Free Library Podcast

In conversation with Tracey Matisak, award-winning journalist and broadcaster

Scott Ellsworth is the author of Death in a Promised Land, an in-depth book about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, one of modern history's most horrific incidents of racial violence against Black Americans. His other works include The Wind Beneath Their Feet, a history of mountaineering in the Himalayas; and The Secret Game, the bestselling true story of a trailblazing 1940s-era Black basketball team. Formerly an historian at the Smithsonian Institution, Ellsworth has written about United States history for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, among other publications. In The Ground Breaking, Ellsworth returns to Tulsa on the eve of the 100th anniversary of its infamous racial massacre to offer an ''indispensable'' and ''fast-paced but nuanced'' (The Guardian) account of white people's murder of Black individuals and the complete destruction of the Greenwood neighborhood, also known as Black Wall Street.

Books available from the Joseph Fox Bookshop

(recorded 7/1/2021)

In conversation with Jonny Meister, host of The Blues Show on WXPN

In his five decades in blues music, Grammy-winner Bobby Rush has recorded hundreds of his own songs, collaborated with the likes of Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters, and headlined music festivals all over the world. At 87, he still tours more than 200 days a year, entertaining audiences with his unique funk-infused blues tunes. An inductee to the Blues Hall of Fame, a B.B. King Entertainer of the Year, and a 13-time Blues Music Award winner, he recently performed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and played himself in the 2019 film Dolemite Is My Name. Named for one of Rush's most popular songs, I Ain't Studdin' Ya tells the story of an incredible life and continuing legendary career.

U.S. book orders only. All others will be refunded.

(recorded 6/30/2021)

In conversation with Jason Villemez, editor of the Philadelphia Gay News

A decades-long activist for LGBTQ+ rights and women's empowerment, Sarah Schulman is the author of more than twenty novels, nonfiction books, screenplays, and stage plays. Her other work has appeared in periodicals such as The New Yorker and The New York Times. Schulman is a Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at the College of Staten Island, a fellow at the New York Institute for the Humanities, and the cofounder of the MIX New York LGBT Experimental Film and Video Festival. Schulman has also earned fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Based on more than 200 interviews, Let the Record Show explores the widespread impact of ACT UP, the diverse community AIDS activist group.

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(recorded 6/29/2021)

Joshua Cohen's acclaimed novels include Moving Kings, Witz, and Book of Numbers, ''a fascinating look at the dark heart of the Web'' and ''one of the best novels ever written about the Internet'' (Rolling Stone). One of Granta's Best of Young American Novelists in 2017, Cohen is the author of the short story collection Four New Messages and the book of essays Attention: Dispatches from a Land of Distraction. Cohen has contributed nonfiction to The New York Times, Harper's, and n+1. Blurring the line between the real and the imagined, The Netanyahus follows a Jewish historian who unexpectedly must play host to an exiled Israeli historian and his family on a wintry 1959 upstate New York college campus.

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Rivka Galchen is the author of Atmospheric Disturbances, a comical mystery that follows a doctor who believes his wife has been replaced with a duplicate. The recipient of an MD from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Galchen also earned an MFA from Columbia University, where she was a Robert Bingham Fellow. She was also the recipient of a 2006 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award and published a popular essay on the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics in The Believer. A combination of history and fiction, Galchen's latest novel tells the tale of Katharina Kepler, a 17th century widow accused of witchcraft who seeks help from her son, the renowned mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler.

Books with signed book plates available from the Joseph Fox Bookshop

(recorded 6/28/2021)

Co-sponsored by n+1 and Blue Stoop

Elias Rodriques currently teaches at the University of Pennsylvania and in the fall of 2021 will start as an assistant professor of African American literature at Sarah Lawrence College. Focusing on African American Literature, Black Marxist writing, Black Feminism, and Critical Prison Studies, his work has been published in the Guardian, the Nation, Bookforum, and n+1, where he is an assistant editor. In his debut novel, Rodriques tells the story of a mixed–race son of Jamaican immigrants who is called back to his Palm Coast Floridian hometown to investigate the death of his first love-alongside the mysteries of his own family history and identity.

Rachel Ossip is a designer, writer, and editor based in Brooklyn, NY. She serves as the managing editor of n+1 magazine and the designer for n+1 books, and manages the contemporary art imprint Paper Monument. She has worked with a range of small publishers, academic publications, and public institutions, such as New Directions and the Othering & Belonging Journal, and teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Books with signed book plates available from the Joseph Fox Bookshop

(recorded 6/24/2021)

In conversation with David Baldacci, global #1 bestselling author whose books are published in over 45 languages and in more than 80 countries, with 150 million copies sold worldwide.

Alex Michaelides is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Silent Patient, a debut thriller that blends ''Hitchcockian suspense, Agatha Christie plotting, and Greek tragedy'' (Entertainment Weekly) to tell the tale of a criminal psychotherapist's quest to unravel a taciturn artist's motivations for murder. A native of Cyprus, Michaelides studied English literature at Trinity College and screenwriting from the American Film Institute. In his new novel, a group therapist delves behind Cambridge University's tranquil spires to investigate the murder of a young woman involved in a secret society known as The Maidens.

U.S. orders only. All others will be refunded.

(recorded 6/23/2021)

In conversation with Seph Rodney, PhD, opinions editor and managing editor of the Sunday Edition for Hyperallergic, author of The Personalization of the Museum Visit, and winner of the 2020 Rabkin Arts Journalism Prize.

The interim director of New York's Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, Laura Raicovich is a fierce advocate for museums to be hubs of activism and protest that foster a more engaged and informed public. The former director of the Queens Museum, her 2018 resignation from that institution became one of the latest instances of politicized resignations amongst museum administrators across the U.S. A recipient of the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellowship, Raicovich lectures internationally, has created and implemented new museum preservation strategies, and is the author of the books At the Lightning Field and A Diary of Mysterious Difficulties. In Culture Strike, she offers context for historical and contemporary museum controversies, argues that ideological neutrality in museums is a myth, and outlines a plan for improving these institutions to better serve the public.

Books available through the Joseph Fox Bookshop

(recorded 6/22/2021)

In conversation with Jill Lepore, historian and bestselling and award-winning author of These Truths: A History of the United States, The Secret History of Wonder Woman, and If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future--among many other works.

Leading Professor of History and African American Studies at Yale University and a Professor of Law at Yale Law School, Elizabeth Hinton is one of the country's foremost experts on policing, racial inequality, and criminalization. She is the author of From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America, and her articles and essays have been published in The Atlantic, The Nation, and Time, among other places. Professor Hinton's ''groundbreaking, deeply researched and profoundly heart-rending account'' (New York Times Book Review) of police violence inflicted upon Black Americans, America on Fire explains the history of Black rebellions as a response to police violence throughout the U.S. since the 1960s and warns that rebellions will continue until society stops calling on the police and begins changing our oppressive systems.

Books are available through the Joseph Fox Bookshop

(recorded 6/21/2021)

In conversation with Katie Ford, author of If You Have to Go and three previous collections of poems. Ford is the recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship and she teaches at the University of California, Riverside.

Bestselling memoirist Emily Rapp Black is the author of Poster Child, an exploration of her childhood as an amputee and March of Dimes spokesperson; The Still Point of the Turning World, an account of her young son's diagnosis and death from a rare congenital disease; and Sanctuary, a reflection on the meaning of ''resilience'' in the midst of grief and new love. Her essays, stories, poems, and reviews have appeared in periodicals such as the New York Times, Vogue, and The Boston Globe, and she is the nonfiction editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books. A former Fulbright scholar and a Guggenheim Fellow, Black teaches Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside. Black's new book holds a mirror up to the art, disability, and experiences of Frida Kahlo and explains how Black's connection with Frida Kahlo helped her better understand her own life.

Books with signed book plates available through the Joseph Fox Bookshop

(recorded 6/17/2021)

In conversation with Anthony B. Bradley, Professor and Chair of Religious and Theological Studies at The King's College (New York) and a Research Fellow at The Acton Institute

Jason L. Riley's books include Let Them In: The Case for Open Borders; False Black Power?; and Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed. A longtime columnist for The Wall Street Journal and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, he widely lectures and offers commentary about important social and political issues on various media outlets. Riley's latest work is a biography of conservative social theorist Thomas Sowell. In it he offers a portrait of the Jim Crow South orphan's evolution to public intellectual while arguing that academia should reconsider the unsentimental Sowell's views. 

Books with signed book plates available from the Joseph Fox Bookshop

(recorded 6/16/2021)