Enoch Pratt Free Library Podcast

Ted Venetoulis' novel turns the Washington scene upside down when the First Lady kicks her unfaithful husband out of of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Full of twists and turns and a White House filled with cronies and chicanery, this far-fetched spoof boasts an ending unlike any in the long annals of the affiars of state.Former Baltimore County executive, Ted Venetoulis currently serves as chairman and CEO of Corridor Media, Inc., a regional business and political news magazine serving the Baltimore Washington corridor. He has taught courses on politics and the media at Johns Hopkins University and Goucher College. Venetoulis has been the leader of efforts to return the Baltimore Sun to local ownership and is recognized nationally for his knowledge of the various approaches to restructuring and salvaging the newspaper industry. Recorded On: Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Born to parents of modest means but middle-class values and aspirations, Jerald Walker spent his early years in a Chicago housing project. Drawn to the streets like so many African American boys, he dropped out of school and by his early teens was well on the road to self-destruction. And then came the blast of gunfire that changed everything: his coke dealer friend Greg was shot to death, less than an hour after Walker had scored a gram from him. Walker tells the story of his descent and rebirth in alternating time frames. It is a classic coming-of-age story and an eloquent account of how the past shadows, but need not determine, the present.Jerald Walker is an associate professor of English at Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts. He attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he was a teaching/writing fellow and James A. Michener Fellow. His work has appeared in Mother Jones, Best African American Essays: 2009, and Brothers: 26 Stories of Love and Rivalry. Recorded On: Sunday, February 28, 2010

When Elisa New held her great-grandfather Jacob Levy's cane in her hands for the first time in 1997, she realized that her family's story was not the standard coming-to-America tale she had long assumed.In the mid-1880s, Levy landed not at Ellis Island, but at Baltimore where he soon became a successful businessman and prominent socialist leader. New and her daughter Yael set out to research their family history, from Lithuania to Baltimore to London, and in the process unlocked family mysteries and explained the etching on Jacob Levy's cane.Elisa New is professor of English and American literature at Harvard University and the author of The Line's Eye and The Regenerate Lyric.Recorded On: Thursday, January 21, 2010

When gold rush fever gripped the globe in 1849, thousands of Chinese immigrants came through San Francisco on their way to seek their fortunes. In The Poker Bride, Christopher Corbett looks at this Chinese experience through a little-known legend from Idaho lore, the story of Polly, a young Chinese concubine, won by a white gambler in a poker game in Idaho.Corbett is the author of Orphans Preferred: The Twisted Truth and Lasting Legend of the Pony Express and Vacationland. He writes the popular "Back Page" column for Style magazine and teaches at UMBC.Recorded On: Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Neil Sheehan, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, A Bright Shining Lie, tells the story of the nuclear arms race that changed history and the visionary American Air Force officer, Bernard Schriever, who led the high-stakes effort. He details Schriever's quest to prevent the Soviet Union from acquiring nuclear superiority, to penetrate and exploit space for America, and to build the first weapons meant to deter an atomic holocaust rather than to be fired in anger.A Fiery Peace in a Cold War was named "one of the 10 best books of 2009" by Publishers Weekly.Recorded On: Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Alexandra Natapoff, professor of law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, is an award-winning scholar and a nationally recognized expert on snitching in the criminal justice system.In her book, she discusses the widespread use of criminal informants, the legal, cultural and political consequences, from street to drug crime to Hip Hop music, the FBI, and terrorism.Natapoff served as assistant federal public defender in Baltimore from 1998 to 2003.Recorded On: Sunday, February 21, 2010

In 2007, David Beckham left the comfort and securiity of European soccer and embarked on a new and risky adventure in the U.S. with the L.A. Galaxy. Sports writer Grant Wahl spent two years following Beckham and the Galaxy. In The Beckham Experiment, he provides the behind-the-scenes drama of Beckham's time on the road in one of sports' most fascinating gambles. In 12 years at Sports Illustrated, Grant Wahl has written 31 cover stories and covered five World Cups, three Olympics, and 12 NCAA basketball tournaments.Recorded On: Wednesday, February 17, 2010

This annual Cave Canem poetry reading at the Pratt features three dynamic young voices: Samiya Bashir, Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, and Ronaldo V. Wilson.Samiya Bashir is the author of Gospel and Where the Apple Falls, a Poetry Foundation bestseller and finalist for the 2005 Lambda Literary Award. Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon was the 2001 Cave Canem Prize winner; her new collection is Open Interval, a finalist for the 2009 National Book Award in Poetry. Ronaldo Wilson received the 2007 Cave Canem Prize for Narrative of the Life of the Brown Boy and the White Man.Recorded On: Sunday, December 6, 2009

Folklorist and writer Alison Kahn and photographer Peggy Fox have collaborated to produce a collection of oral history narratives, essays, and photographs that profile the lives of longtime residents of five historic Patapsco Valley villages: Ellicott City, Oella, Elkridge, Relay, and Daniels. The love of place shines through in this volume, which chronicles experiences that span nearly a century. An ode to the valley's vanishing communities, it reveals the connections between people and place and culture in the face of rapid change.Recorded On: Sunday, November 22, 2009

Why is race still an uncomfortable subject to talk about in the United States? Join us for this conversation with Rich Benjamin, author of Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America, and Tim Wise, author of Between Barack & A Hard Place: Racism & White Denial in the Age of Obama. Benjamin and Wise will discuss white America's struggle to talk about race. Rich Benjamin is a Demos Senior Fellow.Part of the year-long speaker series, "Talking About Race," presented in partnership with the Open Society Institute-Baltimore. Cosponsor: Demos Recorded On: Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Are you leading an "unwealthy" lifestyle? What's your worst bad habit when it comes to your finances?Financial lifestyle coach Deborah Owens answers your questions and show you how to develp the seven "wealthy" habits.Recorded On: Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Admissions representatives and scholarship organizations discuss information on various financial assistance programs and scholarship opportunities, the college admissions process, and preparation for the SAT and other assessment tests.Recorded On: Monday, November 9, 2009

Ariel Sabar's father Yona was born in a tiny village in the Kurdiish region of Iraq, in a Jewish enclave so isolated that the residents still spoke Aramaic. Yona Sabar and thousands of other Iraqi Jews were resettled in Israel in the 1950s. From there, he went to Yale University and became a professor of Near Eastern languages at UCLA, dedicated to preserving the unique heritage of the Jews of Kurdistan.Growing up in Los Angeles, Ariel Sabar wanted nothing to do with his father's strange immigrant heritage -- until he had a son of his own. In My Father's Paradise, Ariel Sabar retells his father's story and finds his own.Ariel Sabar covered the 22008 U.S. presidential campaigns for The Christian Science Monitor. He is an award-winning former staff writer for the Baltimore Sun and the Providence Journal. My Father's Paradise won the 2008 National Book Critics Circle award for autobiography. Recorded On: Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Josh Weil's The New Valley, published last year, was honored with a "5 Under 35" National Book Award and was a New York Times Editors Choice selection. It recently was honored with the 2010 New Writers Award in Fiction from the Great Lakes Colleges Association.Set in the hardscrabble hill country between West Virginia and Virginia, the three linked novellas open up the private worlds of three very different men as they confront love, loss, and their own personal demons.Weil's fiction has been published in Granta, American Short Fiction, Narrative, and Glimmer Train. He has written nonfiction for The New York Times, Granta Online, and Poets and Writers. Since earing his MFA from Columbia University, he has received a Fulbright grant, a Writer's Center Emerging Writer Fellowship, the Dana Award in Portfolio, and fellowships from the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers' conferences. As the 2009 Tickner Fellow, Josh Weil is the writer-in-residence at Gilman School in Baltimore.Recorded On: Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Congresswoman Barbara Lee was first elected to represent California's ninth Congressional District in 1998. In addition to being one of Congress' most vocal opponents to the war in Iraq, she has been a leader in promoting policies that foster international peace, security and human rights.Congresswoman Lee is a graduate of Mills College and UC/Berkeley. Prior to being elected to Congress, she served in the California legislature for eight years. Congresswoman Lee is currently serving as the Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.Recorded On: Sunday, January 24, 2010

Kalman Hettleman's book presents a bold, unconventional plan to rescue our nation's schoolchildren from a failing public education system. The plan reflects the author's rare fusion of on-the-ground experience as a school board member, public administrator, and political activist and exhaustive policy research.The causes of failure, Hettleman shows, lie in obsolete ideas and false certainties that are ingrained in a trinity of dominant misbeliefs: 1) that educators can be entrusted on their own to do what it takes to reform our schools; 2) that we need to retreat from the landmark federal No Child Left Behind Act and restore more local control; and 3) that politics must be kept out of public education.Kalman Hettleman has had a notable career on the frontlines of urban policy and politics, including service in Baltimore as a member of the school board and deputy mayor for education and other social programs, and as a nationally acclaimed education policy analyst. He has also served as Maryland cabinet secreta

Science is more than observation of what exists in nature: science is adventure of the mind. It took many creative leaps of the mind to produce science as sophisticated as modern physics and genetic biology.In his new book, Our Quest for Effective Living: How We Cope in Social Space; A Window to a New Science, Fred Katz offers creative leaps about the social space in which we humans live our lives. Katz taught sociology at various universities, including the State University of New York/Buffalo and Tel Aviv University. Recorded On: Wednesday, January 6, 2010

In June, 2003, Rear Admiral Barry C. Black was elected the 62nd Chaplain of the United States Senate. Prior to going to Capitol Hill, Chaplain Black served in the U.S. Navy for more than 27 years, ending his career as the Chief of Navy Chaplains.A native of Baltimore, Chaplain Black is an alumnus of Oakwood College, Andrews University, North Carolina Central University, Eastern Baptist Seminary, Salve Regina University, and United States International University. He holds a Doctorate degree in ministry and a Ph.D. in psychology and has received numerous awards and service medals. He is the author of From the Hood to the Hill: A Story of Overcoming.Recorded On: Saturday, January 16, 2010

WJZ-TV anchor Vic Carter tells the compelling story of Ozell Sutton, a civil rights pioneer who risked his life to ensure the rights of others. From rural Arkansas, Dr. Sutton conducted voter registration in the South and helped select and train "The Little Rock Nine." He later worked for the Department of Justice as a conciliator and forced rural police departments to offer adequate protection to marchers.At age 23, Vic Carter received broadcasting's highest honor, the George Foster Peabody Award. He was named Journalist of the Year by the University of Georgia's School of Journalism and was inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame.Recorded On: Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Over a seven-year period Bill Clinton talked intimately to Taylor Branch about what it's like to be president, revealing what he thought and felt and could not say in public. Branch includes his own reactions to the content of these conversations, as well as observations on Clinton's demeanor, moods and puzzlements. The Clinton Tapes provides a unique look at the presidency and Bill Clinton's place in the ranks of our chief executives.Pulitzer Prize winning historian Taylor Branch is the author of three books on the life of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Parting the Waters, Pillar of Fire, and At Canaan's Edge.+Recorded On: Thursday, November 5, 2009