Free Library Podcast

In conversation with Marc Lamont Hill

A world-renowned counterterrorism expert and former career intelligence officer who has deployed in the Balkans, the Middle East, and sub-Saharan Africa, Malcolm Nance is a longtime consultant for the U.S. government's Special Operations and Homeland Security agencies. His New York Times bestselling books include The Plot to Hack America, Hacking Isis, The Plot to Betray America, and Defeating ISIS. The founder and executive director of the think tank Terror Asymmetrics Project on Strategy, Tactics and Radical Ideologies, he is a frequent commentator on MSNBC. In They Want to Kill Americans, Nance describes the existential threat to democracy posed by Donald Trump, his collaborators, and their followers.

The Steve Charles Chair in Media, Cities and Solutions at Temple University, Marc Lamont Hill is the host of BET News and the Coffee and Books podcast. The recipient of honors from the National Association of Black Journalists, GLAAD, and the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, he is the author of six books, including Beats, Rhymes, and Classroom Life; Nobody: Casualties of America's War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond; and Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics. (recorded 7/14/2022)

In conversation with Beth Kephart

Alice Elliott Dark is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Think of England and the short story collections In the Gloaming and Naked to the Waist. Her stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, Ploughshares, and The New Yorker, and her story ''In the Gloaming'' has twice been adapted into feature films. A writing professor in Rutgers University-Newark's MFA program, Dark has earned a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, an O. Henry Award, and inclusion in several literary anthologies. A novel about friendship, class differences, and societal expectations for women, Fellowship Point tells the story of a a delicate but devastating rift between two lifelong friends.

Beth Kephart is the author of more than 30 books across a wide range of genres, including Going Over, Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir, and most recently Wife | Daughter | Self. A writing professor at the University of Pennsylvania, she is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Pew Fellowship, and the Speakeasy Poetry Prize, among other honors. (recorded 7/13/2022)

In conversation with Asali Solomon

Nigerian American author Chinelo Okparanta's acclaimed debut novel Under the Udala Trees celebrates the act of loving fearlessly, even amidst the strife of prejudice and civil war. Selected for more than a dozen periodicals' 2015 ''best of'' lists, it won a Lambda Literary Award, was a finalist for the International Dublin Literary Award, and was nominated for an NAACP Image Award in fiction. Okparanta is also the author of the short story collection Happiness, Like Water, winner of an O. Henry Prize, and a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award and the Etisalat Prize for Literature. The director of the creative writing program at Swarthmore College, she has published fiction in various publications, including The New Yorker, Granta, and Tin House. Her latest novel delves into a young white man's journey from his prejudiced smalltown to a life of freedom in New York City.

Asali Solomon is the author of the novels The Days of Afrekete and Disgruntled, the short story collection Get Down, and stories published in a wide array of periodicals, including McSweeney's, Essence, and O, The Oprah Magazine. A professor of fiction writing and literature of the African diaspora at Haverford College, she is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award and the National Book Foundation's ''5 Under 35'' honor.  (recorded 7/12/2022)

In conversation with Karen Heller, national features writer for The Washington Post, formerly a metro and features columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and a finalist for the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in commentary.

''A master of narrative nonfiction'' (Rolling Stone), Patrick Radden Keefe is the author of the New York Times bestseller Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty. A critical history of the family responsible for making and marketing painkillers that led to the opioid crisis, it won the 2021 Baillie Gifford Prize and was a National Book Critics Circle nominee. Keefe is also an award-winning staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of three other books, including the National Book Critics Circle Award winner Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland. His other honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and the National Magazine Award for feature writing. He wrote and hosted the podcast Wind of Change, selected as the No. 1 podcast of 2020 by The Guardian. Writing about disreputable figures such as wine counterfeiters, arms dealers selling weapons illegally, and Swiss money launderers, Rogues is a collection of 12 of Keefe's New Yorker articles about corruption, fraud, and power. (recorded 6/29/2022)

Meelya Gordon Memorial Lecture

In conversation with Marjorie Margolies, President, Women's Campaign International and author of And How Are the Children?: Timeless Lessons from the Frontlines of Motherhood

The younger sister of President Joe Biden, Valerie Biden Owens led his seven consecutive successful campaigns for the U.S. Senate, was campaign manager for his presidential bids in 1988 and 2008, and was his principal campaign trail representative and a senior advisor for his 2020 bid for the White House. She is the chair of the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware, a partner at Owens Patrick Leadership Seminars, a board member of The Ministry of Caring, and formerly served on the national board of the Women's Leadership Forum of the Democratic National Committee. In her new memoir, Biden Owens shares stories of growing up in a close-knit Irish Catholic family, being a confidante and advocate in her brother's life and career, and learning lessons about overcoming gender barriers and achieving professional goals while raising children.

(recorded 6/28/2022)

In conversation with Sayeeda Rashid, Director of the Center for Gender Resources and Sexual Education at Haverford College

Hugh Ryan is the author of When Brooklyn Was Queer, a ''boisterous, motley ... entertaining and insightful'' (The New York Times Book Review) analysis of the famous borough's LGBTQ+ history from the 1850s to present. Winner of a New York City Book Award and a New York Times Editors' Choice, it was a finalist for the Randy Shilts and Lambda Literary Awards. Ryan earned the 2020 Allan Berube Prize from the American Historical Association and residencies or fellowships from Yaddo, The Watermill Center, the New York Public Library, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. In The Women's House of Detention, he examines the history of the United States's current crisis of incarcerating queer and transgender people through the story of the notorious mid-20th century Manhattan prison that held tens of thousands of women, transgender men, and gender-nonconforming people. (recorded 6/23/2022)

In conversation with Hayden Dunbar, assistant editor, The Sewanee Review

Lisa Taddeo is the author of the No. 1 New York Times bestseller Three Women, the ''staggeringly intimate'' (Entertainment Weekly) and extensively researched true story of the sex lives of three unconnected women in the U.S. Winner of the best narrative nonfiction book of the year at the British Book Awards, it was chosen as the best book of the year by numerous media outlets and was adapted into a television series by Showtime. Taddeo is also the author of the acclaimed novel Animal, worked as an associate editor at Golf Magazine, and has contributed work to The New York Times, Esquire, Elle, and Glamour, among several other publications. A collection of nine stories-two of which were awarded Pushcart Prizes-Ghost Lover is about the obsessions, manias, and fevered desires inherent to love and sex in the digital age. (recorded 6/21/2022)

In conversation with Herman Beavers

Gene Andrew Jarrett is the author of Representing the Race: A New Political History of African American Literature and Deans and Truants: Race and Realism in African American Literature. He is the editor of an additional eight books of African American literary studies, including two about 19th century U.S. poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. Dean of the faculty and William S. Tod Professor of English at Princeton University, last year he was appointed to the Association of American Universities' Advisory Board for Racial Equity in Higher Education. On the 150th anniversary of Dunbar's birth, Jarrett's latest book is a nuanced biography of Dunbar as the Gilded Age celebrity, acclaimed as the ''poet laureate of his race,'' whose improbable success hid profound private struggles.

A professor of English and Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Herman Beavers teaches 20th Century and Contemporary African American literature and poetry writing. He is the author of the scholarly monograph Geography and the Political Imaginary in the Novels of Toni Morrison, the poetry chapbook Obsidian Blues, and his poems have appeared in Cleaver Magazine, Versadelphia, and The American Arts Quarterly, among other publications.  (recorded 6/16/2022)

In conversation with Melinna Bobadilla

A story collection featuring Latinas of Indigenous heritage experiencing the challenges of friendship and family in the American West, Kali Fajardo-Anstine's Sabrina & Corina won an American Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award, the PEN/Bingham Prize, and The Story Prize, among other honors. Fajardo-Anstine has contributed writing to an eclectic array of periodicals and journals, including The New York Times, Harper's Bazaar, O the Oprah Magazine, and Boston Review. The 2022/2023 endowed chair of Creative Writing at Texas State University, she has earned fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, and Tin House. Her debut novel Woman of Light is a Western saga that spans five generations of Chicana women.

Melinna Bobadilla is an actor & activist  best known for roles like ‘Santos' on Orange is The New Black and fierce immigration attorney ‘Melinna Barragan' on the Peabody nominated series Gentefied, both on Netflix . Melinna is a multi-hyphenate culture maker and critic, as her work aside from acting includes being an educator, public speaker, VO artist and host/co-producer with Futuro Media's Latino Rebels Live. Melinna is an alumni of UC Berkeley & NYU and is a proud 1st gen daughter of parents born in Mexico. You can find her work on Netflix, Apple TV Plus (Little America), HBO Max (For Rosa), and coming up on Showtime & Amazon Freevee. IG @MelinnaBobadilla (recorded 6/15/2022)

In conversation with Tracey Matisak, award winning broadcaster and journalist

A two-time world champion debater and a former coach of the Harvard College Debating Union and the Australian national debating team, Bo Seo has won the World Schools Debating Championship and the World Universities Debating Championship. He formerly served as a national reporter for the Australian Financial Review and has contributed writing to The New York Times, The Atlantic, and CNN, among other media outlets. Currently a law school student at Harvard, he has a master's degree in public policy from Tsinghua University. In Good Arguments, Seo describes how debate empowered him to find his voice amidst his family's emigration from Korea to Australia when he was only 8, the ways in which many other people have utilized spoken rhetoric on their paths to success, and the specific debate strategies anyone can use to improve their lives. 

Please allow up to three weeks for delivery.

U.S. orders only.

Books provided by Uncle Bobbie's Coffee and Books

(recorded 6/14/2022)