Free Library Podcast

In conversation with podcaster and author Kelsey McKinney

''America's most talented comic writer'' (The New Republic), Samantha Irby is the author of four essay collections, including Wow, No Thank you.; Meaty; New Year, Same Trash: Resolutions I Absolutely Did Not Keep; and the New York Times bestseller We Are Never Meeting in Real Life. In her celebrated long-running blog, bitches gotta eat, she offers hot takes on her sometimes messy personal life, pop culture, and, of course, food. Named one of the most anticipated books of 2023 by TIME magazine, Oprah Daily, and numerous other media outlets, Irby's latest essay collection delves into, among other issues, the minutiae of restaurant dress codes, speaking with teenagers, and the shifting moods of the insane dog she adopted during the pandemic.

Kelsey McKinney is the host and writer of the podcast Normal Gossip, a features writer at defector.com, and a widely published freelance writer. She is also the author of God Spare the Girls, a 2021 debut novel that was recommended by Elle, Refinery29, and Oprah Daily, among many other media outlets. (recorded 5/16/2023)

A contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine and The 1619 Project, Linda Villarosa has won numerous awards for articles concerning issues of Black mother and infant health, medical myths, America's hidden HIV epidemic, environmental justice, and COVID-19's toll on Black American communities. She is the author of Body & Soul: The Black Women's Guide to Physical Health and the novel Passing for Black, which was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. The director of the undergraduate journalism program at City College of New York, Villarosa formerly worked as executive editor at Essence magazine and as a science editor for The New York Times, and her articles have been published in numerous periodicals, including The Root, O Magazine, and Glamour. Relying on human stories and exhaustive research, Under the Skin exposes the powerful forces within healthcare and society itself that cause Black Americans to ''live sicker and die quicker'' than their white peers. (recorded 5/15/2023)

In conversation with Ernest Owens

A consultant and writer in the fields of civic activism and government reform, Brett H. Mandel served as director of Philadelphia's Financial & Policy Analysis Unit in the city controller's office, was a member of the Tax Reform Commission, and was assistant policy director of the Philadelphia Independent Charter Commission. Co-authored during his stint in the city controller's office, his book Philadelphia: A New Urban Direction won the 1999 Association of Government Auditors Special Project Award. Mandel was also executive director of the National Education Technology Funding Corporation and executive director of the citizens' organization Philadelphia Forward. Told through the story of the corruption case of John Dougherty and the machine politics that foster corruption, his new book illustrates the ways our inattention gives way to corrosive politicians and policies, the effects this blight has on the soul of Philadelphia, and how collective action can lead to a better city for all.

 

Ernest Owens is editor-at-large for Philadelphia Magazine, host of the podcast Ernestly Speaking!, and president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists. His book The Case for Cancel Culture was published in February, and his other work has been featured in a number of media outlets, including The New York Times, CNN, The Washington Post, and NPR. He teaches media and journalism at Cheyney University. (recorded 5/11/2023)

Hernan Diaz's bestselling and Pulitzer Prize winning novel Trust, "a genre-bending, time-skipping story about New York City's elite in the roaring '20s and Great Depression'' (Vanity Fair), presents a literary puzzle about the reality warping power of money. Named one of the top ten books of 2022 by The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vogue, Esquire, and Barack Obama, it won the Kirkus Prize and was longlisted for the Booker Prize. Diaz is also the author of the 2017 novel In the Distance, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Award, and the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, his writing has appeared in The Paris Review, Granta, The Yale Review, and McSweeney's, among numerous other periodicals. (recorded 5/9/2023)

With characters situated in surreal, Twilight Zone-esque, yet all-too-familiar positions of oppression within our most venerable institutions, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's 2018 debut fiction collection, Friday Black, was praised as a "vivid, original'' portrait of ''America in all its racism, weirdness and abject consumerism'' (People). The winner of the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the Saroyan Prize and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Award for Best First Book, Adjei-Brenyah has contributed work to some of the country's most prestigious publications, including Guernica, Esquire, The New York Times Book Review, and The Paris Review. In Chain Gang All-Stars, his debut novel, he follows the gladiatorial fortunes of two women inmates who compete for their freedom in highly profitable and popular officially sanctioned prison death matches.

Praised by George Saunders as ''a prodigiously talented writer, with a huge heart,'' Daniel Torday won the National Jewish Book Award for both his debut novel The Sensualist and his follow-up, The Last Flight of Poxl West. His other work includes the novel Boomer1 as well as articles and essays published in Esquire, n+1, Tin House, and The New York Times, among other publications. A professor of creative writing at Bryn Mawr College, Torday is also the winner of the Sami Rohr Choice Prize. The 12th Commandment delves into the sins, redemptions, and secrets of an Ohio-based Jewish-Islamic religious sect grappling with the murder of its prophet's son. (recorded 5/8/2023)

A ''genuine genius'' (The New York Times Book Review), Dave Barry won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1988. He wrote for the Miami Herald for 30 years, where his column was syndicated in more than 500 newspapers. His dozens of bestselling works of fiction, nonfiction, and essay collections include I'll Mature When I'm Dead; Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States; Lessons from Lucy: The Simple Joys of an Old, Happy Dog; and Best. State. Ever.: A Florida Man Defends His Homeland. Two of Barry's books were used as the basis for the CBS TV sitcom Dave's World. Mapping the intersecting fates of a young mother who stumbles upon treasure, a debauched newspaper man, a wannabe reality star, and other oddballs, Swamp Story is a quintessentially Floridian caper story. (recorded 5/3/2023)

In conversation with Eric Banks

Acclaimed for ''wonderfully readable'' fusions of ''biography, philosophy, history, cultural analysis and personal reflection'' (The Independent), Sarah Bakewell is the author of At the Existentialist Café, a rousing and comprehensive account of the 20th century intellectual movement, which was named one of 2016's best books by The New York Times. She is also the author of How to Live: A Life of Montaigne, a National Book Critics Circle Award–winning biography of the 16th century essayist. She formerly worked as a curator of early printed books at the esteemed Wellcome Library for the History of Medicine, earned a postgraduate degree in artificial intelligence, and taught creative writing at London's City University. In her latest book, she delves into the vast history of humanist thought in order to illuminate its contributions to art, scientific inquiry, and the very nature of our individual spirits.

Eric Banks is a writer and editor based in New York. He is director of the New York Institute for the Humanities at the New York Public Library and consulting editor of the forthcoming Robert Rauschenberg Catalogue Raisonné, the first volume of which is scheduled to appear in 2025. Banks is a former senior editor of Artforum, and from 2003 to 2008 he served as editor in chief of Bookforum.  (recorded 5/2/2023)

In conversation with Abra Lee

Camille T. Dungy is the author of Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History, a debut personal essay collection that was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is also the author of four collections of poetry, What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison; Suck on the Marrow; Smith Blue; and Trophic Cascade, winner of the Colorado Book Award. The editor of three poetry anthologies, Dungy is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Academy of American Poets Fellowship, and an American Book Award. She is an English professor at Colorado State University and hosts the podcast Immaterial, a podcast from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Magnificent Noise. In Soil, she delves into her seven-year quest to diversify her garden in spite of her community's strict horticultural rules, exposing larger truths about the danger homogeneity poses to our planet.

Abra Lee is a storyteller, horticulturist, and author of the forthcoming book Conquer The Soil: Black America and the Untold Stories of Our Country's Gardeners, Farmers, and Growers. She has spent a whole lotta time in the dirt as a municipal arborist and airport landscape manager. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Fine Gardening, Veranda Magazine, and NPR. Lee is a graduate of Auburn University College of Agriculture and an alumna of the Longwood Gardens Society of Fellows, a global network of public horticulture professionals. (recorded 5/1/2023)

In conversation with Mia Bay

Chad L. Williams is the author of Torchbearers of Democracy: African American Soldiers in the World War I Era, winner of the Liberty Legacy Foundation Award from the Organization of American Historians. The Samuel J. and Augusta Spector Professor of History and African and African American Studies at Brandeis University, he has earned fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, the Ford Foundation, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. He is the co-editor of Charleston Syllabus: Readings on Race, Racism and Racial Violence, and has contributed articles and opinion pieces to a variety of publications, including The Washington Post, Time, and The Atlantic. In The Wounded World, Williams draws from a deep pool of source material to recount the story of W. E. B. Du Bois' disillusionment with his country for its betrayal of Black American veterans of World War I.

A scholar of American and African American intellectual, cultural and social history, Mia Bay is the Roy F. and Jeanette P. Nichols Professor of American History at University of Pennsylvania. Her books include The White Image in the Black Mind: African-American Ideas about White People, 1830-1925; To Tell the Truth Freely: The Life of Ida B. Wells; and Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance, winner of the Bancroft Prize. She is currently finishing a book on the history of African American ideas about Thomas Jefferson. (recorded 4/27/2023)

Pine Tree Foundation Endowed Lecture

Exuding ''the comfort and charm of a beloved encyclopedia come to life'' (The New Yorker), Simon Winchester is the bestselling author of nearly 30 nonfiction books that explore some of the world's most consequential people, places, and historical events, including The Professor and the Madman, Krakatoa, The Men Who United the States, Atlantic, Pacific, The Perfectionists, and Land. An Oxford-trained former field geologist in Uganda and a war correspondent for The Guardian and The Sunday Times, he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2006. Spanning in time from the creation of ancient Babylonian cuneiform tablets to the advent (recorded 4/26/2023)