Justice Stephen Breyer: Choosing Pragmatism Over Textualism

In this episode of Library Talks, award-winning author and New York Times Magazine staff writer Jonathan Mahler joins the podcast to discuss the transformative, tumultuous era in New York City he evokes vividly in The Gods of New York: Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists, and the Birth of the Modern City: 1986-1990, with bestselling novelist Amor Towles.   The Gods of New York is an immersive portrait of a city whose identity was suddenly up for grabs: Could it be both the great working-class city that lifted up immigrants from around the world and the money-soaked capital of global finance? Could it retain a civic culture—a common idea of what it meant to be a New Yorker—when the rich were building a city of their own and vast swaths of its citizens were losing faith in the systems meant to protect them? New York City was one thing at the dawn of 1986; it would be something very different as 1989 came to a close. This is the story of how that happened. 

In this episode of Library Talks, the former director of the CDC Dr. Tom Frieden, joins Library Talks to discuss his new book The Formula for Better Health: How to Save Millions of Lives – Including Your Own. He's joined in conversation by Chelsea Clinton, vice chair of the Clinton Foundation.   Dr. Tom Frieden led New York's health department after 9/11, directed the CDC during the Ebola epidemic, and has fought tuberculosis and other lethal threats around the world. His new book draws on his decades of experience to outline practical approaches to winning the battle for health. Using real-world examples—from laboratories solving deadly mysteries to frontline fights against tuberculosis and drug-resistant outbreaks—Frieden shows how to spot invisible threats, pursue seemingly impossible solutions, and build a world where people live healthier, longer lives.

In this episode of Library Talks, Irin Carmon speaks with Melissa Murray about her new book Unbearable. In Unbearable, Irin Carmon draws on the history and politics of reproduction, showing how the American story of pregnancy has long been incomplete, hidden, or taken for granted. Pregnant herself while reporting on the lived experiences of five women navigating pregnancy during the Supreme Court's rollback of abortion, Carmon blends personal narrative with rigorous journalism to reveal systemic injustices that span from New York City to rural Alabama, touching lives across both urban and rural communities, rich and poor alike.   Carmon speaks with legal scholar Melissa Murray about how the healthcare system fails women at their most vulnerable—and why a more dignified future is urgently needed.

In this episode of Library Talks, Author Francesca Wade, joins Library Talks to discuss her new book Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife she is joined by fellow author Brenda Wineapple who's most recent book is national bestseller, Keeping the Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial That Riveted a Nation.   Gertrude Stein's Paris salon is the stuff of literary legend. Many have tried to capture the spirit of the place that once entertained the likes of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso, and Henri Matisse, but perhaps none as determinedly as Stein herself. Pushing beyond the conventions of literary biography to explore the nature of legacy and memory itself, Francesca Wade uncovers the origins of Stein's radical writing and reveals new depths to the storied relationship with Alice B. Toklas that made it possible.

In this episode of Library Talks, Ray D. Madoff, a professor at Boston College Law School, talks about her new book The Second Estate which lifts the veil on the 7,000-page tax code that has created two Americas. In one America, "millions of working Americans pay substantial portions of their resources to support the expenses of the country." In another, the wealthiest one percent have been "given the tools to abdicate their responsibilities and, in a sense, to relocate to a tax-free version of American life."   Madoff talks to stand-up comedian Gary Gulman about how these mechanisms were enshrined in law and created a sovereign state of wealth and who bears the costs of a tax system that consolidates wealth at the top.

In this episode of Library Talks, Cheryl McKissack Daniel—fifth-generation leader of the nation's oldest Black-owned design and construction services firm, sits down with multimedia mogul Charlamagne Tha God to discuss her family's extraordinary 200-year history, as captured in her new book The Black Family Who Built America.   From the National Civil Rights Museum in Tennessee, to the Atlantic Yards (Pacific Park) LIRR Yard relocation, the Barclays Center Arena construction in Brooklyn, the Oculus in Manhattan, the New Terminal One at JFK International Airport, and the cherished Lincoln Financial Field of the Philadelphia Eagles, Cheryl McKissack Daniel's family-run construction business, McKissack & McKissack, has contributed to the creation of some of the nation's most significant landmarks. Over the course of the 200-year history of the McKissack family The Black Family Who Built America: The McKissacks, Two Centuries of Daring Pioneers by Cheryl McKissack Daniel with Nick Chiles, showcases a compelling narrative of Black achievement, resilience, and a legacy that endures.

In this episode of Library Talks, acclaimed novelist Gish Jen joins Library Talks to discuss her latest book Bad Bad Girl. She is joined by fellow novelist Weike Wang.   Bad Bad Girl began as a memoir of her late mother, Loo Shu-hsin, before evolving into a fictionalized portrait of their turbulent mother-daughter relationship. As a child Shu-hsin learns how little her life is valued as a woman in 1930s Shanghai and is constantly reprimanded, "Bad bad girl! You don't know how to talk!" Years later, struggling to keep her own family together as an expat in America, she finds herself incanting the same refrain to her own strong-willed, outspoken daughter. Spanning continents, generations, and cultures, Bad Bad Girl weaves fragments of memory with careful invention to create an intimate portrait of the complex bonds between mothers and daughters.

In this episode of Library Talks, join Dua Lipa for a live discussion of Flesh by David Szalay, a book club pick for Service95—the global lifestyle platform and weekly newsletter she founded.   Longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize, Flesh tells the rags-to-riches story of Istvan, a lonely young man raised on a Hungarian housing estate, whose rise from obscurity to success is ultimately derailed by events beyond his control.

In this episode of Library Talks,  Educator NYPL staff member and author Brian Jones joins Library Talks to discuss his new book Black History Is for Everyone. He is joined by Dr. Bettina L. Love and Jesse Hagopian.   In Black History Is for Everyone, Brian Jones offers a meditation on the power of Black history, using his own experiences as a lifelong learner and classroom teacher to question everything—from the radicalism of the American Revolution to the meaning of "race" and "nation."

In this episode of Library Talks , in honor of The New Yorker's 100th anniversary, editor David Remnick is joined by Henry Finder, Tyler Foggatt, Susan Morrison, and Daniel Zalewski for a rare editorial roundtable. They offer an insider's view into how articles are assigned, crafted, and brought to life—from first pitch to final publication—and how the magazine reflects and builds on its storied past.   Presented in conjunction with The New York Public Library's major exhibition A Century of The New Yorker, on view through February 21, 2026, which draws on NYPL's collections, including the magazine's voluminous archives and the papers of many of its contributors, to bring to life the people, stories, and ideas that made The New Yorker.