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The Peacemakers with Bruce Jentleson

Bruce Jentleson discussed his new book "The Peacemakers," which he researched while the Kissinger Chair in the Library's John W. Kluge Center. The book explores how a variety of 20th-century leaders rewrote the scripts they were handed to make breakthroughs on issues long thought intractable.

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2018 International Writing Spotlight: Giving Voice to Women through Literature
International Writing Program residents Kateryna Babkina (Ukraine), Alisa Ganieva (Russia), and Rumena Buarovska (Macedonia) will read selections of their work and participate in a moderated discussion with IWP Director Christopher Merrill. Presented in partnership with the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa and the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State.
K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark Fisher
Join Repeater Books for a discussion of Mark Fisher’s work with the novelist Hari Kunzru, Chapo Trap House co-host Amber A’Lee Frost, writer Sukhdev Sandhu, and musician Meredith Graves.

Book launch for “K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark Fisher,” published by Repeater Books. Filmed at Verso Books in Brooklyn on November 28, 2018.

When Mark Fisher committed suicide in 2017 at the age of 48, we lost one of the twenty-first century’s greatest cultural theorists. An icon for today’s insurgent “alt-left,” from 2003 to 2016 Fisher wrote dazzling analyses of our strange and terrifying world—neoliberalism, the loneliness and distracted boredom of digital life, and how these realities are reflected in music, film, TV, and literature. He also developed a vision of a different future—based on community, democratic control of the economy, creative freedom for all, and harnessing technology for the good of humanity.

“K-Punk” collects Fisher’s most incendiary and influential posts from his seminal blog “k-punk”, as well as a selection of his brilliantly insightful film, television and music reviews, together with his extraordinary writings on politics, activism, mental health, and popular modernism for numerous websites and magazines. Also included are two previously unpublished essays, the unfinished introduction to his planned book on “Acid Communism”, and an analysis of the 2016 US Presidential election, written shortly after Trump’s victory.
Victor LaValle & Guests: A People's Future of the United States | NYPL
Some of today’s most imaginative writers of speculative fiction challenge old narratives of oppression by envisioning new futures for America.

Howard Zinn’s seminal 1980 work A People’s History of the United States challenged our understanding of the country’s past by uncovering its darker truths; nearly 40 years later A People’s Future of the United States challenges our visions of tomorrow with stories about freedom, love, and justice. While Zinn helped give voice to many whose histories had been overlooked—like the working poor and immigrant laborers—this new collection of stories restores a sense of justice to the generations of their offspring who have in turn been deprived of the right to create futures of their own design.

A People’s Future of the United States comes to life as one of its editors, Victor LaValle, speaks with four contributors— Maria Dahvana Headley, N.K. Jemisin, Alice Sola Kim, and Sam J. Miller—about the fantasies and projections for the future of the country they have dared to imagine.
Ellie Kemper talks about her new book My Squirrel Days, and more
Ellie Kemper talks about her new book My Squirrel Days, and more, with Michelle Collins. Recorded Nov 26, 2018 at 92nd Street Y.

Two-time Emmy nominee Ellie Kemper offers up her irresistible cheer in the hilarious and inspiring essay collection, My Squirrel Days. Join Ellie as she shares her freewheeling stories—from growing up in suburban St. Louis with a vivid imagination and a crush on David Letterman, to moving to Los Angeles and accidentally falling on Doris Kearns Goodwin. And yes, about her childhood as a nature lover, determined to commune with squirrels. Desperate for an antidote to the chaos of modern life? Ellie’s your girl.
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah at the 2018 5 Under 35 Celebration
Selected by Colson Whitehead.

Featuring Ben Greenman, Colson Whitehead, and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah.
Barry Jenkins on If Beale Street Could Talk
We sat down with Oscar award-winning director Barry Jenkins, of If Beale Street Could Talk, to talk about his adaptation of the book, his appreciation for Baldwin and love of Penguin Classics book covers.

'Achingly beautiful' Guardian

Harlem in the 1970s: the black soul of New York City. Tish is nineteen and the man she loves - her lifelong friend and the father of her unborn child - has been jailed for a crime he did not commit. As their families come together to fight for his freedom, will their love be enough?

'Soulful . . . Racial injustice may flatten "the black experience" into one single, fearful, constantly undermined way of life - but black life, black love, is so much larger than that . . . It's one of the signature lessons of Baldwin's work that blackness contains multitudes' Vanity Fair

'If Beale Street Could Talk affirms not only love between a man and a woman, but love of a type that is dealt with only rarely in contemporary fiction - that between members of a family' Joyce Carol Oates
Feminista Jones | Reclaiming Our Space
Join us as Feminista shares her book with her Beacon Press editor, Rakia Clark!

In Reclaiming Our Space, social worker, activist, and cultural commentator Feminista Jones explores how Black women are changing culture, society, and the landscape of feminism by building digital communities and using social media as powerful platforms. As Jones reveals, some of the best-loved devices of our shared social media language are a result of Black women's innovations, from well-known movement-building hashtags (#BlackLivesMatter, #SayHerName, and #BlackGirlMagic) to the now ubiquitous use of threaded tweets as a marketing and storytelling tool. For some, these online dialogues provide an introduction to the work of Black feminist icons like Angela Davis, Barbara Smith, bell hooks, and the women of the Combahee River Collective. For others, this discourse provides a platform for continuing their feminist activism and scholarship in a new, interactive way.

Complex conversations around race, class, and gender that have been happening behind the closed doors of academia for decades are now becoming part of the wider cultural vernacular—one pithy tweet at a time. With these important online conversations, not only are Black women influencing popular culture and creating socio political movements; they are also galvanizing a new generation to learn and engage in Black feminist thought and theory, and inspiring change in communities around them.

Hard-hitting, intelligent, incisive, yet bursting with humor and pop-culture savvy, Reclaiming Our Space is a survey of Black feminism's past, present, and future, and it explains why intersectional movement building will save us all.
Franklin Foer: World Without Mind
Within the last 24 hours, it’s statistically likely that you’ve: used your iPhone to Google something, scrolled Facebook, and shopped on Amazon. “This is a nascent stage in the total automation and homogenization of social, political, and intellectual life” argues Franklin Foer—and “At stake is nothing less than who we are, and what we will become.” In World Without Mind, Foer, a national correspondent for The Atlantic and former editor of The New Republic, paints a foreboding portrait of the existential threat posed by big tech. What has been sold to us as convenience, he says, comes at the terrible cost of privacy, autonomy, individuality, and choice. Join us for this urgent conversation on the imperative of resistance and our power to stem the tide.
John Lanchester discussing his novel The Wall
John Lanchester, bestselling author of Capital, discusses his novel The Wall.

Kavanagh begins his life patrolling the Wall. If he’s lucky, if nothing goes wrong, he only has two years of this, 729 more nights.

The best thing that can happen is that he survives and gets off the Wall and never has to spend another day of his life anywhere near it. He longs for this to be over; longs to be somewhere else.

He will soon find out what Defenders do and who the Others are. Along with the rest of his squad, he will endure cold and fear day after day, night after night. But somewhere, in the dark cave of his mind, he thinks: wouldn’t it be interesting if something did happen, if they came, if you had to fight for your life?

John Lanchester’s thrilling, hypnotic new novel is about why the young are right to hate the old. It’s about a broken world you will recognise as your own—and about what might be found when all is lost.
Malala Yousafzai: The Waterstones Interview
[Note: The description below is taken from the Youtube channel of Waterstones, which interviewed Malala Yousafzai] After sharing her story in I Am Malala, the youngest Nobel Peace Prize-winner, Malala Yousafzai, returns with another book, We Are Displaced which shares the stories of other young girls from around the world who have all been displaced from their homes. We spoke to her about what they all share in common, where their courage comes from, and why books and education remain so important to all of them.
Life of a Poet: Marilyn Chin
Poet Marilyn Chin joins Ron Charles an in-depth discussion of the writer's career and the major events that have shaped her work. Readings from Chin's are interspersed throughout the conversation.

Speaker Biography: Marilyn Chin was born in Hong Kong and raised in Portland, Oregon. Her books have become Asian-American classics and are taught in classrooms internationally. She is presently celebrating the launch of her new book, "A Portrait of the Self as Nation: New and Selected Poems." Chin's other books of poems include "Hard Love Province," "Rhapsody in Plain Yellow," "Dwarf Bamboo" and "The Phoenix Gone, The Terrace Empty." Her book of wild girl fiction is called "Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen." She has won numerous awards, including the PEN/Josephine Miles Award, five Pushcart Prizes, a Fulbright Fellowship to Taiwan, a Lannan Fellowship and others. Chin is professor emerita of San Diego State University, and recently, she was guest poet at universities from Beijing to Berlin. Presently, she serves as a chancellor for the Academy of American Poets.

Speaker Biography: Ron Charles is the editor of The Washington Post's Book World section. For several years, he also edited the Post's "Poet's Choice" column in Book World. His reviews have won the National Book Critics Circle Award for best criticism and 1st place for Arts & Entertainment Commentary from the Society for Features Journalism.
Jason Reynolds: 2018 National Book Festival
Jason Reynolds discusses "Sunny" at the 2018 Library of Congress National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.

Speaker Biography: Jason Reynolds is a New York Times best-selling author, a Newbery Award Honoree, a Printz Award Honoree, a National Book Award Honoree, a Kirkus Award winner, a two-time Walter Dean Myers Award winner, an NAACP Image Award Winner and the recipient of multiple Coretta Scott King honors. The American Booksellers Association's 2017 spokesperson for Indies First, his many books include "When I Was the Greatest," "Boy in the Black Suit," "All American Boys" (co-written with Brendan Kiely), "As Brave as You," "For Every One" and "Long Way Down," which received both a Newbery Honor and a Printz Honor. He has also written the "Track" series, which includes "Ghost," "Patina," and "Sunny" (Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy), his latest book. He lives in Washington, D.C.
Overlooked: Ida B. Wells
Born in Mississippi within a year of emancipation, journalist and activist Ida B. Wells lit up the lynching-laden, injustice-soaked Jim Crow-era south with boycotts, legal battles, and scorching editorials. As a fierce investigative journalist, she unveiled racist violence and humanized the stories of the victims. Despite her remarkable impact, Wells never received an obituary in The New York Times—until now. As part of a project called Overlooked, Wells’ newly penned obituary will join those of other remarkable women in history. Nikole Hannah-Jones (investigative reporter for The New York Times Magazine); Michelle Duster (Wells’ great granddaughter); and Eve L. Ewing come together in recognition of the enduring legacy of Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and the equally enduring fight for racial justice. Natalie Moore (South Side bureau reporter for WBEZ) will moderate.

This program is presented in partnership with The New York Times and the Chicago Urban League, with the support of the Lohengrin Foundation.
Raj Chetty: "Visualizing the American Dream" | Talks at Google
Raj Chetty, Professor of Economics at Harvard University, is a top expert on mobility and economic opportunity in the United States.

Through his research and through his organization, Opportunity Insights, Raj and his team help policymakers understand how opportunity is (or isn't) distributed throughout American communities, and what we can do to help improve access to upward mobility. In this talk, Raj joins Google's Chief Economist Hal Varian, to share insights from his tool, the Opportunity Atlas, and insights from his latest work.
Costa Book of the Year 2018
It's not often that you get to speak to the author and subject of a biography at the same time but it was privilege to speak with Bart van Es, winner of the Costa Book of the Year 2018 for The Cut-Out Girl, and Lien de Jong, the incredible woman whose life story makes for such moving reading.

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