In this episode of Library Talks , National book award finalist Jonas Hassen Khemiri talks to Tess Gunty about his latest book, The Sisters. Narrated in six parts, each spanning a period ranging from a year to a day to a single minute, Jonas Hassen Khemiri's The Sisters is a big, vivid family saga of the highest order Jonas Hassen Khemiri worked on The Sisters during his 2021-2022 Fellowship at the Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers....
Jul 23, 2025•58 min
In this episode of Library Talks, New York’s funniest LGBTQ performers take the stage for a one-night-only celebration of queer comedy, community, and joy. Hosted by Bobby Hankinson, Kweendom is an all-LGBTQ comedy show featuring some of the city’s sharpest queer comedians and storytellers. Born from Hankinson’s frustration with lineups lacking authentic queer representation, Kweendom centers a wide range of LGBTQ voices—spanning gender identities, cultures, and backgrounds—each sharing their di...
Jul 16, 2025•1 hr 15 min
Former U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King, Jr talks to Lisette Nieves about his latest book, Teacher by Teacher.
Jul 09, 2025•43 min
In this episode of Library Talks , author and climate scientist Kate Marvel explores her latest book, Human Nature, with David Wallace-Wells, Monica Youn, and Lauren Kurtz through talks, performances, and more Each chapter of Kate Marvel’s new book, Human Nature, employs a different emotion to explore the science and stories behind climate change. Kate Marvel shares some of the hope, heartbreak, and humor that she uses to help readers confront the questions about what future lies ahead and how w...
Jul 02, 2025•56 min
In this episode of Library Talks , poets and critics read from and discuss the new anthology, Super Gay Poems: LGBTQIA+ Poetry after Stonewall . In Super Gay Poems, Stephanie Burt curates a boundary-pushing anthology of 51 poems by LGBTQIA+ writers, tracing the evolution of queer poetry since the Stonewall Riots. From sonnets to shaped poems, elegies to joyful provocations, the collection features luminaries like Frank O’Hara and Audre Lorde alongside vital contemporary voices such as Chen Chen ...
Jun 25, 2025•1 hr 1 min
In this episode of Library Talks , acclaimed journalist and National Book Award finalist Barbara Demick talks to Jessica Bruder about her latest book, Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins Barbara Demick investigates the origins, shocking cruelty, and legacy of China’s one-child rule; the rise of international adoption and the religious currents that buoyed it; and the exceedingly rare phenomenon of twin separation....
Jun 18, 2025•1 hr
In this episode of Library Talks , author Madeleine Thien talks to Jiayang Fan about her latest book, The Book of Records. The Book of Records is a novel that leaps across generations, ideas, and centuries, as if different eras were separated by only a door. Madeleine Thien worked on The Book of Records during her 2021-2022 Fellowship at the Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. She discusses her book with New Yorker staff writer Jiayang Fan....
Jun 11, 2025•56 min
In this episode of Library Talks , Author and Journalist Claire Hoffman sits down with fellow journalist Jelani Cobb to talk about her latest book, Sister, Sinner: The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson Sister, Sinner chronicles the dramatic rise, disappearance, and near-fall of Aimee Semple McPherson. A pioneer of Pentecostalism and founder of the Foursquare Church, McPherson used spectacle, storytelling, and her own radio station to bring God’s message to th...
Jun 04, 2025•1 hr 2 min
Bestselling author and historian Russell Shorto talks to Aidan Flax-Clark about his latest book, Taking Manhattan.
May 28, 2025•59 min
Acclaimed poet Haleh Liza Gafori discusses her latest translations of Rumi's lyric poetry in Water with prize-winning poet Maya C. Popa
May 21, 2025•59 min
Economist and writer Chris Hughes talks to Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Allowa about his latest book, Marketcrafters.
May 14, 2025•55 min
On this special episode of Library Talks, we speak with Mike Hixenbaugh, winner of the 38th annual Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, for his book They Came for the Schools: One Town's Fight Over Race and Identity, and the New War for America's Classrooms.
May 07, 2025•56 min
News anchor Vicky Nguyen talks to Tracey Nguyen Mang about her new memoir, Boat Baby.
Apr 30, 2025•1 hr 1 min
Michelin-starred chef José Andrés talks to Gail Simmons about his latest book, Change the Recipe.
Apr 23, 2025•1 hr 17 min
American historian Timothy Snyder presents his lecture The New Paganism—A Framework for Understanding Our Politics
Apr 16, 2025•1 hr 20 min
Film critic Alissa Wilkinson talks to Aidan Flax-Clark about her latest book, We Tell Ourselves Stories.
Apr 09, 2025•51 min
Historian Edna Bonhomme talks to Linda Villarosa about her latest book, A History of the World in Six Plagues.
Apr 02, 2025•59 min
Artist Hamid Rahmanian speaks with translator Ahmad Sadri and producer Melissa Hibbard about the Persian epic poem Shahnameh.
Mar 26, 2025•1 hr 17 min
Cookbook Author Lisa Kyung Gross is joined by Yael Raviv and Abi Balingit to talk about her latest book, The League of Kitchens Cookbook
Mar 19, 2025•1 hr
Kenneth Roth, the long-time head of Human Rights Watch, talks to M. Gessen about his first book, Righting Wrongs.
Mar 12, 2025•55 min
Eliza Clark talks to Allison Nellis about her debut short story collection, She's Always Hungry.
Mar 04, 2025•1 hr 1 min
Historian Sarah Lewis talks to Nell Irvin Painter about her latest book, The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America.
Feb 25, 2025•54 min
Bestselling author Victoria Christopher Murray sits down with journalist Melissa Noel to discuss her latest book, Harlem Rhapsody: The Extraordinary Story of the Woman Who Ignited the Harlem Renaissance .
Feb 18, 2025•1 hr 10 min
In 2003, author Jennifer Finney Boylan published She’s Not There , which became the first bestselling work by a transgender American and established Boylan as a go-to source for public conversation about the impact of gender on our lives. More than two decades later, her new memoir, Cleavage , returns with older and wiser eyes to examine the joys and the struggles of being transgender. In this episode of Library Talks , Boylan sits down with bestselling author Roxanne Gay to discuss her latest m...
Feb 11, 2025•1 hr 2 min
Writer and scholar David Wright Faladé sits down with Julie Orringer to discuss his latest book, The New Internationals , a stunning historical novel that sets a coming-of-age narrative and cross-cultural romance amidst a vibrant political moment in postwar Paris.
Feb 04, 2025•52 min
When author and historian Martha Hodes was 12-years-old she was flying unaccompanied on a plane that was hijacked. Nearly half a century later she explores her memories of that event in her book My Hijacking , which draws on deep archival research and extensive interviews both to re-create what happened to her as a child and to understand the larger context of the world-historical event in which she unwittingly participated.
Jan 28, 2025•56 min
New York State Poet Laureate Patricia Spears Jones is a poet, playwright, educator, and cultural activist. Her most recent book The Beloved Community was released in 2023. Here she is in conversation with Brent Hayes Edwards, professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature and the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University.
Jan 21, 2025•1 hr 14 min
Join author and professor Deondra Rose as she discusses her new book The Power of Black Excellence: HBCUs and the Fight for American Democracy with activist Angelo Pinto.
Jan 14, 2025•59 min
Caoilinn Hughes joins fellow author Brandon Taylor to discuss her latest book, The Alternatives , a story of four brilliant Irish sisters, orphaned in childhood, who scramble to reconnect when the oldest disappears into the Irish countryside.
Jan 07, 2025•55 min
Josephine Quinn sits down with award-winning poet Ken Chen to discuss her book How the World Made the West. Quinn's book poses a bold challenge to “civilizational thinking” on the origins of Western culture—that is, the idea that civilizations arose separately and distinctly from one another. Rather, she locates the roots of the modern West in everything from the law codes of Babylon, Assyrian irrigation, and the Phoenician art of sail to Indian literature, Arabic scholarship, and the metalworki...
Dec 31, 2024•1 hr
