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The New York Public Library
Library Talks
Education
News
English
Join The New York Public Library and your favorite writers, artists, and thinkers for smart talks and provocative conversations from the nation's cultural capital.
Website
Episodes
300
08 April 2026
Bob Crawford with Alexis Coe: America's Founding Son
In this episode of Library Talks, The historian and bass player for The Avett Brothers, Bob Crawford revisits the life of John Quincy Adams in his book America's Founding Son. Adams was born nine years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and he died as the United States was sliding irrevocably toward Civil War. In between he was a foreign ambassador, secretary of state, sitting...
58 min
01 April 2026
Daisy Hernández with Jia Lynn Yang: Citizenship
In this episode of Library Talks, Author Daisy Hernández explores one of the most contested questions in contemporary American life: who belongs. Hernández is joined in discussion with journalist Jia Lynn Yang. Citizenship: Notes on an American Myth braids memoir, history, and cultural criticism to reveal how citizenship functions less as a guarantee than as a narrative we tell about ourselves as...
57 min
25 March 2026
Library Talks: Ellen Carol DuBois with Julie Suk, 'Elizabeth Cady Stanton'
In this episode of Library Talks, historian Ellen Carol DuBois discusses her new book Elizabeth Cady Stanton: A Revolutionary Life with legal scholar Julie Suk. Elizabeth Cady Stanton presents a definitive portrait of one of the most influential figures in the American struggles for women's suffrage and rights. From the 1840s until her death in 1902, Stanton fought for women's emancipation,...
54 min
18 March 2026
Jeanne Theoharis with Robyn C. Spencer-Antoine: The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks
In this episode of Library Talks, historian Jeanne Theoharis joins the podcast to discuss her groundbreaking work, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks. She is joined in discussion by fellow historian Robyn C. Spencer-Antoine. The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks is the definitive political biography of Rosa Parks and examines her six decades of activism, challenging perceptions of her as an...
51 min
11 March 2026
Clint Bentley with Aidan Flax-Clark: Train Dreams
In this episode of Library Talks, award winning director Clint Bentley joins the podcast to discuss his new film Train Dreams and the process of adapting Denis Johnson's beloved novella. Train Dreams is the moving portrait of Robert Grainier, a logger and railroad worker who leads a life of unexpected depth and beauty in the rapidly-changing America of the early 20th Century. Clint Bentley's film...
58 min
04 March 2026
Nina Sankovitch with Jennifer Finney Boylan: Not Your Founding Father
In this episode of Library Talks, historian Nina Sankovitch discusses her new book Not Your Founding Father: How a Nonbinary Minister Became America's Most Radical Revolutionary. In 1776 a 23-year-old woman named Jemima Wilkinson suffered a severe illness, declared her past self dead, and then rebranded as the Public Universal Friend, a genderless messenger of God. In a few short years the Friend...
55 min
25 February 2026
Emily Yellin and John C. Lawson II with Michelle Miller: Nonviolent
In this episode of Library Talks, we explore the life of one of the most influential architects of the civil rights era Rev. James Lawson Jr. and discuss his new posthumous memoir Nonviolent: A Memoir of Resistance, Agitation, and Love Rev. James Lawson Jr. spent his life fighting racial and economic injustice. A peer of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he taught and organized nonviolent direct...
57 min
18 February 2026
Emerald Fennell with Aidan Flax-Clark: "Wuthering Heights"
In this episode of Library Talks, Academy and BAFTA Award–winning filmmaker, Emerald Fennell, discusses her seductive interpretation of Wuthering Heights. Wuthering Heights has been the subject of controversy since it was first published in 1847. One of its first critics derided the novel's "vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors," and another wrote, "How a human being could have attempted such a...
58 min
11 February 2026
Edward McPherson with Robert Sullivan: Look Out
In this episode of Library Talks, author Edward McPherson sits down with fellow author Robert Sullivan to discuss his latest book, Look Out: The Delight and Danger of Taking the Long View. Look Out is an exploration of long-distance mapping, aerial photography, and top-down and far-ranging perspectives—from pre–Civil War America to our vexed modern times of drone warfare, hyper-surveillance at...
1 h 0 min
04 February 2026
Akhil Reed Amar: Born Equal
In this episode of Library Talks, prizewinning constitutional historian Akhil Reed Amar talks about his new book Born Equal: Remaking America's Constitution, 1840–1920. Born Equal recounts the dramatic constitutional debates that unfolded across eight decades, across those eight decades four amendments abolished slavery, secured Black and female citizenship, and extended suffrage regardless of...
1 h 6 min