. The Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs Emeritus and Senior Scholar at Princeton University, he is a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, the British Academy, and the Econometric Society. He is the co-author of The New York Times bestseller Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism, and he is the author of The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality and Understanding Consumption, among other books. Inspired by the shocking gaps in wealth Deaton witnessed when he immigrated from Britain in the early 1980s, Economics in America offers a frank critique of how his field has failed to properly address such issues as income inequality, the U.S.' broken healthcare system, and minimum wage.

A business and economics editorialist for The New York Times, Binyamin Appelbaum previously served as that newspaper's Washington correspondent. His writing on subprime lending for The Charlotte Observer won a George Polk Award and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He is also the author of The Economists' Hour.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 10/12/2023)