Library Talks

The New York Public Library
  • 4.4 (319)
  • EDUCATION
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

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.

  1. 4D AGO

    Miriam Toews with Aidan Flax-Clark: A Truce That Is Not Peace

    In this episode of Library Talks, Miriam Toews, the internationally bestselling author of Women Talking and Fight Night discusses writing about her own life in nonfiction for the first time.   Miriam Toews had written nine books, but when the organizer of a literary festival prompted her to answer the question “Why do you write?” Toews found that every attempted response only proved that the question might not be possible to answer. Her new book, A Truce That Is Not Peace, is a memoir of the will to write and a surfacing of new layers of guilt, grief, and futility connected to her sister’s suicide. It explores the uneasy pact a writer makes with memory and the silences in her family she struggles to understand.

    58 min

  2. SEP 3

    Joshua Miele with Andrew Leland: Connecting Dots: A Blind Life

    In this episode of Library Talks,  Research scientist Joshua Miele joins Library Talks to discuss his memoir Connecting Dots: A Blind Life. He is joined by Andrew Leland, author of the memoir The Country of the Blind.   Throughout his life, Miele has found increasingly inventive ways to succeed in a world built for the sighted, and to help others to do the same. At first reluctant to even think of himself as blind, he eventually embraced his blindness and became a committed advocate for disability and accessibility. Connecting Dots delivers a captivating first-person perspective on blindness and disability as incisive as it is entertaining. Joshua Miele’s story is one of one ordinary blind life with an indelible impact.

    1h 6m

  3. AUG 27

    Eloghosa Osunde with Jake Morrissey: Necessary Fiction

    In this episode of Library Talks, award-winning writer and multidisciplinary artist Eloghosa Osunde joins the podcast for a conversation about their new novel Necessary Fiction with the editor of Necessary Fiction Jake Morrissey. Necessary Fiction takes place across Lagos, one of Africa's largest urban areas and one of the world's most dynamic cities, Osunde’s characters seek out love for self and their chosen partners, even as they risk ruining relationships with parents, spouses, family, and friends. As they work to establish themselves in the city's lively worlds of art, music, entertainment, and creative commerce, we meet their collective and individual attempts to reckon with the necessary fiction they carry for survival.

    59 min

  4. AUG 20

    Raquel Willis with Mecca Jamilah Sullivan: The Risk It Takes to Bloom: On Life and Liberation

    In this episode of Library Talks, writer, activist, and speaker Raquel Willis joins Library Talks to discuss her memoir The Risk It Takes to Bloom: On Life and Liberation. She’s joined by fellow writer Mecca Jamilah Sullivan. In The Risk It Takes to Bloom, Raquel Willis recounts with passion and candor her experiences straddling the Obama and Trump eras, the possibility of transformation after the tragedy, and how complex moments can push us all to take necessary risks and bloom toward collective liberation. This recording was part of the Schomburg Centennial Festival. Find more events celebrating the Schomburg Centennial

    55 min

  5. AUG 13

    Malcolm D. Lee and Jayne Allen with Bevy Smith: The Best Man: Unfinished Business

    In this episode of Library Talks, Writer and director Malcolm D. Lee Joins Library Talks to discuss his debut novel The Best Man: Unfinished Business. He’s joined by his coauthor Jayne Allen in a discussion moderated by radio and television host Bevy Smith. The beloved characters from Malcom D Lee’s The Best Man movies and hit television series reunite in the first in the trilogy, The Best Man: Unfinished Business. The novel follows Harper, Jordan, and Robyn as they try to establish lives away from the hurts of the past and come to realize that some love is impossible to break.

    1h 1m

  6. AUG 6

    Kevin Nguyen with Chris Gayomali: Mỹ Documents

    In this episode of Library Talks, Novelist and features editor at The Verge Kevin Nguyen joins Library Talks to discuss his second novel Mỹ Documents Mỹ Documents follows four Vietnamese cousins whose lives are upended after a terrorist attack incites a government crackdown that targets their community through mass internment of Vietnamese-American citizens. Nguyen relies on the history of Japanese internment, the Vietnam War, and more recent immigrant detention to imagine a not-entirely-implausible near American future.

    58 min

  7. JUL 30

    Jeremy Tiang with Reuben Gelley Newman: State of Emergency

    In this episode of Library Talks, Acclaimed translator and playwright Jeremy Tiang joins Library Talks to discuss his debut novel and winner of the Singapore Literature Prize State of Emergency. Jeremy Tiang is a novelist and playwright, and the translator of over thirty books from Chinese. His debut novel State of Emergency follows an extended family from the 1940s to the present day as they navigate the choppy political currents of the region.

    54 min

  8. JUL 23

    Jonas Hassen Khemiri with Tess Gunty: The Sisters

    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.

    58 min
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Hosts & Guests

4.4
out of 5
319 Ratings

About

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.

Information

  • Creator
    The New York Public Library
  • Years Active
    2014 - 2025
  • Episodes
    357
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Show Website
    Library Talks

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