Synopsis
Join The New York Public Library and your favorite writers, artists, and thinkers for smart talks and provocative conversations from the nations cultural capital.
Episodes
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Mike Wallace, Greater Gotham
10/10/2017 Duration: 01h29sTwenty years in the making, Greater Gotham is Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Mike Wallace's follow-up to his 1999 Gotham. He spoke about the New York City history, which covers 1898 to 1918, with the New Yorker's Jelani Cobb.
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Salman Rushdie, The Golden House
03/10/2017 Duration: 01h17minThe Booker Prize–winning novelist discusses his twelfth, and most recent, novel, The Golden House.
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Jesmyn Ward on 'Sing, Unburied, Sing'
26/09/2017 Duration: 55minThe National Book Award–winning author spoke at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture about her most recent novel, Sing, Unburied, Sing. She was joined by Lisa Lucas, Executive Director of the National Book Foundation.
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Atul Gawande & Elizabeth Alexander
19/09/2017 Duration: 01h11minTwo writers, two beautiful books, both on the subject of death. Atul Gawande's Being Mortal examines the lengths modern medicine must go to better humanize the final stages of our lives. Elizabeth Alexander's The Light of the World is the memoir of her husband Ficre's sudden and unexpected death, and Alexander's process of grieving and rebuilding that followed it.
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Kurt Andersen, Fantasyland
12/09/2017 Duration: 57minThe host and co-creator of Studio 360 discusses his new book, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, a 500-Year History. He spoke with NYU professor Kwame Anthony Appiah. Andersen argues that the roots of our post-truth, alternative facts present can be discovered in America's "promiscuous devotion to the untrue" and its instinct to believe in make believe, evident across four centuries of magical thinkers and true believers, hucksters and suckers, who have embedded an appetite for believe-whatever-you-want fantasy into our national DNA.
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Raoul Peck, "I Am Not Your Negro"
05/09/2017 Duration: 01h10minThe filmmaker speaks about his groundbreaking documentary I Am Not Your Negro at the Schomburg Center with the Schomburg's Director, Kevin Young and LIVE from the NYPl's Paul Holdengräber.
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Ayobami Adebayo on her debut novel "Stay With Me"
29/08/2017 Duration: 46minThe Nigerian writer discusses her debut novel, Stay With Me, the haunting tale of a young couple whose childless marriage threatens to tear them apart. It was shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction and hailed by Michiko Kakutani as "powerfully magnetic and heartbreaking."
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Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning
22/08/2017 Duration: 01h18minKendi discussed his National Book Award–winning work on the history of racist ideas in America with Khalil Gibran Muhammad, the Director Emeritus of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
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Noam Chomsky and Wallace Shawn: Rigorous Rationality
15/08/2017 Duration: 01h20minMIT linguist, philosopher, and political theorist Noam Chomsky, in conversation with actor Wallace Shawn.
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How Judy Collins Conquered Her Cravings
08/08/2017 Duration: 01h01minGrammy-winning singer, songwriter, and best-selling author Judy Collins came to the Library back in February, to celebrate the publication of her most recent book, Cravings. “As an active, working alcoholic with an eating disorder,” she writes, “I yearned for serenity and was tormented for much of my life by longings, addictions, and painful crises over food: bingeing, bulimia, weight loss and gain.” Collins spoke with William Kelly, who is NYPL’s Andrew W. Mellon Director of the Research Libraries. Learn more at nypl.org/podcasts.
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Lynn Nottage & Sweat
01/08/2017 Duration: 01h06minThe Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright was joined in May by members of the Broadway cast of Sweat to talk about the play and the issues behind it at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
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Immigrant Stories—Min Jin Lee with Simon Winchester
25/07/2017 Duration: 01h01minBest-selling novelist Min Jin Lee on her latest book, the ups and downs of her career, the history of Koreans in Japan, and the treatment of Asians in America.
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Phillip Glass, Words Without Music
18/07/2017 Duration: 01h22minPhilip Glass is a giant of twentieth-century American music, arguably of the most influential composers of his time. He spoke with LIVE from the NYPL’s Paul Holdengräber last June about his memoir "Words Without Music." It is a riveting record of a life very well lived, and a fascinating conversation with a legendary artist.
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Janet Mock, Surpassing Certainty
11/07/2017 Duration: 56minWriter, activist, and podcast host Janet Mock joins for a discussion of her second memoir, Surpassing Certainty. She's interviewed by Lisa Lucas, the Executive Director of the National Book Foundation. The two talked about everything from Mock’s time in the publishing industry to her work in a Honolulu strip club, from spam recipes and Zara dresses to the influence of writers like Maya Angelou and Zora Neale Hurston.
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Inside the Work and Mind of Nick Cave
04/07/2017 Duration: 50minOne of contemporary art's most towering figures guides us through his astonishing new exhibition at MASS MoCA.
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David Grann
27/06/2017 Duration: 49minIn the 1920s, the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma become oil millionaires after black gold was discovered under their land. Discover the stories of the mysterious that followed and one of the FBI's earliest investigations.
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Tracy K. Smith, New U.S. Poet Laureate
20/06/2017 Duration: 37minTracy K. Smith was named 22nd U.S. Poet Laureate last week. In 2016 she came by the Library to discuss her memoir, Ordinary Light.
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Jelani Cobb, The Half-Life of Freedom (Part 2: Demagogues of American History)
15/06/2017 Duration: 01h04minThis week, the second part of Jelani Cobb's lecture on politics, journalism, and history entitled "The Half-Life of Freedom: The Demagogues of American History."
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Jelani Cobb, The Half-Life of Freedom (Part 1: The Media and Alternative Facts)
13/06/2017 Duration: 01h06minNew 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."
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Alec Baldwin
06/06/2017 Duration: 01h18minAlec Baldwin spoke with NY Times critic-at-large Wesley Morris about his recent memoir, "Nevertheless," at LIVE from the NYPL.