Ann Patchett is best known for her award-winning novel Bel Canto, “a book that works both as a paean to art and beauty and a subtly sly comedy of manners” (New York Times). She is also the author of the novels The Patron Saint of Liars, The Dutch House, Commonwealth, and the non-fiction books Truth and Beauty and This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. Her new novel, Tom Lake , is about the lives parents lead before their children are born, the choices we make that inform who we become, and what ...
Sep 01, 2024•1 hr 14 min
This week, our guest is David Brooks. As an Op-Ed contributor to The New York Times, Brooks writes about subjects ranging from politics and foreign affairs, to cultural trends and spirituality. Brooks started as a humorist, penning satires for his college paper, before becoming a film critic and then a reporter at The Wall Street Journal . You can see him regularly on the PBS Newshour. He’s also the author of bestselling books like Bobos in Paradise and The Social Animal. Like several of his mor...
Aug 25, 2024•1 hr 18 min
Long before he directed Wicked, In The Heights , or the groundbreaking film Crazy Rich Asians, Jon M. Chu was a movie-obsessed first-generation Chinese American helping at his parents’ Chinese restaurant in Silicon Valley and forever facing the cultural identity crisis endemic to children of immigrants. Growing up on the cutting edge of twenty-first-century technology gave Chu the tools he needed to make his mark at USC film school and to be discovered by Steven Spielberg, but he soon found hims...
Aug 18, 2024•1 hr 6 min
Journalist and podcaster Carvell Wallace regularly contributes to the New York Times Magazine , and has written cover profiles for Rolling Stone , GQ , and Esquire. His intimate, often heartbreaking essays address everything from the end of Barack Obama’s presidency, to the connections between cowboy poetry and forgotten histories of Black people, to the possibility that his mother would have wanted an abortion. Wallace’s new memoir, Another Word For Love , looks back on his own life, from exper...
Aug 11, 2024•1 hr 7 min
Best known for her 2022 novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow , Gabrielle Zevin has moved across many genres and topics, writing young adult novels, dystopian speculative fiction, and stories centered around video games, all exploring modern technology, slut-shaming, and the oppression of women. She has written for The New York Times Book Review and NPR, and received an Independent Spirit Award Nomination for Best First Screenplay for the feature film Conversations with Other Women . As Zev...
Aug 04, 2024•1 hr 8 min
Our guest is writer and philosopher Chloe Cooper Jones, author of the memoir Easy Beauty. Jones was born with sacral agenesis, a rare congenital condition that affects her gait and her stature. In Easy Beauty, she details how that informs her experience of the world – and delivers a powerful philosophical examination of how society thinks about beauty. Jones is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine, and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2000 for her profile of Ramsey Orta, the man ...
Jul 28, 2024•1 hr 10 min
Victoria Chang is the author of 8 books of poetry, including “Obit” and “Barbie Chang”, a work of creative nonfiction, and two children’s books. Her newest collection of poems is called “With My Back to the World.” It’s inspired by the art and writing of Agnes Martin, a painter who was an influential part of the abstract art movement beginning in the 1950s. On May 31, 2024, Chang came to the KQED studios in San Francisco to talk to Steven Winn about her creative process and some of the themes in...
Jul 21, 2024•39 min
Serj Tankian, lead singer of the heavy metal band “System Of A Down.” Tankian founded the group in 1997, releasing five studio albums, three of which debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200. His solo career also includes work as a painter, composer and filmmaker. The musician’s new book is called Down with the System: A Memoir (of Sorts). On July 21st, 2024, Tankian came to the KQED studios in San Francisco to talk to Zack Ruskin about music and activism – particularly his work in suppor...
Jul 21, 2024•31 min
Since their foundational philosophical critique of gender and sexuality, Gender Trouble , Judith Butler has been a singularly important contributor to our contemporary understanding of those categories, including what it can mean to be queer. Butler’s revolutionary cultural influence and constant drive towards better understandings of our world guarantee that they will remain a widely read canonical writer for decades to come. In recent years, Butler’s theoretical and activist work on gender per...
Jul 14, 2024•1 hr 23 min
Artist Kara Walker has investigated race, gender, sexuality, and violence through her installations, paintings, silhouettes, and films. Walker’s art has won awards and is collected by museums around the world. Her work with stereotypes and the history of racial violence has pushed viewers to confront the continuing violence against Black people in America. With beloved writer Jamaica Kincaid, winner of the American Book Award, Walker is publishing An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Childre...
Jul 07, 2024•1 hr 3 min
Author and creator Miranda July isn’t bound by medium nor by expectations. From films like Me and You and Everyone We Know and Kajillionaire, to books like No One Belongs Here More Than You and The First Bad Man, to an iPhone app that reroutes text messages to strangers, July’s powers of creativity and observation are wise, surprising, and always delightful. Her second novel, All Fours , is the story of a woman’s artistic cross-country quest that has already won praise from George Saunders, Emma...
Jun 30, 2024•1 hr 16 min
Before his novel Erasure was adapted into the hit film American Fiction, Percival Everett was already one of the literary world’s most acclaimed talents, appreciated for his inimitable characters and storylines, as well as his uncommon variety of genres. Since Everett’s first novel in 1983, he has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, for Telephone, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, for The Trees. His newest novel, James, is a reimagining of Huckleberry Finn, and has already been toute...
Jun 23, 2024•2 hr 31 min
Our guest today is Maggie Nelson, an author and academic whose deeply personal and analytical writing has covered such topics as gender, sexuality, and freedom. She’s published nine books of poetry, essays, and memoir, including The Argonauts . Many of her books combine or re-imagine genres, like her 2009 work Bluets , a collection of 240 short pieces – ranging from the philosophical to the lyrical – about the color blue. On June 1st, 2024, Nelson came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Fran...
Jun 16, 2024•1 hr 17 min
Amy Tan is best known for her novels of Asian American life, such as The Joy Luck Club, the Kitchen God’s Wife, and The Bonesetter’s Daughter. Now she’s written and illustrated a book inspired by her love of birding. The Backyard Bird Chronicles tracks the thoughts and lessons gathered through birding, mixing memoir with Tan’s own sketches of birds. Tan’s calm focus on watching and drawing the wild birds who visit her home makes for a brilliantly composed breath of fresh air. On May 18, 2024, Am...
Jun 09, 2024•2 hr 41 min
Justice Stephen G. Breyer returns to the City Arts & Lectures stage to discuss his first book since retiring from the United State Supreme Court, Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism During his 28-year tenure on the United States Supreme Court, which began with his appointment by President Bill Clinton in 1994, Justice Stephen G. Breyer authored 551 opinions. As a liberal voice in the federal judiciary, he has played a key role in reforming criminal sentencing pro...
Jun 02, 2024•1 hr 15 min
Our guest is actor and comedian Tiffany Haddish. Since her breakout role in the movie Girls Trip, she’s been stealing scenes in films like Night School and Bad Trip. Her comedy specials Tiffany Haddish: She Ready! From the Hood to Hollywood! and the Grammy-winning Black Mitzvah are unfiltered, and deeply personal, from stories of failed comedy performances, to being unhoused, to remarkable perseverance. On May 15, 2024, Haddish came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco where she spok...
May 26, 2024•1 hr 13 min
As the 19th and 21st U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy has faced some of the most difficult health crises in recent history. Murthy, appointed by Presidents Obama and Biden, shaped the federal response to the opioid epidemic, the rise of e-cigarettes, the Flint Michigan water crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic. He also co-founded Doctors for America, which works to promote more affordable health care, and TrialNetworks, a biotechnology company that helps improve clinical drug trials. Murthy ...
May 19, 2024•1 hr 15 min
Doris Kearns Goodwin is the preeminent scholar of American presidents. For more than 45 years, in books like the Pulitzer-Prize winning No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt The Homefront in World War II and Team of Rivals , the inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s film Lincoln, Goodwin has informed millions of readers (and politicians) about the history and power of Executive branch. Before her career as a historian, Goodwin taught at Harvard for a decade, helped Lyndon Johnson draft h...
May 12, 2024•1 hr 16 min
Activists and organizers Astra Taylor and Leah Hunt-Hendrix have co-written a new book that presents a detailed examination of solidarity, and its potential for creating lasting change. They spoke with Kate Schatz about their book Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea at the KQED studios on April 17, 2024.
May 05, 2024•50 min
The concept of de-growth - purposefully moving away from an ever-growing gross domestic product as the definition of a successful economy - may seem like a tough sell to Americans. But Japanese philosopher Kohei Saito sees de-growth as part of a new and sustainable way of living that consumes less of the planet’s resources. His new book Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto , points an urgent, yet gentle path toward a more equal and less harmful society. On April 20, 2024, Saito talked to Astra Tayl...
May 05, 2024•53 min
Beloved for her enchanting, lyrical writing, Anne Lamott takes on the most complex, intimate parts of life with grace and precision. Lamott’s novels and memoirs have be awarded some of the most sought-after literary prizes, and her collection of essays on writing, Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life , has become required reading for all authors. Her new book, Somehow: Thoughts on Love , delves into the struggles of love with her trademark honesty and humor, finding the transforma...
Apr 28, 2024•1 hr 3 min
Since his 2016 debut poetry collection The Crown Ain’t Worth Much , Hanif Abdurraqib’s writing has earned him numerous accolades as a poet, essayist, and music critic. Easily moving from emotionally riveting examinations of Black identities to academic explorations of punk scenes to analyses of contemporary popular artists, Abdurraqib’s work is full of uninhibited curiosity, revolutionary honesty, and a singular intelligence. His first essay collection, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us , wa...
Apr 21, 2024•1 hr 15 min
Matthew Desmond is a professor of sociology at Princeton University and the principal investigator at The Eviction Lab, a research group that published the first-ever dataset of evictions in America, going back to 2000. His Pulitzer-Prize-winner book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City quickly made Desmond one of America’s most important thinkers and activists. His new book, Poverty, By America , broadens the scope of his research, demonstrating how wealthy Americans keep poor peopl...
Apr 14, 2024•1 hr 6 min
Our guest today is Angela Davis, one of the world’s most important voices for justice. The philosopher and activist came to prominence in the 1960s. Six decades later, Davis is still on the front lines fighting for equality and freedom on a range of issues from prison abolition to racial justice to gender rights. On March 20, 2024, the iconic activist and scholar came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk about her new book "Abolition, Volume 1" with Hilton Als, New Yorker sta...
Apr 07, 2024•1 hr 8 min
Our guest today is award-winning novelist Tommy Orange. Orange’s debut novel, There There, centered on a Native American experience that is less commonly featured in US literature - the lives of urban Native Americans. It was one of 2019’s most critically acclaimed books, and now, he’s written a followup. It’s called Wandering Stars. This new book features many of the same characters, while tracing the traumatic legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and government-run boarding schools, lik...
Mar 31, 2024•1 hr 14 min
Our guest today is Tariq Trotter, also known as Black Thought. He’s a founding member of the seminal hip hop band, The Roots and the author of the memoir The Upcycled Self . Trotter’s released more than a dozen albums and these days, he can be seen every week on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon. In his new memoir, Trotter paints a riveting portrait of his childhood in South Philadelphia and life as a young artist, from meeting Questlove in high school to finding his own path in the music i...
Mar 24, 2024•1 hr 15 min
Our guest is Calvin Trillin. The journalist, humorist, poet, and novelist started his professional career in the early 1960’s at Time Magazine, and soon after became a staff writer for The New Yorker, where he continues to contribute. He also writes for The Nation. He is the author of 32 books, including memoir, novels, verse, and food writing. His new book,“The Lede: Dispatches From A Life in the Press”, collects writings about journalism and its practitioners. This conversation with writer Ste...
Mar 17, 2024•1 hr 8 min
Throughout every era of digital technology, from the dot com bubble to artificial intelligence, journalist Kara Swisher has been a key figure in understanding the rapid growth in Silicon Valley, whether reporting for The Wall Street Journal , The New York Times , and other major outlets, or as co-host of the podcast Pivot. Swisher is founder of the All Things Digital conference and the technology news website Recode, and the author of three books, including her new memoir, Burn Book: A Tech Love...
Mar 10, 2024•1 hr 10 min
This week, our guest is Ada Limón, he United States Poet Laureate. Limon has published six books of poetry, including The Carrying , The Hurting Kind, and Bright Dead Things. On February 22nd, 2024, Limón came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Alexis Madrigal about the ways in which the natural world inspires her work – from the landscape of her youth in Sonoma County, California, to Kentucky, where she lives today. She also talked about writing a poem to be engraved on...
Mar 03, 2024•1 hr 6 min
Our guest today is Gretchen Sisson, a sociologist at UC San Francisco who studies abortion and adoption. Her new book, “Relinquished”, is the culmination of a decade-long study in which Sisson interviewed mothers from across the country who had given their children up for adoption. Sisson examines the myths and realities associated with these mothers – for example, only 14% are teenagers. But the majority live in poverty - over half have an income of less than $5,000 a year, and some experts sug...
Feb 25, 2024•1 hr
