Free Library Podcast Free Library of Philadelphia

In conversation with author and Pennsylvania State Senator, Nikil Saval

In The Hollow Parties, Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld present a comprehensive history of the rise of American mass party politics through the Jacksonian era up through the years of Barack Obama to the presidency of Donald Trump. They posit that today's Democrat and Republican parties, at once overbearing and ineffectual, have emerged from the interplay of multiple party traditions that reach back to the founding, and they offer a vision for how these groups might fulfill their promise.

An associate professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University, Daniel Schlozman studies political parties, American political development, social movements, and political history. He is the author of When Movements Anchor Parties: Electoral Alignments in American History, a member of the Scholars Strategy Network, and a trustee of the Maryland Center for Economic Policy.

Sam Rosenfeld is an associate professor of political science at Colgate University, where he researches party politics and American political development. He is the author of The Polarizers: Postwar Architects of Our Partisan Era, and his writing has also appeared in The American Prospect, The New Republic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Vox, among many other places.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 5/21/2024)

In conversation with Wil Haygood

Paul Hendrickson's books include Sons of Mississippi, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award; Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934–1961, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist; and The Living and the Dead: Robert McNamara and Five Lives of a Lost War, a National Book Award finalist. A creative writing teacher at the University of Pennsylvania for more than 25 years and a feature writer at The Washington Post for the two decades before that, he is the recipient of writing fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Lyndhurst Foundation, among other institutions. In Fighting the Night, Hendrickson tells the story of his father's World War II service as a nighttime fighter pilot and the sacrifices he, his family, and his generation made on behalf of their country.

Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist Wil Haygood has, over a storied 30-year career, worked at the Boston Globe, The Washington Post, and as a globetrotting investigative reporter. He is most famous for his 2008 Washington Post article, ''A Butler Well Served by This Election,'' about the White House steward who bore witness to some of 20th century America's most notable events and figures. He later expanded the article into a bestselling book that was adapted into the critically acclaimed film The Butler, starring Forest Whitaker. Haygood is also the author of Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World and popular biographies of Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Sugar Ray Robinson, Thurgood Marshall, and Sammy Davis, Jr. 

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 5/16/2024)

Meelya Gordon Memorial Lecture

In conversation with Tamala Edwards, anchor, 6abc Action News morning edition.

ABC News' Chief Anchor, the host of This Week with George Stephanopoulos, and co-anchor of Good Morning America, George Stephanopoulos joined the network in 1997 as an analyst for This Week. He previously served in the Clinton administration as the senior advisor to the president for policy and strategy. His book All Too Human, a political memoir about his time on the campaign trail and in the White House, was a no. 1 New York Times bestseller. A member of the board of directors at the Michael J. Fox Foundation and former Rhodes Scholar, Stephanopoulos' many honors include three Emmy Awards, a DuPont Award, three Murrow Awards, and two Cronkite Awards. In The Situation Room, he offers an insider's perspective on the highly restricted space in which 12 presidents have made their most critical, history-changing decisions.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 5/17/2024)

In conversation with Laura McGrath, Assistant Professor of English at Temple University

''Among our greatest contemporary writers'' (The Miami Herald), Claire Messud is the author of The Emperor's Children, a cutting portrait of life among Manhattan's junior intelligentsia that was longlisted for the Booker Prize. Her other acclaimed and bestselling novels include When the World Was Steady, The Hunters, The Last Life, The Woman Upstairs, and The Burning Girl. A PEN/Faulkner Award finalist, the recipient of Guggenheim and Radcliffe fellowships, and the winner of the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Messud teaches writing at Harvard University. Named one of the most anticipated books of 2024 by The Guardian, Oprah Daily, and New York magazine, This Strange Eventful History follows the seven-decade arc of an itinerant French Algerian colonial family born on the wrong side of history and forced to reckon with their interpersonal and larger political legacies.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 5/15/2024)

''His generation's most gifted writer of love's complicated, contradictory power'' (Los Angeles Times), Colm Tóibín is the author of an impressive list of novels, short stories, essays, plays, poetry, and criticism. His novels The Master, The Testament of Mary, and Brooklyn were shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and the last was adapted into a popular BAFTA Award-winning film of the same name. The Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University, Tóibín earned an Irish PEN Award and was named the Laureate for Irish Fiction for 2022–2024 by the Arts Council of Ireland, among scores of other honors. Set 20 years after the events of the international bestseller Brooklyn, Long Island finds the enigmatic émigré protagonist of that book alone in her marriage and facing the travails of middle age and unfulfilled dreams.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 5/13/2024)

In conversation with Annie Duke

An ''unflappable and genial point-person'' (The New York Times), Jen Psaki served as the thirty-fourth White House Press Secretary under President Biden until May 2022. Currently the host of MSNBC's Sunday afternoon and Monday evening program, Inside with Jen Psaki, she spent the previous twenty years in public service. This includes stints as White House Communications Director under President Obama, as the spokesperson for the State Department under then Secretary of State John Kerry, work on three presidential campaigns, and numerous other campaign and communication roles. In Say More, Psaki employs her trademark wit and clearheaded analysis to reveal the surprising lessons she learned in the press room and from America's top leaders.

Annie Duke is the bestselling author of Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away and Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts. A former professional poker player, she won a World Series of Poker bracelet and is the only woman to have won the World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions. She currently works with First Round Capital Partners, a seed stage venture fund, and teaches executive education at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2023 she completed her PhD in cognitive psychology. Duke is also the co-founder of The Alliance for Decision Education, a nonprofit whose mission is to improve lives by empowering students through decision skills education.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 5/10/2024)