Free Library Podcast

The Author Events Series presents Tre Johnson in conversation with Reckon True Stories: Podcast hosts Kiese Laymon and Deesha Philyaw This event will be a live taping of the Reckon True Stories podcast. Black genius sits at the heart of the American story. In his probing essay collection, Black Genius, cultural critic Tre Johnson examines how Black American culture has, against all odds, been the lifeblood of American ingenuity. At times using his own personal and professional stories,  Johnson surveys Black cities, communities, and schools with an ever-watchful eye of what transpires around Black mobility. With a passion for complex storytelling and pulling from both pop culture and American history, Johnson weaves past and present making his case for the genius of innovation. As he examined his findings, Johnson couldn't help but wonder about the brilliance of the every day. Specifically, the creativity of the 90's graffiti-style airbrush tee, his aunties packed weekend bus trips to Atlantic city, and the razor-tongued, socially-sharp, profanity-laced monologues of comedian Dick Gregory. Again and again, he asks us to ponder-are these not obvious examples of genius? Chatty yet profound, Black Genius subverts expectations from the very first page with a blend of reportage, historical data, and pop culture as Johnson dives into his own family history seeking big answers to complex questions. Johnson's signature wit and curiosity turns history into an amusing sequence of events.  Tre Johnson was born in Trenton, NJ and now finds himself in Philadelphia, where he writes with a focus on race, culture and politics. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Vox, The New York Times, Slate, Vanity Fair, The Grio, and other outlets. He has appeared to provide media commentary on CNN Tonight with Don Lemon; CBS Morning Show; PBS NewsHour, NPR's Morning Edition, and other programs. In addition to writing, Tre is a career educator, beginning working both inside and outside in the classroom as a teacher and eventually as a leader in the sector.  Reckon True Stories is a celebration of new and classic nonfiction – the essays, journalism, and memoirs that inspire us, that change the world, and help us connect with each other. Join hosts and acclaimed authors Deesha Philyaw (The Secret Lives of Church Ladies) and Kiese Laymon (Heavy, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, Long Division) for in-depth discussions about the stories we tell and how they impact our culture. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 12/4/2025)

The Author Events Series presents Larry Magid | The Philadelphia Music Book In Conversation with Sam Katz Montgomery Auditorium is now sold out, but tickets are still available for a live simulcast screening in a separate room at the Parkway Central Library. The Philadelphia Music Book: Sounds of a City is a 340 page coffee table book that contains 284 bios of musicians and music industry people from Philadelphia who have made a national or international impact in their work. Additionally, there are stories about the forerunners to modern music in the city, information about historic venues, and accounts of some major music events and festivals that took place in our area. It is a reflection of Philadelphia's great talents in many genres  including Rock & Roll, Folk, Americana, Jazz, the Blues, Classical, Musical Theatre, Hip Hop, EDM and music on the radio, television and movies among other topics. It's a must read for anyone interested in music or the history of Philadelphia. Larry Magid, along with his partners Allen, Jerry, and Herb Spivak, created the Electric Factory - first, the club, and then the concerts. Magid was just a kid himself then, but he quickly became the godfather of Philly's counterculture, a pied piper for a generation. Larry Magid may have helped turn pop music into a 20th-century art form, but, far from forgetting his West Philly roots, he revels in them. During his teen years, he learned how much music can stir a soul at the Uptown Theater's R & B shows, and - despite being seen as a tough businessman in the Wild West of the rock industry - he remains in it for the right reasons. Rocking the world, Magid knows, changes it.  Sam Katz is a lifelong Philadelphian who has experienced a diverse and unique career in public and project finance, venture capital, civic affairs, development, politics and documentary filmmaking. Sam had a nearly three-decade career in public and project finance including the financings for the Wells Fargo Center and Baltimore's Camden Yards.  He served as CEO for a major civic organization, launched and managed a regional venture capital fund and was a candidate for mayor of Philadelphia. Sam also serves as a consultant to Comcast-Spectacor and the Philadelphia Phillies and is the founder of the Histories Collaborative of Philadelphia. Sam is a graduate of Central High School, Johns Hopkins University and the New School for Social Research. Sam and Connie Katz have lived in West Mt. Airy for 40 years where they try hard to spoil their seven grandchildren. The Philadelphia Music Alliance was founded in June 1986 as a community-based, not-for-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of Philadelphia as one of the nation's oldest and most prolific music capitals.  Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. The views expressed by the authors and moderators are strictly their own and do not represent the opinions of the Free Library of Philadelphia or its employees. (recorded 11/20/2025)

The Author Events Series presents Carol Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis | Injustice: How Politics and Fear Vanquished America's Justice Department In Conversation with Ankush Khardori Throughout his first administration, Trump did more than any other president to politicize the nation's top law enforcement agency, pressuring appointees to shield him, to target his enemies, and even to help him cling to power after his 2020 election defeat. The department, pressed into a defensive crouch, has never fully recovered. Injustice exposes not only the Trump administration's efforts to undermine the department at every turn but also how delays in investigating Trump's effort to overturn the will of voters under Attorney General Merrick Garland helped prevent the country from holding Trump accountable and enabled his return to power. With never-before-told accounts, Carol Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis take readers inside as prosecutors convulsed over Trump's disdain for the rule of law, and FBI agents, the department's storied investigators, at times retreated in fear. They take you to the rooms where Special Counsel Jack Smith's team set off on an all-but-impossible race to investigate Trump for absconding with classified documents and waging an assault on democracy-and inside his prosecution's heroic and fateful choices that ultimately backfired. With a plethora of sources deeply embedded in the ranks of three presidencies, Leonnig and Davis reveal the daily war secretly waged for the soul of the department, how it has been shredded by propaganda and partisanship, and how-if the United States hopes to live on with its same form of government-Trump's war with the Justice Department will mark a turning point from which it will be hard to recover. Injustice is the jaw-dropping account of partisans and enablers undoing democracy, heroes still battling to preserve a nation governed by laws, and a call to action for those who believe in liberty and justice for all. Carol Leonnig, a five-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, is the author of three bestselling books and an investigative reporter who has worked at The Washington Post for the last twenty-five years. She won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on security failures by the Secret Service. She also was part of Post teams awarded Pulitzers in 2024, 2022, 2018, and 2014. Leonnig, a contributor to MSNBC, is the author of Zero Fail and coauthor of A Very Stable Genius and I Alone Can Fix It. Aaron C. Davis is an investigative reporter for The Washington Post who has won the Pulitzer Prize twice and has been a finalist three times. He was a lead writer and reporter on the Post's investigative series into the January 6 attack, which won the George Polk Award, the Toner Prize, and, with other Post coverage, the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. In 2018, he was part of a Post team that won the Pulitzer for Investigative Reporting. Davis has reported from fourteen countries. He began at The Washington Post in 2008, after reporting for the Associated Press, The Mercury News, and Florida Today. Ankush Khardori is based in Washington, D.C. and a senior writer for Politico Magazine, where he writes a column and features about national legal issues. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 11/13/2025)

The Author Events Series presents Jonathan Karl | Retribution  In Conversation with Tamala Edwards In Retribution, Jonathan Karl's unparalleled access brings us behind closed doors deep inside the White House and presidential campaigns, revealing the extraordinary moments that ended one man's presidency and brought another back to power. This is a story of unprecedented political plot twists, showing what happened behind the scenes as political fortunes fell and rose again, and as a new team coalesced around President Trump with the goal of creating an entirely new world order. From President Biden's shocking withdrawal and Vice President Harris's historic run, to the multiple assassination attempts on President Trump, his election, and the changes he has brought to every corner of the country, this book reveals in surprising new detail how we got here, and what we can expect from American politics in the years to come. Jonathan Karl is the chief Washington correspondent for ABC News and co-anchor of This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Karl has covered every major beat in Washington, D.C., including the White House, Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, and the State Department. He has reported from the White House under four presidents and fourteen press secretaries. He is a former president of the White House Correspondents' Association. Front Row at the Trump Show, Betrayal, and Tired of Winning were instant New York Times bestsellers. Tamala Edwards joined 6abc in January of 2005. She is the weekday co-anchor of Action News Mornings from 4 a.m to 7 a.m. and is a regular co-host of Inside Story, conducting probing interviews with newsmakers like Governor Tom Corbett, Senator Bob Casey, Mayor Michael Nutter and others, as well as moderating many election debates. Prior to joining 6abc, Tamala Edwards was the anchor of ABC's World News Now, and World News This Morning. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable (recorded 12/2/2025)

The Author Events Series presents Ray Didinger | The Eagles Encyclopedia : Champions II In Conversation with Merrill Reese Community Spotlight Partner: FanDuel Group Montgomery Auditorium is now sold out, but tickets are still available for a live simulcast screening in a separate room at the Parkway Central Library. Standby seating will be available in the overflow room for guests who wish to wait for an opportunity to be seated in the main auditorium, if space permits. These standby seats will be available on a first come, first served basis. Auditorium seats are not guaranteed. Fly Eagles Fly! They did it again. The Eagles routed the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX to claim their second NFL championship in the Jeffrey Lurie era. Hall of Fame sportswriter Ray Didinger has done it again, too, revising and updating his best-selling The Eagles Encyclopedia: Champions Edition to celebrate the latest victory. Quarterback Jalen Hurts described the city's love for the Eagles as "a Philly thing," and no one understands that better than Didinger, who has followed the team since the 1950s. In Champions II, he brings that history up to date by writing about the Tush Push, Saquon Barkley's reverse hurdle, and other milestones of the season leading up to the team's second Super Bowl triumph. This new edition includes: * More than 50 new photographs plus a 16-page color insert. * Tributes to the team's newest Hall of Fame inductees: Eric Allen, Dick Vermeil and Harold Carmichael. * Dozens of new player, coach and front-office profiles. * An expanded chapter on the Eagles-Cowboys rivalry. * An updated statistics and records section. The Eagles Encyclopedia: Champions II is a must have for any E-A-G-L-E-S fan who wants to relive the Big Game and all the drama that led up to it. Ray Didinger was a sports columnist for the Philadelphia Bulletin and Philadelphia Daily News. He was named Pennsylvania Sportswriter of the Year five times. He won six Emmy Awards as a writer and producer for NFL Films. He has authored or coauthored a dozen books and was the first print journalist inducted into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame. He was a talk show host on 94WIP Sports Radio and football analyst for NBC Sports Philadelphia. In 1995, he won the Bill Nunn Award for his long and distinguished reporting on professional football and his name was added to the Writers Honor Roll at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Merrill Reese has been the Eagles' radio play-by-play announcer for 48 consecutive seasons. A Philadelphia native, Reese was a named sports director at Temple University's station, WRTI, and after graduation he began his professional radio career at WPAZ in Pottstown, PA, calling high school football games. In 1990, Reese voiced ESPN's award-winning series ''NFL Dream Season.'' Reese has received numerous awards and recognition, including Pennsylvania Sportscaster of the Year, and being inducted into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame. In 2024 he received the Pro Football Hall of Fame's coveted Pete Rozelle Radio and Television Award for broadcasting the team's triumph in Super Bowl LIX. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 11/4/2025)

The Author Events Series presents Jaquira Diaz | This Is the Only Kingdom In Conversation with Airea D. Matthews When Maricarmen meets Rey el Cantante, beloved small-time Robin Hood and local musician on the rise, she begins to envision a life beyond the tight-knit community of el Caserío, Puerto Rico - beyond cleaning houses, beyond waiting tables, beyond the constant tug of war between the street hustlers and los camarones. But breaking free proves more difficult than she imagined, and she soon finds herself struggling to make a home for herself, for Rey, his young brother Tito, and eventually, their daughter Nena. Until one fateful day changes everything. Fifteen years later, Maricarmen and Nena find themselves in the middle of a murder investigation as the community that once rallied to support Rey turns against them. Now Nena, a teenager haunted by loss and betrayal and exploring her sexual identity, must learn to fight for herself and her family in a world not always welcoming. For lovers of the Neapolitan novels, This is the Only Kingdom is an immersive and moving portrait of a family - and a community - torn apart by generational grief, and a powerful love letter to mothers, daughters, and the barrios that make them. Born in Puerto Rico, Jaquira Díaz was raised between Humacao, Fajardo, and Miami Beach. She is the author of Ordinary Girls: A Memoir, winner of a Whiting Award, a Florida Book Awards Gold Medal, a Lambda Literary Awards finalist, an American Booksellers Association Indies Introduce Selection, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection, an Indie Next Pick, a Library Reads pick, and finalist for the B&N Discover Prize. The recipient of the Jeanne Córdova Prize for Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction, the Alonzo Davis Fellowship from VCCA, two Pushcart Prizes, an Elizabeth George Foundation grant, and fellowships from MacDowell, the Kenyon Review, Bread Loaf, Sewanee, the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, and the Black Mountain Institute at UNLV, Díaz has written for The Atlantic, The Guardian, Time Magazine, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, Condé Nast Traveler, and The Fader, and her stories, poems, and essays have been anthologized in The Best American Essays, The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext, Best American Experimental Writing, and The Pushcart Prize anthology. In 2022, she held the Mina Hohenberg Darden Chair in Creative Writing at Old Dominion University's MFA program and a Pabst Endowed Chair for Master Writers at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. She lives in New York and teaches at Columbia University. Airea D. Matthews received a BA in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as an MFA from the Helen Zell Writers' Program and an MPA from the Gerald Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. She is the author of Bread and Circus (Scribner Books, 2023), winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry, the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award, and was a finalist for the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. Her poetry collection, Simulacra (Yale University Press, 2017), was selected by Carl Phillips as the winner of the 2016 Yale Series of Younger Poets. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 10/30/2025)

The Author Events Series presents Keisha N. Blain | Without Fear: Black Women and the Making of Human Rights In Conversation with Timothy Welbeck Even before they were recognized as citizens of the United States, Black women understood that the fights for civil and human rights were inseparable. Over the course of two hundred years, they were at the forefront of national and international movements for social change, weaving connections between their own and others' freedom struggles around the world. Without Fear tells how, during American history, Black women made humans rights theirs: from worldwide travel and public advocacy in the global Black press to their work for the United Nations, they courageously and effectively moved human rights beyond an esoteric concept to an active, organizing principle. Acclaimed historian Keisha N. Blain tells the story of these women-from the well-known, like Ida B. Wells, Madam C. J. Walker, and Lena Horne, to those who are still less known, including Pearl Sherrod, Aretha McKinley, and Marguerite Cartwright. Blain captures human rights thinking and activism from the ground up with Black women at the center, working outside the traditional halls of power. By shouldering intersecting forms of oppression-including racism, sexism, and classism-Black women have long been in a unique position to fight for freedom and dignity. Without Fear is an account of their aspirations, strategies, and struggles to pioneer a human rights approach to combating systems of injustice. Keisha N. Blain is professor of Africana studies and history at Brown University. She is a Guggenheim, Carnegie, and New America Fellow, and author-most recently of the National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Until I Am Free. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island. Timothy Welbeck is the Director for the Center of Anti-Racism at Temple University. A Civil Rights Attorney by training, Timothy is a scholar of law, race, and cultural studies whose work has allowed him to contribute to various media outlets, such as the CNN, CBS, BBC Radio 4, The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, NPR, The New York Times, and REVOLT TV. Timothy lives in the Philadelphia area with his wife and three children. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 10/27/2025)

The Author Events Series presents Karine Jean-Pierre | Independent : A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines In Conversation with Tamala Edwards Montgomery Auditorium is now sold out, but tickets are still available for a live simulcast screening in a separate room at the Parkway Central Library. Standby seating will be available in the overflow room for guests who wish to wait for an opportunity to be seated in the main auditorium, if space permits. These standby seats will be available on a first come, first served basis. Auditorium seats are not guaranteed. In a country obsessed with blind loyalty to a two-party democratic system, Karine Jean-Pierre, former White House press secretary to the Biden-Harris administration, shares why Americans must step beyond party lines to embrace life as Independents. Jean-Pierre didn't come to her decision to be an Independent lightly. She has served two American presidents, Obama and Biden. In 2020, she joined Biden's campaign as a senior adviser, becoming Harris's chief of staff and then, two years later, White House press secretary. She takes us through the three weeks that led to Biden's abandoning his bid for a second term and the betrayal by the Democratic Party that led to his decision. In an urgent, timely analysis, Independent urges all Americans to vote their values and maintain individuality within party lines. She presents clear arguments and provocative evidence as an insider about the importance of dismantling the torrent of disinformation and misinformation that has been rampant in recent elections and provides passionate insight for moving forward. In a hard-hitting yet hopeful critique, Jean-Pierre defines what it means to be part of the growing percentage of our fractured electorate that is Independent, why it can be worthwhile to carve a political space more loyal to personal beliefs than a party affiliation, and what questions you need to ask yourself to determine where you fit politically. As a history maker, veteran public servant, political analyst and independent thinker, she urges Americans to think outside of the blue-and-red box as we consider what's next to save our democracy. Karine Jean-Pierre was the White House Press Secretary and Special Advisor to former President Joe Biden. She has worked in senior communications and political offices in both the Biden and Obama Administrations. Prior to her time in the White House, Jean-Pierre was the Chief Public Affairs Officer for MoveOn.org. She is a graduate of Columbia University. Tamala Edwards joined 6abc in January of 2005. She is the weekday co-anchor of Action News Mornings from 4 a.m to 7 a.m. and is a regular co-host of Inside Story, conducting probing interviews with newsmakers like Governor Tom Corbett, Senator Bob Casey, Mayor Michael Nutter and others, as well as moderating many election debates. Prior to joining 6abc, Tamala Edwards was the anchor of ABC's World News Now, and World News This Morning. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 10/22/2025)

The Author Events Series presents Harmonia Rosales | Chronicles of Ori: An African Epic  In Conversation with Imani Roach In Chronicles of Ori, her debut book, Harmonia Rosales retells the African myths she has long treasured, crafting an enthralling epic that spans the birth of the universe to the modern world of colonialism and resistance. She writes of the powerful, temperamental deities called the Orishas; of the founding of Yorubaland by the shrewd leader Oduduwa; of the young heroine Eve, born in a time of violence and despair, who would help her people regain their past splendor; and of shimmering serpents and monstrous shadows who stalk the lands of mortals. At the center of these linked tales is the bond, sometimes fraying, between the Orishas and the humans who worship them. It was the Orishas who made humans, and who gave them their most precious resource: their Oris, or destinies. Vividly brought to life by Rosales's artwork, Chronicles of Ori will enlighten and delight readers for years to come. Harmonia Rosales is an American artist from Chicago whose work depicts and honors African myths and the diaspora. She lives in Los Angeles, California. Imani Roach is the inaugural director of the Brind Center for African and African Diasporic Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. There she is planning the first permanent gallery devoted to the arts of Africa and its diaspora in the PMA's 150-year history, set to open Fall, 2026. In this role she also works with colleagues across the institution on educational, curatorial and conservation initiatives that center Black art. She was previously Assistant Curator for the Arts of Africa at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York during the renovation and reinstallation of the Michael C. Rockefeller wing's African collection. A scholar of African Modernism and a proud Philadelphia resident since 2012, she has designed and led courses on the arts of Africa at Haverford College, the University of Pennsylvania, University of the Arts, Moore College of Art and Design and elsewhere. She has also worked in the arts journalism space, both as a senior editor at Guernica Magazine and as the first Managing editor of Artblog. Beyond her career as an art historian, she is also a regularly gigging vocalist and a new mom.  Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 10/21/2025)

The Author Events Series presents The Aeneid: Translating the Classics with Emily Wilson, Scott McGill, and Susannah Wright Crafted during the reign of Augustus Caesar at the outset of the Roman Empire, Virgil's Aeneid is a tale of thrilling adventure, extreme adversity, doomed romance, fateful battles, and profound loss. Through its stirring account of human struggle, meddling gods, and conflicting destinies, the poem brings to life the triumphs and trials that led to one of the most powerful societies the world has ever known. Unlike its Homeric predecessors, which arose from a long oral tradition, the Aeneid was composed by a singular poetic genius, and it has ever since been celebrated as one of the greatest literary achievements of antiquity. This exciting new edition of the Aeneid, the first collaborative translation of the poem in English, is rendered in unrhymed iambic pentameter, the English meter that corresponds best, in its history and cultural standing, to Virgil's dactylic hexameter. Scott McGill and Susannah Wright achieve an ideal middle ground between readability and elevation, engaging modern readers with fresh, contemporary language in a heart-pounding, propulsive rhythm, while also preserving the epic dignity of the original. The result is a brisk, eminently approachable translation that captures Virgil's sensitive balance between celebrating the Roman Empire and dramatizing its human costs, for victors and vanquished alike. This Aeneid is a poem in English every bit as complex, inviting, and affecting as the Latin original. With a rich and informative introduction from Emily Wilson, maps drawn especially for this volume, a pronunciation glossary, genealogies, extensive notes, and helpful summaries of each book, this gorgeous edition of Rome's founding poem will capture the imaginations and stir the souls of a new generation of readers. Emily Wilson is a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She has been named a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome in Renaissance and early modern studies, a MacArthur Fellow, and a Guggenheim Fellow. In addition to Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, she has also published translations of Sophocles, Euripides, and Seneca. She lives in Philadelphia. Scott McGill is Deedee McMurtry Professor in Humanities at Rice University. He lives in Houston, Texas. Susannah Wright is an assistant professor of classical studies and Roman history at Rice University. She lives in Houston, Texas. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 10/14/2025)

The Author Events Series presents Muhammad Abdul-Hadi | We the Pizza: Slangin' Pies and Savin' Lives In Conversation with Janice Johnson Dias, PhD Before the conversation begins, Author Event ticket holders are invited to a special tasting of Down North's signature pies at a reception sponsored by the Urban League. This pre-event sampling offers guests a chance to savor the flavors and spirit behind We the Pizza. Pizza samples available while supplies last. First come first serve.  We the Pizza tells the Down North story about how the restaurant fulfills its mission to educate and support the formerly incarcerated while serving dope food. A testament to survival and second chances, this cookbook offers recipes for the tender, crispy-edged, square-cut, sauce-on-top pies that are Down North's signature dish; a whole chapter is devoted to vegetarian and vegan pizzas like No Better Love made with four cheeses and the arrabbiata-inspired Norf Sauce, while the meat and seafood pizza chapter features their most popular Roc the Mic pepperoni pie as well as the smoky berbere-brisket Tales of a Hustler and Say Yes, topped with jerk turkey sausage, roasted butternut squash, kale, ricotta, and lemon-honey drizzle.  The 65 recipes for pizzas along with classic and creative wings, fries, lemonades, and shakes are paired with cinematic photography of the pizzas in their natural setting and out in the wilds of Philadelphia, with lots of journalistic-style photography of the Down North crew making dough and slinging pies. At the same time, We the Pizza provides detailed historical information about incarceration in the United States along with empowering stories from Down North's formerly incarcerated staff. And with exclusive pizza recipes from renowned chef-supporters like Marc Vetri and Marcus Samuelsson, We the Pizza celebrates ingeniously delicious pizza, as well as the power people have to rise above their circumstances-if simply given the chance. Muhammad Abdul-Hadi is the founder and owner of Down North Pizza, the mission-driven restaurant in North Philadelphia that exclusively hires formerly incarcerated individuals. Down North Pizza is the culmination of Abdul-Hadi's thirteen-year vision and is a concept that has long been ingrained in him; through Down North and the Down North Foundation, he is able to impact to the economic realities of underserved communities through excellent food and uplifiting endeavors. Abdul-Hadi has won the James Beard Foundation's leadership award, and he and the Down North team have been featured in the New York Times, The Washington Post, Bon Appetit Magazine, the Today Show, Eater, First We Feast, and more. Dr. Janice Johnson Dias is an educator, strategist, and changemaker with a Ph.D. in Sociology from Temple University, specializing in urban and political sociology. She is a tenured associate professor of sociology and a graduate faculty member of criminal justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. As president of the GrassROOTS Community Foundation, an international public health and social action training organization she co-founded in 2011, Dr. Johnson Dias leads efforts to empower communities and promote equity. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 10/8/2025)

The Author Events Series presents Jill Lepore  | We the People : A History of the U.S. Constitution Meelya Gordon Memorial Lecture Standby seating will be available in the overflow room for guests who wish to wait for an opportunity to be seated in the main auditorium, if space permits. These standby seats will be available on a first come, first served basis. Auditorium seats are not guaranteed. In Conversation with Kate Shaw Published on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the nation's founding-the anniversary, too, of the first state constitutions-We the People offers a wholly new history of the Constitution. ''One of the Constitution's founding purposes was to prevent change,'' Lepore writes. ''Another was to allow for change without violence.'' Relying on the extraordinary database she has assembled at the Amendments Project, Lepore recounts centuries of attempts, mostly by ordinary Americans, to realize the promise of the Constitution. Yet nearly all those efforts have failed. Although nearly twelve thousand amendments have been introduced in Congress since 1789, and thousands more have been proposed outside its doors, only twenty-seven have ever been ratified. More troubling, the Constitution has not been meaningfully amended since 1971. Without recourse to amendment, she argues, the risk of political violence rises. So does the risk of constitutional change by presidential or judicial fiat. Challenging both the Supreme Court's monopoly on constitutional interpretation and the flawed theory of ''originalism,'' Lepore contends in this ''gripping and unfamiliar story of our own past'' that the philosophy of amendment is foundational to American constitutionalism. The framers never intended for the Constitution to be preserved, like a butterfly, under glass, Lepore argues, but expected that future generations would be forever tinkering with it, hoping to mend America by amending its Constitution through an orderly deliberative and democratic process. Lepore's remarkable history seeks, too, to rekindle a sense of constitutional possibility. Congressman Jamie Raskin writes that Lepore ''has thrown us a lifeline, a way of seeing the Constitution neither as an authoritarian straitjacket nor a foolproof magic amulet but as the arena of fierce, logical, passionate, and often deadly struggle for a more perfect union.'' At a time when the Constitution's vulnerability is all too evident, and the risk of political violence all too real, We the People, with its shimmering prose and pioneering research, hints at the prospects for a better constitutional future, an amended America. Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper '41 Professor of American History at Harvard University and professor of law at Harvard Law School. She is also a staff writer at The New Yorker. Her many books include the international bestseller These Truths: A History of the United States. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 9/24/2025)

The Author Events Series presents Nicholas Boggs | Baldwin: A Love Story In Conversation with Rachel L. Swarns Baldwin: A Love Story, the first major biography of James Baldwin in three decades, reveals how profoundly the writer's personal relationships shaped his life and work. Drawing on newly uncovered archival material and original research and interviews, this spellbinding book tells the overlapping stories of Baldwin's most sustaining intimate and artistic relationships: with his mentor, the Black American painter Beauford Delaney; with his lover and muse, the Swiss painter Lucien Happersberger; and with his collaborators, the famed Turkish actor Engin Cezzar and the iconoclastic French artist Yoran Cazac, whose long-overlooked significance as Baldwin's last great love is explored in these pages for the first time. Nicholas Boggs shows how Baldwin drew on all the complex forces within these relationships-geographical, cultural, political, artistic, and erotic- and alchemized them into novels, essays, and plays that speak truth to power and had an indelible impact on the civil rights movement and on Black and queer literary history. Richly immersive, Baldwin: A Love Story follows the writer's creative journey between Harlem, Paris, Switzerland, the southern United States, Istanbul, Africa, the South of France, and beyond. In so doing, it magnifies our understanding of the public and private lives of one of the major literary figures of the twentieth century, whose contributions only continue to grow in influence. Nicholas Boggs was an undergraduate when he discovered James Baldwin's out-of-print children's book, Little Man, Little Man: A Story of Childhood, in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. After he tracked down its illustrator, the French artist Yoran Cazac, he went on to coedit an acclaimed new edition of the book in 2018. His writing has also been anthologized in The Cambridge Companion to James Baldwin, James Baldwin Now, and Speculative Light: The Arts of Beauford Delaney and James Baldwin. He is the recipient of a 2023 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Leon Levy Center for Biography, the Beinecke Library and Gilder Lehrman Center at Yale, the Schomburg Center Scholars-in-Residence Program, and the National Humanities Center, as well as residencies at Yaddo and MacDowell. He received his BA in English from Yale, his MFA in creative writing from American University, and his PhD in English from Columbia. Born and raised in Washington, DC, he lives in Brooklyn, New York. Rachel L. Swarns is a journalist, author and associate professor of journalism at New York University, who writes about race and history as a contributing writer for The New York Times. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Society of American Historians and her work has been recognized and supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ford Foundation, the Leon Levy Center for Biography, the Biographers International Organization and others. Her latest book, The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church, was published by Random House. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 9/30/2025)

The Author Events Series presents Steven Pinker  | When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . . In Conversation with Annie Duke Common knowledge is necessary for coordination, for making arbitrary but complementary choices like driving on the right, using paper currency, and coalescing behind a political leader or movement. It's also necessary for social coordination: everything from rendezvousing at a time and place to speaking the same language to forming enduring relationships of friendship, romance, or authority. Humans have a sixth sense for common knowledge, and we create it with signals like laughter, tears, blushing, eye contact, and blunt speech. But people also go to great lengths to avoid common knowledge-to ensure that even if everyone knows something, they can't know that everyone else knows they know it. And so we get rituals like benign hypocrisy, veiled bribes and threats, sexual innuendo, and pretending not to see the elephant in the room. Pinker shows how the hidden logic of common knowledge can make sense of many of life's enigmas: financial bubbles and crashes, revolutions that come out of nowhere, the posturing and pretense of diplomacy, the eruption of social media shaming mobs and academic cancel culture, the awkwardness of a first date. Artists and humorists have long mined the intrigues of common knowledge, and Pinker liberally uses their novels, jokes, cartoons, films, and sitcom dialogues to illuminate social life's tragedies and comedies.  Consistently riveting in explaining the paradoxes of human behavior, When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows... invites us to understand the ways we try to get into each other's heads and the harmonies, hypocrisies, and outrages that result. Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He has won many prizes for his teaching, his research on language, cognition, and social relations, and his twelve books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Better Angels of Our Nature, Enlightenment Now, and Rationality. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, and one of Time's ''100 Most Influential People in the World Today.'' Annie Duke is an author, speaker, and consultant in the decision-making space, as well as Special Partner focused on Decision Science at First Round Capital Partners, a seed stage venture fund. Annie's latest book, Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away, was released in 2022 from Portfolio, a Penguin Random House imprint. Her previous book, Thinking in Bets, is a national bestseller. As a former professional poker player, she has won more than $4 million in tournament poker. During her career, Annie won a World Series of Poker bracelet and is the only woman to have won the World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions and the NBC National Poker Heads-Up Championship. She retired from the game in 2012. Prior to becoming a professional poker player, Annie was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship to study Cognitive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned her master's degree. In 2021 she returned to her alma mater as a Visiting Scholar, where she also teaches executive education. In 2023 Annie completed her PhD in Cognitive Psychology. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 9/25/2025)

The Author Events Series presents Trymaine Lee | A Thousand Ways to Die : The True Cost of Violence on Black Life in America In Conversation with James Peterson and local gun violence prevention organizers: Chantay Love, EMIR: Every Murder Is Real, Pastor Carl Day, Culture Changing Christians Worship Center Tasnim Sulaiman, Black Men Heal A few years ago, Trymaine Lee, though fit and only 38, nearly died of a heart attack. When his then five-year-old daughter, Nola, asked her daddy why, he realized that to answer her honestly, he had to confront what almost killed him-the weight of being a Black man in America; of bearing witness, as a journalist, to relentless Black death; and of a family history scarred by enslavement, lynching, the Great Migration, the also-insidious racism of the North, and gun violence that stole the lives of two great-uncles, a grandfather, a stepbrother, and two cousins. In this powerful narrative, Lee weaves together three strands: the long and bloody history of African Americans and guns; his work as a chronicler of gun violence, tallying the costs and riches generated by both the legal and illegal gun industries; and his own life story. With unflinching honesty he takes readers on a journey, from almost being caught up in gun violence as a young man, to tracing the legacy of the Middle Passage in Ghana through his ancestors' footsteps, to confronting the challenges of representing his people in an overwhelmingly white and often hostile media world, and most importantly, to celebrating the enduring strength of his family and community. In A Thousand Ways to Die, Lee answers Nola and all who seek a more just America. He shares the hard truths and complexities of the Black experience, but he also celebrates the beauty and resilience that is Nola's legacy. Trymaine Lee is a Pulitzer Prize and Emmy Award-winning journalist and MSNBC contributor. He's the host of the ''Into America'' podcast where he covers the intersection of Blackness, power, and politics. A contributing author to the ''1619 Project'', he has reported for The New York Times, the Huffington Post, and the New Orleans Times-Picayune. A Thousand Ways to Die is his first book. James Peterson, Ph.D. is a writer, educator, and consultant. Dr. Peterson is the Host of ''Evening WURDS'' on WURD (900AM and 96.1FM) in Philadelphia, PA. He is the author of several books, including The Hip Hop Underground and African American Culture, Prison Industrial Complex for Beginners, and Hip-Hop Headphones: A Scholar's Critical Playlist. He is a columnist for The Philadelphia Citizen and has written for Fortune.com, Newsweek.com, The Guardian, The LA Times, Reuters, The Huffington Post, The Daily Beast, and The Grio.  Dr. Peterson is also a professional wordsmith who has ghostwritten and edited projects for a variety of individuals and corporate entities across a wide spectrum of professions. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 9/11/2025)

The Author Events Series presents Miriam Toews | A Truce That Is Not Peace In Conversation with Katy Waldman ''Why do you write?'' the organizer of a literary event in Mexico City asks Miriam Toews. Each attempted answer from Toews-all of them unsatisfactory to the organizer-surfaces new layers of grief, guilt, and futility connected to her sister's suicide. She has been keeping up, she realizes, a decades-old internal correspondence, filling a silence she barely understands. And we, her readers, come to see that the question is as impossible to answer as deciding whether to live life as a comedy or a tragedy. Marking the first time Toews has written her own life in nonfiction, A Truce That Is Not Peace explores the uneasy pact a writer makes with memory. Wildly inventive yet masterfully controlled; slyly casual yet momentous; wrenching and joyful; hilarious and humane-this is Miriam Toews at her dazzling best, remaking her world and inventing an astonishing new literary form to contain it. Miriam Toews is the author of the bestselling novels Women Talking, Fight Night, All My Puny Sorrows, Summer of My Amazing Luck, A Boy of Good Breeding, A Complicated Kindness, The Flying Troutmans, and Irma Voth, and two works of nonfiction, A Truce That is Not Peace and Swing Low: A Life. She is winner of the Governor General's Award for Fiction, the Libris Award for Fiction Book of the Year, the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, and the Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award. She lives in Toronto. Katy Waldman is a staff writer at The New Yorker, for which she writes about books, culture, and more. Previously, she was a staff writer at Slate and the host of the ''Slate's Audio Book Club'' podcast. She won the National Book Critics Circle's Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing in 2019 and the American Society of Magazine Editors's award for journalists under thirty in 2018; her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, New York magazine, the Paris Review, and elsewhere. She lives with her husband and dog in Washington, D.C. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 9/3/2025)

The Author Events Series presents Russell Shorto and Molly Beer  | Angelica & Taking Manhattan In Conversation with Michelle Craig McDonald In this enthralling and revealing woman's-eye view of a revolutionary era, Molly Beer breathes vibrant new life into a period usually dominated by masculine themes and often dulled by familiarity. In telling Angelica's story, she illuminates how American women have always plied influence and networks for political ends, including the making of a new nation. Taking Manhattan tells the riveting story of the birth of New York City as a center of capitalism and pluralism, a foundation from which America would rise. It also shows how the paradox of New York's origins--boundless opportunity coupled with subjugation and displacement--reflects America's promise and failure to this day. Russell Shorto, whose work has been described as "astonishing" (New York Times) and "literary alchemy" (Chicago Tribune), has once again mined archival sources to offer a vibrant tale and a fresh and trenchant argument about American beginnings. Raised in Angelica Schuyler Church's namesake town of Angelica, New York, Molly Beer is an award-winning author of essays, longform journalism, and oral history. She teaches nonfiction writing at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Russell Shorto, author of the bestsellers Smalltime, Revolution Song, Amsterdam, and The Island at the Center of the World, is the director of the New Amsterdam Project at the New York Historical. He lives in Maryland. Michelle Craig McDonald is the Director of the Library & Museum at the American Philosophical Society, and has worked for nearly three decades as an educator and administrator. She earned her Ph.D. in History from the University of Michigan where she focused on business relationships and consumer behavior between North America and the Caribbean during the 18th and 19th centuries. She also holds an M.A. in Liberal Arts from St. John's College, Annapolis, an M.A. in Museum Studies from George Washington University, and a B.A. in History from the University of California, Los Angeles, and was the Harvard-Newcomen Postdoctoral Fellow in Business History at the Harvard Business School. McDonald is the author of Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States (UPenn Press, 2025), and co-author of Public Drinking in the Early Modern World: Voices from the Tavern (Pickering & Chatto/Routledge Press, 2011), and her research has been supported by the Fulbright Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, the Library Company of Philadelphia, and the Winterthur Library and Museum. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! After the program, attendees will be invited to continue the countdown to the 250th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence in 2026 and meet Philadelphia's Revolutionary City Project partners, including colleagues from the American Philosophical Society and the Museum of the American Revolution. All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 9/4/2025)

The Author Events Series presents Caro De Robertis | So Many Stars REGISTER In Conversation with Dr. Michelle Taylor So Many Stars knits together the voices of trans, nonbinary, genderqueer, and two-spirit elders of color as they share authentic, intimate accounts of how they created space for themselves and their communities in the world. This singular project collects the testimonies of twenty elders, each a glimmering thread in a luminous tapestry, preserving their words for future generations--who can more fully exist in the world today because of these very trailblazers. De Robertis creates a collective coming-of-age story based on hundreds of hours of interviews, offering rare snapshots of ordinary life: kids growing up, navigating family issues and finding community, coming out and changing how they identify over the years, building movements and weathering the AIDS crisis, and sharing wisdom for future generations. Often narrating experiences that took place before they had the array of language that exists today to self-identify beyond the gender binary, this generation lived through remarkable changes in American culture, shaped American culture, and yet rarely takes center stage in the history books. Their stories feel particularly urgent in the current political moment, but also remind readers that their experiences are not new, and that young trans and nonbinary people today belong to a long lineage. The anecdotes in these pages are riveting, joyful, heartbreaking, full of personality and wisdom, and artfully woven together into one immersive narrative. In De Robertis's words, So Many Stars shares "behind-the-scenes tales of what it meant--and still means--to create an authentic life, against the odds." A writer of Uruguayan origins, Caro De Robertis is the author of six novels, including The Palace of Eros, Cantoras, and more. Their books have been translated into seventeen languages and have received numerous honors, including two Stonewall Book Awards, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature, which they were the first openly nonbinary writer to receive. De Robertis is also an award-winning literary translator and a professor at San Francisco State University. They live in Oakland, California with their two children. Dr. Michelle Taylor holds a Ph.D. in Africology & African American Studies from Temple University and is an educator, writer, and activist. She also earned an M.S.W. from CUNY-Hunter College and served her community as a social worker for eighteen years prior to entering academia. Dr. Taylor is the author of Reclaiming Our Space: How Black Feminists Are Changing the World from the Tweets to the Streets and her work focuses on African American women, mass media, and social justice. Dr. Taylor founded Sankofa Summer School, a  ritual Afrocentric academy that educates students about topics relevant to people of the African Diaspora.  The 2024/25 Author Events Series is presented by Comcast. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 6/2/2025)

The Author Events Series presents Jake Tapper & Alex Thompson  | Original Sin Tickets to the Montgomery Auditorium are now sold out, but you can still get tickets for the simulcast live screening in Room 108.  REGISTER In Conversation with Tamala Edwards In Greek tragedy, the protagonist's effort to avoid his fate is what seals his fate. In 2024, American politics became a Greek tragedy. Joe Biden launched his successful 2020 bid for the White House with the stated goal of saving the nation from a second Trump presidential term. He, his family, and his senior aides were so convinced that only he could beat Trump again, they lied to themselves, allies, and the public about his condition and limitations. At his debate with Trump on June 27, 2024, the consequences of that deception were exposed to the world. It was shocking and upsetting. Now the full, unsettling truth is being told for the first time. Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson take us behind closed doors and into private conversations between the heaviest of hitters, revealing how big the problem was and how many people knew about it. From White House staffers at the highest to lowest levels, to leaders of Congress and the Cabinet, from governors to donors and Hollywood players, the truth is finally being told. What you will learn makes President Biden's decision to run for reelection seem shockingly narcissistic, self-delusional, and reckless-a desperate bet that went bust-and part of a larger act of extended public deception that has few precedents. The story the authors tell raises fundamental issues of accountability and responsibility that will continue for decades. The irony is biting: In the name of defeating what they called an existential threat to democracy, Biden and his inner circle ensured it, tossing aside his implicit promise to serve for only one term, denying the existence of health issues the nation had been watching for years, dooming the Democrats to defeat. The decision to run again, the Original Sin of this president, led to a campaign of denial and gaslighting, leading directly to Donald Trump's return to power and all that has happened as a consequence. Rarely does hubris meet nemesis more explosively. Wherever you stand on the political spectrum, Original Sin is essential reading. Tamala Edwards joined 6abc in January of 2005. She is the weekday co-anchor of Action News Mornings from 4 a.m to 7 a.m. and is a regular co-host of Inside Story, conducting probing interviews with newsmakers like Governor Tom Corbett, Senator Bob Casey, Mayor Michael Nutter and others, as well as moderating many election debates. Prior to joining 6abc, Tamala Edwards was the anchor of ABC's World News Now, and World News This Morning. The 2024/25 Author Events Series is presented by Comcast. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 5/29/2025)

The Author Events Series presents Senator Ron Wyden  | It Takes Chutzpah: How to Fight Fearlessly for Progressive Change REGISTER In Conversation with Michael Solomonov  Endowed Lecture: Pine Tree Foundation It Takes Chutzpah is an inspirational call to action by a senior U.S. politician, describing how Americans of all age groups, persuasions, and occupations can defy convention, chart new pathways for their communities, schools, at work and in life. US Senator Ron Wyden is widely praised for coming up with sensible-sounding ideas no one else had thought of and making the counter-intuitive political alliances that prove helpful in passing bills. In It Takes Chutzpah, he offers a progressive leader's manifesto for being a courageous warrior during turbulent times. "Chutzpah" is a Yiddish word that describes a trait that many Jews consider in-born. Ron explores chutzpah's long history and many interpretations and reclaims the word chutzpah for a new American generation, showing how it can be used for good to reclaim idealism and enact positive change. He shares "Ron's 12 Rules of Chutzpah" that enable any individual or group to achieve their objectives, including: 1. If you want to make change, you've got to make noise. 2.In a world where everyone thinks and acts for the short-term, always play the long game. 3. Leading is coaching: Whether in legislation or in life, you've got to bring people and ideas together around a shared goal. Ron identifies several key values--free speech, health care, reproductive rights, a clean environment, and reigning in Big Tech--and draws on his decades of public service to stress that preserving those values means that loud brashness and boldness will be needed now more than ever. The 2024/25 Author Events Series is presented by Comcast. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 5/15/2025)