Library Talks

New Yorker staff writer and Columbia Journalism School professor Jelani Cobb delivers a lecture on politics, journalism, and history entitled "The Half-Life of Freedom." This episode is part 1: "The Media and Alternative Facts."

Alec Baldwin spoke with NY Times critic-at-large Wesley Morris about his recent memoir, "Nevertheless," at LIVE from the NYPL.

Katherine Boo, Anand Giridharadas, and Philip Gourevitch are all past winners of the Library's Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, which celebrates its 30 anniversary this year. They came to the Library to speak on the shifting responsibilities, purposes, and even definitions of journalism.

Is the Trump Administration a dream or a nightmare for the Koch brothers? This week's episode asks and answers many questions about the intricate relationship between money and politics in American life with Jane Mayer, a New Yorker staff writer and winner of NYPL's 2017 Bernstein Award for her book "Dark Money."

Explore both the seeds and the fruits of our present American political condition with New Yorker writer George Packer, National Review editor Reihan Salam, and New York Public Library President Tony Marx.

Bernstein Award finalist Janine di Giovanni talks about her book, "The Morning They Came For Us: Dispatches from Syria," the story of Syria's civil war as told through the people who have lived through it.

Bernstein Award finalist Charlotte McDonald-Gibson talks about her book, 'Cast Away: True Stories of Survival from Europe's Refugee Crisis,' which follows individuals fleeing violence and persecution in Syria, Libya, Nigeria, and Eritrea.

BONUS: We're giving you a taste of the Library's other podcast, The Librarian Is In. Each week hosts Gwen and Frank discuss books, culture, what you should read next , and interview interesting figures from the world of books and libraries. Give it a listen, and subscribe if you like what you hear! Back to regularly scheduled programing on Tuesday.

A hilarious, confounding, perplexing, and thoroughly engrossing conversation between theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss and actor Alan Alda. They came to the LIVE from the NYPL stage to discuss Krauss's new book, The Greatest Story Ever Told…So Far: Why Are We Here?

An interview with Bernstein finalist and Guardian editor-at-large Gary Younge. His book is called Another Day in the Death of America: a Chronicle of Ten Short Lives. On an average day in the U.S., seven children and teens will die from gun violence. Younge picked one such day in November 2013 and told the stories of the ten young people whose lives were lost in that 24-hour span.