The New York Public Library Podcast

Prize-winning author Vauhini Vara sits down with Leslie Jamison to discuss her first collection of short stories, This Is Salvaged.

Authors Ayana Mathis, author of The Unsettled, and Justin Torres, author of Blackouts, speak about their award-winning novels.

In this episode of Library Talks, author Kliph Nesteroff sits down with comedian Marc Maron to discuss his new book, Outrageous, which chronicles the controversies of American show business and the ongoing attempts to change what we watch, read, and hear.

Politicians and activists discuss the continuing push to revive the much-contested Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).

Mary Beard returns to the Library to talk with Tim Gunn about her new book, Emperor of Rome, her long-awaited follow up to the international bestseller SPQR.

In this episode of Library Talks, C Pam Zhang sits down with Padma Lakshmi to discuss her latest novel Land of Milk and Honey, which tells the story of climate disaster and a young chef discovering pleasure at the end of the world. Zhang is the winner of the Academy of Arts and Letters Rosenthal Award and the Asian/Pacific Award for Literature, a Booker Prize nominee, and a finalist for numerous other prizes, including the the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Zhang’s writing appears in Best American Short Stories, The Cut, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. She is a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honoree and a New York Public Library Cullman Fellow. Padma Lakshmi is an Emmy-nominated producer, television host, food expert, and a New York Times best-selling author and one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People (2023).

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Matthew Desmond’s latest book, Poverty, by America, reimagines the American debate on poverty, making an original and ambitious argument about why it persists here: because too many of us benefit from it. In this episode of Library Talks, Desmond speaks with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Andrea Elliot to discuss his new ways of thinking around this morally urgent, uniquely American problem—and imagines practical, achievable solutions for making poverty disappear.

Acclaimed scholar and writer Alondra Nelson leads a discussion on the transnational impacts of artificial intelligence and the need for global collaboration. Speakers include Karen Kornbluh, Maria Ressa, Olatunbosun Tijani, Tim Wu

The new novel by award-winning author Luis Alberto Urrea, Good Night, Irene, tells an overlooked story of women’s heroism in World War II, inspired by the experiences of his own mother. Urrea speaks about his “moving and graceful tribute to heroic women” that asks whether a friendship forged on the front lines of war defines a life forever.

Sasha Velour is an iconic queen. Turns out she’s also a historian! In this episode of Library Talks, Velour sits down with drag historian Joe E. Jeffreys to discuss her new book, The Big Reveal: An Illustrated Manifesto of Drag, a treasure trove of revelations about radical queer expressions throughout time. The revered entertainer and winner of RuPaul's Drag Race weaves together gender theory, politics, and memoir to tell the story of drag. Velour redefines drag for a new generation while uncovering the history of queer life that made it all possible.

Welcome back! The Library presents conversations with an incredible array of authors, performers, activists, and thinkers, and our Library Talks podcast brings some of those conversations to you. Today we are relaunching the show with Sherrilyn Iffill delivering the annual Robert B. Silvers Lecture, titled How America Ends and Begins Again. Within this dangerous period of accelerated democratic unraveling, Sherrilyn Ifill argues that our country has a unique opportunity. Can we use this moment to build at long last a healthy, multiracial democracy anchored in the values of equality and justice?

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. On this special episode we’ll hear what happened over the nights of the riots through archival audio of iconic transgender rights activists Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, and Miss Major Griffin-Gracy. NYPL's Jason Baumann returns for an interview with pioneering photojournalist and gay rights activist Kay Tobin Lahusen. Plus stories from Eric Marcus' podcast Making Gay History, and the story of Stormé DeLarverie from the archives at The Schomburg Center.  Also mentioned: 'The Stonewall Reader' The exhibit 'Love & Resistance: Stonewall 50' Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen Photographs and Papers NYC Trans Oral History Project, including Miss Major's full length interview For more, listen to our previous episode “Before Stonewall” including an interview wit

Aidan Flax-Clark welcomes co-host Jason Baumann, Assistant Director for Collection Development and Coordinator of Humanities and the Library’s LGBTQ Initiative, for a special episode about queer life before the Stonewall Riots.  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 Virginia Prince, the founder and editor of the magazine 'Transvestia,' read by actor LeLand Gantt. Next week we'll hear what happened during those few days at the Stonewall Inn in 1969 from iconic transgender rights activists Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, and Miss Major. Jason Baumann returns for an interview with pioneering photojournalist and gay rights activist Kay Tobin Lahusen. Plus stories from Eric Marcus' podcast 'Making Gay History' and a story from the archives at The Schomburg Center. Also mentioned: -'The Stonewall Reader' -The exhibit 'Love &

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 Thrones." He spoke with fellow fantasy and comic book fan, Kevin Young, who is a poet and the Director for the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. They talked about James' two years of research for the series, map making, Afrofuturism, and books they love, while unleashing their inner nerd.

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: Stonewall 50, founding members of the GLF, Perry Brass and Karla Jay, speak with media and activism scholar Michael Bronski, and Kathy Tu and Tobin Low, co-hosts of WNYC Studios’ podcast Nancy. They discussed the fight for inclusion in the media, the rise of the queer press in the 1960s and 70s, and the lasting impact of its legacy.

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. She was also looking for clues—advice the famous mentor, journalist, and father might have to offer on how to cope with her devastating loss, and continue on with her life and career. Erin Lee Carr will be joined by one of her father’s admiring mentees, Ta-Nehisi Coates, to discuss the legacy David Carr has left for his family, the journalistic community, and readers at large.

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 the author of the Robert Moses biography "The Power Broker" and "The Years of Lyndon Johnson," The biographer, who has spent much time doing what he does best in the Allen Room of The New York Public Library, returns to share some stories of his own with William P. Kelly, The New York Public Library’s Andrew W. Mellon Director of the Research Libraries.

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 at Princeton University. In a conversation with Schomburg Director, Kevin Young they discussed their work, the future of Black librarianship and the democratization of libraries

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 the face of rapidly changing technologies, shifting business models, and a president who almost daily assails the mainstream media as fake news. She spoke with long-time friend and colleague, investigative reporter Jane Mayer.

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 boom's relationship to the natural land. But it's also a moving portrait of a family—a resolute mother trying to care for her two children, sickened by the fracking fallout. Griswold sat down with NYPL's Gwen Glazer to talk about the making of this story, immersion journalism, and where things stand in rural America today.