Public Libraries, and Profiling Paul Har...

Xenobe Purvis’s slim but powerful debut novel, “The Hounding,” opens with a jolt: “The girls, the infernal heat, a fresh-dead body. Marching up the river path, the villagers.”How did we get here, with five young sisters living in 1700s England being hunted by an angry mob that su ... Show More

The journalist, novelist and cultural critic Chuck Klosterman is best known for writing about rock music and pop culture in astute essay collections like “The Nineties,” “X” and “Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs.” But Klosterman got his start in college as a sports journalist, and with ... Show More

A new year means new books are on the way! So many new books. On this week’s episode, host Gilbert Cruz talks with fellow Book Review editors Joumana Khatib and MJ Franklin about the upcoming fiction and nonfiction titles they’re most anticipating between now and April.Here are t ... Show More

<p>Libraries get rid of books all the time. There are so many new books coming in every day and only a finite amount of library space. The practice of freeing up library space is called weeding. When the main branch of the San Francisco Public Library was damaged by an earthquake ... Show More

Hello! Libraries are about far more than borrowing books. We’re exploring how libraries around the world serve their communities and are adapting to changing needs. Sociologist Eric Klinenberg explains why libraries help build social solidarity and should be a priority for govern ... Show More

<p>“Today’s future-positive writers critique our economies while largely seeming to ignore that anything might be amiss in our private lives,” writes Kristen Ghodsee. Even our most ambitious visions of utopia tend to focus on outcomes that can be achieved through public policy — ... Show More

How can we create public places that feel welcoming and safe for everyone? This hour, TED speakers examine our physical and digital spaces—how they run, who they serve, and how to make them better. Guests include community organizer Shari Davis, researcher Eli Pariser, Wikipedia ... Show More

Sara Jones takes her role as “neighborhood library curator” seriously. In addition to selecting books for her own reading life, Sara Jones carefully curates her Little Free Library collection to reflect the reading tastes and needs of her community. She likes to feature a healthy ... Show More

Works by Umberto EcoThe Name of the RoseFoucault’s PendulumThe Prague CemeteryOn the Shoulders of Giants Other Related Books or MaterialsSigns and Secrets: the Worlds of Umberto Eco (2013 documentary)Always Narrating: The Making and Unmaking of Umberto Eco (link opens a 2020 Los ... Show More

On this episode of Our American Stories, our audience loved Kristin O'Donnell Tubb’s wonderful story from her historical fiction book, John Lincoln Clem: Civil War Drummer Boy. So we asked if she would share another story with us. Here she is telling the story of the family that ... Show More

Edward Wilson-Lee's book A Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books: Christopher Columbus, His Son, and the Quest to Build the World’s Greatest Library (Scribner, 2018) details the life of Hernando Colón as he sailed with his father, Christopher Columbus, on Columbus’s final voyage to the ... Show More

<p>Today, libraries across the US and the rest of the world are seen as centers of free learning, presenting enormous opportunities for children and adults alike. However, not too long ago, people in the US and the UK were absolutely terrified by the idea that libraries were dens ... Show More