The New York Public Library Podcast

Before there was Rikers Island, there was Blackwell's—today known as Roosevelt Island. Historian Stacy Horn's newest book Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad, and Criminal in 19th-Century New York is the first in-depth look at its dark past. In addition to a penitentiary, the small strip of land housed an almshouse, mental institution, and a number of hospitals for the poor—which, as one can imagine, lead to disturbing outcomes for the city's most disenfranchised people. From annual reports of the Women's Prison Association to an unpublished autobiography of a survivor of the NYC draft riots, Horn walks us through some of her findings from the NYPL archives used to write this chilling story, and how it sheds light on the same issues of today.

Kevin Young, Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and New Yorker poetry editor, recently published a new collection of poems titled "Brown: Poems." From James Brown to John Brown v. the Topeka Board of Ed., Young meditates on all things "brown" and the ways culture shaped his personal experience growing up in Kansas. Joining him to discuss the book was Claudia Rankine, professor of poetry at Yale University and the author of "Citizen: An American Lyric." Rankine asks Young about his childhood memories, musical influences, and pop culture that makes us dance and think at the same time.

Literary icon and friend of The New York Public Library, Tom Wolfe passed away last week at the age of 88. Wolfe became a Library Lion in 1981, and is the author of many books, including The Bonfire of the Vanities and The Right Stuff. Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test was first released in 1968, chronicling American counterculture. Half a century later, TASCHEN released an abridgment of the text, with photographs and ephemera from the era. Wolfe's last appearance at the Library was this conversation with Paul Holdengräber, which included readings of Wolfe's work by actor René Auberjonois.

Masha Gessen’s book The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia is the winner of the Library’s 2018 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism. A defining account of Russia’s post-Soviet era, it asks how the country’s prospects for democracy disappeared under the rule of Vladimir Putin. Taking on a novelistic approach, Gessen wove together the stories of four protagonists born in the last decade of the Soviet Union, earning last year’s National Book Award for Nonfiction. Gessen is a staff writer for The New Yorker and has also been a contributor to The New York Review of Books and the author of several books.  

Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” is one of Zora Neale Hurston’s most important works of non-fiction that has never been published until today. Hurston recorded the story in Alabama in the late 1920s. It's a collection of interviews with a man named Kossola, also known as Cudjo Lewis, one of the last known living survivors of the Atlantic slave trade. To discuss the book's history and Hurston's legacy, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture welcomed Dr. Cheryl Sterling, Director of the Black Studies Program at City College of New York, to moderate a conversation featring: Hurston scholar and editor of Barracoon, Deborah G. Plant; founder of book club Well-Read Black Girl, Glory Edim; and Dr. Sylviane Diouf, an award-winning author and historian of the African Diaspora.

Madeline Miller's first novel, The Song of Achilles, transformed The Iliad from a vast impersonal epic into an intimate and poignant love story. Now Miller turns her mind to Homer's other great work, and one of mythology's most riveting figures, in Circe. It's the retelling of The Odyssey in which a fierce young woman is at the center. Madeline Miller discusses her writing process, witchcraft, and why this story resonates today with classicist and translator Emily Wilson, the first woman to translate The Odyssey into English.

Joshua Green's Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Nationalist Uprising, was one of the first books to shed light on the Trump campaign and Bannon's influence on their way to the White House. A finalist for NYPL's 2018 Helen Berstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, Green stopped by the Library to talk about what it was like to interview the President, what actually motivates his former Chief Strategist and how getting kicked out of the White House doesn't necessarily mean you're out for good.

Last December, the Federal Communications Commission voted 3–2 to repeal net neutrality—which left many people wondering "why should we be concerned about the repeal and what can be done about it?" Library President Tony Marx convened a panel of experts to help shed light on the issue including: Susan Crawford,  Professor at Harvard Law School and member of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Broadband Task Force; Jessica Rosenworcel, Commissioner to the Federal Communications Commission; and Tim Wu, Professor at Columbia Law School who coined the term "net neutrality" over a decade ago. They discussed where things stand now and where we can go from here.

Sheelah Kolhatkar is a staff writer at The New Yorker and is a former hedge fund analyst. Her book, Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street, tells the story of Steven A. Cohen and his involvement in the largest insider-trading scandal in U.S history. The book is one of the five finalists selected for NYPL's Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism. Kolhatkar dropped by the Library to discuss how she wrote this real-life thriller, what Cohen is up to today, and why people outside of the financial world should be paying attention. 

Actor Isabella Rossellini raises chickens; evolutionary biologist Menno Schilthuizen studies them. In My Chickens Rossellini unexpectedly breeds 38 yellow chicks of diverse heritage breeds and capitalizes on the opportunity to study their traits, behavior, and history. In Darwin Comes to Town, Schilthuizen posits that the strange and rapid adaptations made by animals in urban environments suggest that evolution is perhaps not the slow grinding process biologists have long believed in. From husbandry to research, Rossellini and Schilthuizen share some of the mysteries and wonders of our animal kingdoms.

How have social justice movements evolved in the fifty years after Martin Luther King Jr.'s death? Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is an author and professor of African American Studies at Princeton University whose research examines race and public policy. Shaun King is a writer for The Intercept and prominent public activist speaking out against police brutality. They discussed race in America, why movements succeed or fail, Martin Luther King Jr.'s fluctuating reputation during his life and after his death, and the social movements they envision for tomorrow.

New York Public Library President Anthony Marx brought together criminal-justice-reform advocates from the right and left to discuss the complex issues of American incarceration—Reginald Dwayne Betts, an award-winning writer and current Ph.D. candidate at Yale Law School, and Pat Nolan, Director of the American Conservative Union Foundation’s Center for Criminal Justice Reform. Although they come from opposite ends of the political spectrum, both have direct experience within the prison system and both have dedicated their life's work toward prison reform. They discuss how the tragedies of American incarceration started, how they persist and what action is needed for change.

Civil Rights leader and legendary athlete, Dr. John Carlos, made history on the Olympic podium in 1968. After medaling in the 200 meter race in Mexico City, he and Tommie Smith raised their fists in the Black Power salute during the national anthem. Marking fifty years since that iconic moment, Dr. Carlos spoke with Sports Editor of The Nation and co-author of his memoir, Dave Zirin. Dr. Carlos shares his story of meeting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the hardships he faced after the '68 Olympics, and the message he has for athletes continuing the movement for racial justice today.

Akwaeke Emezi is an Igbo and Tamil writer and video artist.  "Freshwater" ​is Emezi's debut novel and one of the most anticipated books of 2018. The partially autobiographical story follows a young person, Ada, from Nigeria to American college, where a traumatic event reveals the hidden powers of the spirits within her. Emezi discussed the novel with Glory Edim, founder of the book club and digital platform, Well-Read Black Girl. She traced the origin story behind Freshwater, decolonizing identities, and navigating transition.

The comedian and actor Patton Oswalt shares the posthumous true-crime masterpiece written by his wife Michelle McNamara, who died suddenly at the age of 46 in 2016. McNamara, a true crime reporter and creator of TrueCrimeDiary.com, spent years tracking a serial killer she dubbed the Golden State Killer. Between 1976 and 1986 he committed 50 sexual assaults and 10 murders up and down California. Oswalt wrote, “I can't help feeling that somewhere, in her final pages, she left enough clues for someone to finish the job she couldn't—to put California's worst serial killer behind bars.” Plus: a behind-the-scenes private tour of items from NYPL's true crime collections.

In 1971 when Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers and revealed the true story of American involvement in Vietnam, he was holding on to a much larger and more terrifying set of American secrets than he was letting on. Ellsberg had to wait almost fifty years to bring them to light. What those secrets were and why they remained hidden for so long are revealed in his new book The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.

Aidan Flax-Clark speaks with author Neel Mukherjee about his new novel, "A State of Freedom" and his evolving notions of home, autonomy, migration, and ghosts. ”A ghost is someone who belonged to a particular world who had an unhappy or tragic or violent ending to that particular life and hasn’t found a resting place in another world,” Mukherjee says, “this could be a very a good working definition for who a migrant is.”

You may have read about Tayari Jones’s latest novel on quite a few “most anticipated books of 2018” lists, and for good reason. Inspired by her research into the painful realities of American incarceration, Jones’ “An American Marriage” blends equal parts heartbreak and humor to tell  the love story of a young couple whose marriage is tested by an unexpected calamity. It was recently selected by Oprah Winfrey for the Oprah Book Club. In a conversation with Isaac Fitzgerald, founding editor of Buzzfeed Books and co-host of Twitter Morning Show, #AmtoDM, Jones talks about her writing process, her relationships with her characters, and what it felt like to get an unannounced call from Oprah herself.

To celebrate the publication of When They Call You A Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir, Patrisse Khan-Cullors and her co-author asha bandele stopped by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Akiba Solomon, Editorial Director of Colorlines, interviews the two about the history of Black Lives Matter, from hashtag to global movement.

What do Mark Zuckerburg and Martin Luther have in common? Historian and political commentator Niall Ferguson explains in his newest book The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook. Ferguson stopped by The New York Public Library to speak with Gillian Tett, U.S. Managing Editor of the Financial Times, about the power and limitations of networks throughout history, our news feeds and censorship.