Library Talks

By The New York Public Library

Society & Culture Education

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Join The New York Public Library and your favorite writers, artists, and thinkers for smart talks and provocative conversations from the nation’s cultural capital.

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Stonewall 50: The Sound of ...

06.23.2019

The Stonewall Riots were a flash point in LGBTQ history. After the riots that took place at the Stonewall Inn in June 1969, the LGBTQ civil rights movement went from handfuls of pioneering activists to a national movement mobilizing thousands.

Library Talks episodes:

06.23.2019 Stonewall 50: The Sound of Memory The Stonewall Riots were a flash point in LGBTQ history. After the riots that took place at the Stonewall Inn in June 1969, the LGBTQ civil rights movement went from handfuls of pioneering activists to a national movement mobilizing thousands.
06.16.2019 Before Stonewall Frank Collerius, Manager of the Jefferson Market branch at NYPL, interviews writer and curator Hugh Ryan about his new book 'when brooklyn was queer.' We also hear a reading of 'The How and Why of Virginia,' the personal story of ...
06.09.2019 Marlon James Gets Nerdy with Kevin Young Marlon James is a Jamaican novelist and winner of the Man Booker Prize. His recent book Black Leopard, Red Wolf is the first in a epic trilogy that blends myth, fantasy, and history—what James has described as "African Game of ...
06.02.2019 A History of the Queer Press The Gay Liberation Front was an organization recognized for publishing the first gay liberation newspaper in the world,"Come Out!". It provided openly queer media exposure for many activists, writers, and artists. In conjunction with the NYPL exhibition Love & Resistance: ...
05.26.2019 Erin Lee Carr and Ta-Nehisi Coates Remember David Carr Documentary filmmaker Erin Lee Carr remembers her father, legendary journalist David Carr, in a moving new memoir, "All That You Leave Behind." Erin Lee Carr, went looking for support and comfort in the lifetime of correspondence that they had shared. ...
05.19.2019 How Robert Caro Writes About Power and the Powerless At age 83, Robert Caro pulls back the curtains on his process, in his new book "Working." He also answers the question he is asked most often: why does it take him so long to write his books? Caro is ...
05.12.2019 Breaking New Ground with Dr. Carla Hayden and Tracy K. Smith Dr. Carla Hayden is the 14th Librarian of Congress, the first African American and the first woman to hold this position. Tracy K. Smith is the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States, and Director and Professor of Creative Writing ...
05.05.2019 Jill Abramson and Jane Mayer's Insider Take on the News The former executive editor of "The New York Times" tells the story of the news industry in her new book "Merchants of Truth." Jill Abramson traces the past ten years of four major news outlets and their prospective futures in ...
04.28.2019 Eliza Griswold Uncovers the Human Cost of Fracking Journalist, Eliza Griswold just won a Pulitzer Prize and a Bernstein Award for her recent book,"Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America." Even at its most basic level, the book is a fascinating story about the energy ...
04.21.2019 Shane Bauer's Undercover Reporting from Inside a Private Prison Going undercover as a prison guard in Winnifield, Louisiana, journalist Shane Bauer exposes the brutality of for-profit private prison systems, and this country's history of outsourcing criminal punishment in his book "American Prison." This stunning work recently won NYPL's 2019 ...
04.14.2019 Emily Bazelon and Stacey Abrams talk Criminal Justice Reform In the search for meaningful criminal justice reform, are prosecutors one of the keys to change? In her new book, "Charged," journalist Emily Bazelon argues that prosecutors play an "outsize role" in mass incarceration -- from choosing the charge to ...
04.07.2019 Bending Reality with G. Willow Wilson G. Willow Wilson is a critically acclaimed novelist and co-creator of the first Muslim superhero with their own Marvel comic book series. Wilson's new book, The Bird King, is the story of a fantastical quest through the Iberian peninsula at ...
03.31.2019 Janet Napolitano Explains Homeland Security with Joe Biden Few people understand the state of our national security as well as Janet Napolitano and Joe Biden. Napolitano, former Dept. of Homeland Security Secretary and the first appointed by President Obama, has written about the subject in her new book,"How ...
03.24.2019 Still Cringing After 'Cat Person' When "Cat Person" appeared in "The New Yorker" in December 2017, it quickly became a viral hit, striking a chord with readers at the height of the #MeToo Movement. People seemed surprised by the Internet popularity of a long form ...
03.17.2019 Paperback Crushin' The 1970s are sometimes hailed as the true dawn of young-adult literature, the decade when authors like Judy Blume and Lois Lowry showed that teen readers were worth taking seriously. Decades later, J.K. Rowling revolutionized YA, permanently broadening its appeal ...
03.10.2019 Frankenstein: Our Dark Mirror Over 200 years ago, a teenage girl started a literary legacy that continues to haunt us today. Why do we still keep telling this story and how does it reflect our darkest fears? The New York Public Library's curators join ...
03.03.2019 Marilynne Robinson: Liberalism and American Tradition Pt. II This week we're featuring part two of Marilynne Robinson's lecture on American society, government and economy titled "Liberalism and American Tradition." Robinson discusses our country's Puritan history and how society constructs value, referencing a number of political philosophers and social ...
02.24.2019 Marilynne Robinson: Liberalism and American Tradition Pt. I Marilynne Robinson is one of the most celebrated American writers—she won a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was awarded a National Humanities Medal from President Barack Obama, to name just a few of her accolades. She recently delivered a lecture ...
02.17.2019 How to Make Black Lives Matter at School Despite the fact that New York City is one of the most diverse places in the country our school system is among the most segregated. As part of the nationwide campaign, Black Lives Matter at School Week, Schomburg Center's Associate ...
02.10.2019 Envisioning 'A People's Future of the United States' Howard Zinn’s seminal 1980 work "A People’s History of the United States" challenged dominant narratives of our country’s past by uncovering its darker truths; nearly 40 years later, a new collection of speculative fiction, "A People’s Future of the United ...
02.03.2019 Jason Rezaian's 544 Days in an Iranian Prison Jason Rezaian is an American journalist and author of a new memoir. In 2014, while reporting in Tehran for the Washington Post , he was arrested and wrongfully convicted of espionage by Iranian authorities. Rezaian recounts his experience in "Prisoner: ...
01.27.2019 The Banished Immortal Internationally bestselling author Ha Jin discussed his latest book—a new biography about legendary eighth-century Chinese poet, Li Bai. Ha Jin read some of the poet's lesser known works, and described Li’s unconventional lifestyle which he researched for his book, "The ...
01.20.2019 Seeing and Being Seen in Sally Wen Mao's 'Oculus' Sally Wen Mao is the author of "Oculus," a collection of poems that explores sight and being seen, futuristic worlds and historical figures. She completed this collection during her Cullman Center Fellowship at NYPL in 2016-2017. In conversation with fellow ...
01.13.2019 Maria Popova's A Velocity of Being Maria Popova & Claudia Bedrick curated an anthology of letters and original illustrations by 121 of the most interesting and inspiring culture-makers alive today. "A Velocity of Being," Popova's project that was eight years in the making, asked each contributor ...
01.06.2019 Satirizing America in 'Friday Black' Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah sheds light on a modern day America full of racial violence, greed, and heartbreak in his debut collection of short stories, "Friday Black." Focusing on the struggles of young black men and women, his characters fight to ...
12.30.2018 The Librarian Is In with Eric Klinenberg Our friends from NYPL's The Librarian Is In podcast recorded their first-ever live episode, featuring NYU sociologist and author Eric Klinenberg. His new book "Palaces for the People" looks at how shared public spaces like gardens, child-care centers, and—yep, you ...
12.19.2018 Neil Gaiman Reads "A Christmas Carol" (Rebroadcast) To celebrate the 175th anniversary of the Dickens' classic, we're rebroadcasting this very special reading by writer and comic book author, Neil Gaiman. His live performance from 2013 uses a rare prompt copy that belonged to Charles Dickens himself and ...
12.16.2018 A Reporting Life in Latin America Award-winning journalist Alma Guillermoprieto delivered this year's annual Robert B. Silvers lecture, a series named in honor of the co-founding editor of The New York Review of Books. In her lecture titled “Among the Drug Dealers, Criminals, Rapists: A Reporting ...
12.09.2018 Magical Realism with Wayétu Moore Wayétu Moore's debut novel explores African diasporic identity through historical fiction and magical realism. In a conversation with Buzzfeed writer, Isaac Fitzgerald, Moore talks about the stories behind her new book "She Would Be King": the history of her native ...
12.02.2018 John McPhee's Album Quilt In his seventh collection of essays, The Patch, master non-fiction writer John McPhee shares a montage of stories and reflections that range from a visit to the Hershey chocolate factory to encounters with Oscar Hammerstein, Joan Baez, and Mount Denali. ...
11.25.2018 How Congress Really Works...Or Doesn't Wyatt Cenac moderates a panel of Washington insiders and journalists about the mechanics of Congress, the archetypes for today's lawmakers, and advice on how constituents can ensure their representatives take action. Featuring Washington Post senior congressional correspondent Paul Kane and ...
11.18.2018 James Baldwin's Children's Book Did you know that when James Baldwin was writing "If Beale Street Could Talk" he was also writing a children's book? "Little Man, Little Man" was inspired by his young nephew and was first published in 1976. At the time, ...
11.11.2018 Susan Orlean's Ode to Libraries More than 30 years after a fire destroyed 400,000 books at the Los Angeles Public Library's Central Library, journalist Susan Orlean re-examines the tragedy in "The Library Book." Orlean has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1992; ...
11.04.2018 A History of Voter Suppression with Carol Anderson Carol Anderson is an historian, educator, and author of "White Rage." Her latest book, "One Person, No Vote," is a timely survey of how voting rights have been rolled back in this country following the 2013 Supreme Court decision in ...
10.28.2018 A Modern-day Gothic Horror Story The bestselling English novelist of "The Essex Serpent," Sarah Perry, stopped by the Library to talk about her newest novel,"Melmoth." The books origins lie in an obscure 19th-century Gothic novel of the same name and an illness that upended her ...
10.21.2018 Making Movements Intersectional Darnell L. Moore and Charlene Carruthers are two dynamic leaders and organizers committed to intersectional liberation in movements for Black lives. They are also friends and writers. Moore and Carruthers recently spoke at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black ...
10.14.2018 Why Men Fight with Thomas Page McBee While training for a charity boxing match at Madison Square Garden, writer Thomas Page McBee gained insight into how masculinity operates in the ring and in society— McBee became the first known trans man to box in the historic venue. ...
10.07.2018 Righteous Rage with Rebecca Traister In her new book, "Good and Mad" Rebecca Traister uncovers the history of women's anger in American politics—from the suffragettes to #MeToo. She argues that this collective fury is often the hidden force that drives political change, but rarely has ...
09.30.2018 The Secret Memoir of Bill Cunningham When famed fashion and society photographer Bill Cunningham died in 2016, he left behind not only an incredible archive of New York Times columns and photographs, but two identical copies of a secret memoir that he apparently hoped someone would ...
09.23.2018 The Elite Charade of Changing the World The world’s leading philanthropists are constantly working to “make the world a better place,” leading passionate campaigns against everything from climate change to poverty that had once been the province of governments. Journalist Anand Giridharadas asks whether those rich and ...
09.16.2018 Looking for the Real Lolita Vladimin Nabokov's "Lolita" is one of the most widely-read classics of twentieth century; however, few are familiar with the true story of an eleven-year-old-girl named Sally Horner, whose story bears an eerie resemblance to that of Nabokov's Dolores Hayes. In ...
09.09.2018 Notes from the Reading Life: Tim Gunn and Min Jin Lee Tim Gunn is the Emmy Award-winning former producer of "Project Runway," where for 16 seasons he mentored contestants with charm and care. But when he isn’t busy making it work, chances are he has his nose in a book. In ...
09.02.2018 The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire Before the Pulse Nightclub shooting in 2016, there was The Up Stairs Lounge fire. Author Robert Fieseler sets the largely overlooked tragedy of the Up Stairs Lounge arson that killed 32 people in its rightful historical place with "Tinderbox:The Untold ...
08.28.2018 Coming This Sunday: New Name, New Look Exciting news! Starting next episode, "The New York Public Library Podcast" will be renamed "Library Talks." We'll still be featuring the same public talks recorded live at NYPL with today's top writers and thinkers—we're just updating with a new logo, ...
08.21.2018 There's No Such Thing As Now Carlo Rovelli is an Italian theoretical physicist. In his new book, The Order of Time, Rovelli asks "Why do we remember the past and not the future…What ties time to our nature as persons, to our subjectivity?" Rovelli is the ...
08.14.2018 Two Sisters' Path Toward Radical Islam Norwegian journalist Åsne Seierstad's most recent book, Two Daughters: A Father, his Daughters, and their Journey into the Syrian Jihad, is a heart-pounding thriller tracing the radicalization of two teenage girls. In 2013, the two Somali youth abandoned their family ...
08.07.2018 Chronicling Illness with Porochista Khakpour and Eileen Myles For as far back as she can remember, writer Porochista Khakpour has been sick. She was recently diagnosed with late-stage Lyme disease and has written her first memoir about her illness, Sick. Khakpour sat down with one of her literary ...
07.31.2018 Love and Lanyards with Billy Collins Former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins stopped by the Library earlier this Spring to read some of his work, share a few tips on the creative process, and land a few jokes. He sat down with Paul Holdengräber for a ...
07.24.2018 Literacy is a Human Right with The World in Words Podcast Earlier this spring, our friends from The World in Words Podcast recorded a live show at NYPL's very own Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library. The podcast, hosted by is about languages and the people who speak them. For ...
07.17.2018 Roxane Gay and Aja Monet Tell Their Truth Roxane Gay's latest book, "Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture," is a collection of first-person essays that directly tackle rape, sexual assault and harassment. With writer and organizer, Aja Monet, Gay discusses how their stories fit into the national ...

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Library Talks

What's Library Talks about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Library Talks episodes:

Stonewall 50: The Sound of Memory

Before Stonewall

Marlon James Gets Nerdy with Kevin Young

A History of the Queer Press

Erin Lee Carr and Ta-Nehisi Coates Remember David Carr

How Robert Caro Writes About Power and the Powerless

Breaking New Ground with Dr. Carla Hayden and Tracy K. Smith

Jill Abramson and Jane Mayer's Insider Take on the News

Eliza Griswold Uncovers the Human Cost of Fracking

Shane Bauer's Undercover Reporting from Inside a Private Prison

Emily Bazelon and Stacey Abrams talk Criminal Justice Reform

Bending Reality with G. Willow Wilson

Janet Napolitano Explains Homeland Security with Joe Biden

Still Cringing After 'Cat Person'

Paperback Crushin'

Frankenstein: Our Dark Mirror

Marilynne Robinson: Liberalism and American Tradition Pt. II

Marilynne Robinson: Liberalism and American Tradition Pt. I

How to Make Black Lives Matter at School

Envisioning 'A People's Future of the United States'

Jason Rezaian's 544 Days in an Iranian Prison

The Banished Immortal

Seeing and Being Seen in Sally Wen Mao's 'Oculus'

Maria Popova's A Velocity of Being

Satirizing America in 'Friday Black'

The Librarian Is In with Eric Klinenberg

Neil Gaiman Reads "A Christmas Carol" (Rebroadcast)

A Reporting Life in Latin America

Magical Realism with Wayétu Moore

John McPhee's Album Quilt

How Congress Really Works...Or Doesn't

James Baldwin's Children's Book

Susan Orlean's Ode to Libraries

A History of Voter Suppression with Carol Anderson

A Modern-day Gothic Horror Story

Making Movements Intersectional

Why Men Fight with Thomas Page McBee

Righteous Rage with Rebecca Traister

The Secret Memoir of Bill Cunningham

The Elite Charade of Changing the World

Looking for the Real Lolita

Notes from the Reading Life: Tim Gunn and Min Jin Lee

The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire

Coming This Sunday: New Name, New Look

There's No Such Thing As Now

Two Sisters' Path Toward Radical Islam

Chronicling Illness with Porochista Khakpour and Eileen Myles

Love and Lanyards with Billy Collins

Literacy is a Human Right with The World in Words Podcast

Roxane Gay and Aja Monet Tell Their Truth

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