Live At Politics And Prose

A scholar and journalist based in St. Louis, Kendzior was alert to the struggles of America’s disaffected heartland well before the 2016 election. Writing on income disparity, labor exploitation, racism, xenophobia, and other conditions of the post-employment economy, Kendzior so acutely identified the conditions that led to Trump’s victory that she’s been credited with being the first to predict it. Originally published in 2015 as an ebook, this collection of essays written for Al Jazeera English between 2012 and 2014 has been updated to reflect the transformation of the U.S. under the Trump administration, including considerations of authoritarian tactics, the media, voting rights, technology, and Russian interference. Throughout her penetrating critique, Kendzior reminds us that to solve our problems we must first discuss them openly and with compassion.https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9781250189998Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2011, Jesmyn Ward won the National Book Award for Salvage the Bones, and last year, she became the first woman to ever win twice. This time it was for Sing, Unburied, Sing, an American epic that earned her comparisons to William Faulkner and Toni Morrison. As Leonie, a mother struggling with drug abuse, drives with her children to bring her husband home from Parchman Farm, Mississippi’s state penitentiary, she and her thirteen-year-old son Jojo are visited by two ghosts. While Leonie waits for visits from her dead brother, Jojo hears from a boy his own age, the ghost of a dead Parchman inmate who carries all the ugly history of the South with him in death.Ward is in conversation with Aminatta Forna, Lannan Visiting Chair of Poetics at Georgetown University and author of five books, including the Commonwealth Writers' Prize-winning The Memory of Love and, most recently, Happiness.https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9781501126062Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Scalzi’s Lock In introduced the brutal, riveting game of Hilketa, in which players wield swords and hammers to try to decapitate each other. The violence is real, but the players are “threeps,” robot-like bodies controlled by people immobilized with Haden’s Syndrome, so no one actually gets hurt. At least, that’s the idea. The sequel opens with the shocking death of a star player, and as a pair of investigators piece together what happened, they reveal the dark side of the near future’s most popular game, a side where the rules are still being decided. One of the major names in science fiction, Scalzi, award-winning author of Old Man’s War and Redshirts, deftly combines a high-tech speculative landscape with the snappy dialogue and fast pace of a police procedural.https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780765388919Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

NASA launched the New Horizons craft on January 19, 2006. By July 24, 2015 it had covered 4.67 billion miles and transmitted a stream of amazing photos as it flew by Pluto at 32,000 miles per hour. The images made headlines in all seven continents, uniting the planet as few events do. Telling the story of the most distant planetary exploration ever undertaken, Stern, principal investigator of the mission, and Grinspoon, author of Earth in Human Hands and inaugural Chair of Astrobiology at the Library of Congress, give a detailed insiders’ account of this extraordinary project. They illuminate the science and the technical challenges, profile the key individuals, outline the political debates involved, and suggest what to expect when the New Horizons craft passes through the Kuiper Belt in January 2019.https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9781250098962Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Irby’s sharp and earthy debut collection of essays, now reissued, marked the arrival of a seriously talented and transgressive feminist humorist, one who’s risen into the stratosphere in the wake of last year’s We Are Never Meeting in Real Life. Five years later, these pieces still pack a punch and draw as many laughs as they did the first time around. From failed relationships to tacos to Crohn’s disease, Irby treats everything with the candor and irreverence that keeps people so addicted to her “Bitches Gotta Eat” blog.https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780525436164Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hinton was twenty-nine when he was arrested on two counts of capital murder in Alabama in 1985. He was innocent, but he was also poor and black with an incompetent defense attorney. Hinton was convicted, sentenced to death by electrocution, and spent the first three years on death row in silent, bitter despair. Then he became determined to survive, and even to thrive. He kept his own spirits up by bolstering his fellow inmates, and found new representation with Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative and author of Just Mercy. Released and exonerated in 2015, Hinton is now an advocate for prison reform and a compelling speaker on the power of hope.https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9781250124715Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the first time, Cecile Richards—president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America for more than a decade, daughter of the late Governor Ann Richards, and heroine of the resistance—tells the story of her lifetime fighting for women's rights and making change. Richards had an extraordinary childhood in ultra-conservative Texas, watching her mother, Ann, transform from a housewife to the straight-talking, truth-telling governor of Texas. But that meant that starting as a young girl, Richards witnessed the pitfalls of public life that are unique to women. Her experiences paint a powerful portrait of the misogyny, sexism, and violence confronting those who challenge authority. Now, she shines a light on the people and lessons that have gotten her through good times and bad, and encourages readers to take risks, make mistakes, and make trouble along the way.Richards is in conversation with Karen Tumulty, a columnist and former national political correspondent for the Washington Post.https://www.politics

With more than thirty years of experience as a writer, producer, and director, Scovell knows how the entertainment industry works.  She came to Hollywood as a bookish New Englander and worked her way up from a low-level writer for Newhart to a major contributor to shows including The Simpsons, Late Night with David Letterman, Murphy Brown, and NCIS and on to creator of the series Sabrina the Teenage Witch. While her roles have mainly been behind the scenes, Scovell has had several moments in the limelight. In 2009 she spoke out about gender bias on late-night TV writing staffs, and later she collaborated with Sheryl Sandberg on Lean In. In both cases Scovell helped spark a debate about diversity in a male-dominated work environment that her candid, wise, and very funny memoir continues. Scovell is in conversation with Alexandra Petri, Washington Post columnist.https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780062473486Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As McBride recounts in this stirring memoir, she identified as female from the start, but came out as a transgender woman only at the end of her term as American University’s student body president in 2011. When the news went viral and she was featured on NPR and other media outlets, McBride decided to focus her political activism on LGBTQ rights. Her resumé alone is inspiring: an internship at the White House in 2012 made her the first openly transgender woman to work there, and her appearance at the 2016 Democratic convention made her the first openly transgender speaker at a major political convention. She is now National Press Secretary at the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ civil rights organization.McBride is in conversation with Joe Kennedy, Congressional representative in his third term serving the Fourth District of Massachusetts.https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9781524761479Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Berry’s bracing call-to-action combines progressive idealism with the pragmatism of a seasoned activist to argue that resistance effects important changes in all political climates. Berry, Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought and professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, offers a wide range of historical examples of what resistance has accomplished. She also draws on her own experiences as a key figure in the Free South Africa movement and as the chair of the U.S. Commission of Civil Rights from 1993 to 2004. Her inspiring stories include accounts of going to Vietnam, being fired by Reagan, and defying George W. Bush over an appointment to the commission.https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780807005460Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Orléans, people are born gray-skinned and ugly. Sixteen-year-old Camellia and her sisters are tasked with using magic to make them beautiful but for a price. However, as Camellia’s talents draw her closer to people with political power, she learns that her world is less beautiful--and more dangerous--than it appears. Author Daniel José Older writes of Clayton’s first solo novel, “The Belles is full of political drama, palace intrigue, complex and corrupt characters, and deadly betrayals.” Clayton is in conversation with Jason Reynolds, author of Long Way Downhttps://www.politics-prose.com/book/9781484728499Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Robert B. Reich has been one of America's leading political thinkers since he served as Bill Clinton's Secretary of Labor, for which Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. A constant voice for social change, Reich is the author of 14 books, including the best-sellers Saving Capitalism and The Work of Nations. Now, he makes the case for restoring the idea of the common good to the center of our economics, our politics, and our national identity. The Common Good argues that societies undergo both virtuous and vicious cycles, and that the vicious cycle the U.S. is now undergoing can and must be reversed. Reich challenges us to weigh what really matters, and to join forces to save America's soul.https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780525520498Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When mainstream culture stereotypes the anger of Black women as ugly or destructive, or when it dismisses “sassy” Black women by laughing them off, it does so because it knows this Black female rage is powerful. In this passionate manifesto, Cooper, co-founder of the Crunk Feminist Collective and recipient of the Black Feminist Rising Award from Black Women’s Blueprint and the Newswomen’s Club of New York, draws on examples from Serena Williams to Michelle Obama to her own grandmother to show how rage can fuel both political and personal accomplishments. Reminding us that 94% of Black women did not vote for Trump, Cooper exhorts all Black women to claim the anger they have rightfully earned and speak out against injustice of all kinds. Cooper is  in conversation with Damon Young, editor-in-chief of VerySmartBrothas.https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9781250112576Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Twenty-five years ago, Angels in America made its Broadway premier. It won the Pulitzer Prize for drama and the Tony Award for best play, but Tony Kushner’s landmark work was always more than just a theater piece. It changed the way gay lives are represented in popular culture and the story of its many productions is also the story of AIDS and the struggle for gay rights. In this vibrant oral history, Butler, writer and director of productions including The Trump Card and Real Enemies, and Kois, editor and writer for Slate’s culture section, bring together the voices of more than two hundred people closely associated with Angels, from Meryl Streep and Mary-Louise Parker to directors, producers, historians, critics, and Kushner himself, to reminisce, tell stories, debate, and celebrate a piece that’s as vital today as it was when it opened in San Francisco in 1991.Butler and Kois are in conversation with Glen Weldon, co-host of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast. The three of them will be joined for a staged

Frum’s ninth book expands on his eye-opening March 2017 Atlantic column, “How to Build an Autocracy,” which argued that Trump is leading the nation into authoritarianism. An experienced Washington insider and one of the country’s leading conservative commentators, Frum examines the implications of Trump’s behavior as well as his policies. From Trump’s admiration for strongmen such as the Philippines’ Roderigo Duterte and Turkey’s Tayyip Erdoğan to the president’s threats against the media, his impulsive decision-making, and flouting of tradition and even law, Frum sees evidence that Trump’s presidency, if left unchecked, will seriously damage America’s democratic future.http://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780062796738Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hari, author of Chasing the Scream, changed the terms of the debate about addiction with his influential TED talk, “Everything You Think You Know About Addiction Is Wrong.” In his second book he uses his own experience with depression and anti-depressant medication as the starting point for a critique of current chemical-imbalance theories of mental illness. Asking if the growing levels of depression could be related to the conditions we live in, Hari talked to social scientists as well as psychologists. Finding a link between depression and external factors such as loneliness, work-based dissatisfaction, and other discontents of consumer culture, he reports from around the world on unconventional treatments—community volunteer projects instead of pills, non-hierarchical workplaces—that improve mental health by fostering a sense of empowerment. Hari is in conversation with Andrew Sullivan, former editor of The New Republic, and the author or editor of six books. http://www.politics-prose.com/book/978163286830

In the all-too-plausible future of Zumas’s second novel, the Personhood Amendment has outlawed abortion, a “pink wall” has gone up between the U.S. and Canada to prevent pregnant Americans from accessing Canadian clinics, and the “Every Child Needs Two” act means single parents are ineligible to adopt. These measures, along with the old-fashioned sexism that keeps women underpaid, under-confident, and overworked, makes life difficult for Zumas’s four protagonists. Known by their roles: the Biographer, the Wife, the Daughter, and the Mender, as well as by their names: Roberta, Susan, Mattie, and Gin, these rebellious characters are determined to break through social constraints and direct their own lives.http://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780316434812Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join April Ryan for the fifth in an ongoing series of discussions focusing on race in America.  As in previous presentations, Ryan will moderate a panel of leading writers and commentators to examine recent and longstanding issues. Speakers include: Mary Frances Berry, the Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought and professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, the former chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and the author of nearly a dozen books, the next of which is History Teaches Us To Resist, forthcoming in March from Beacon Press; Bishop T. D. Jakes, senior pastor of The Potter’s House, a global humanitarian organization and 30,000-member church located in Dallas, and the author of many books, including most recently Soar!: Build Your Vision from the Ground Up; Wesley Lowery, Pulitzer Prize-winning national correspondent at the Washington Post, on-air contributor at CNN, and author of the awarded book They Can't Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in A

The KKK was founded in 1865 by Confederate veterans. After a few turbulent years and federal efforts to outlaw it, it faded with Reconstruction. Then it rose again in the 1920s. This second incarnation flourished largely in the north, grounded in the same strains of racism, nativism, and Christian evangelicalism that had sparked the original group. In this detailed analysis of the new Klan’s agenda, strategies, and membership, Gordon, two-time Bancroft Prize winner and author of Dorothea Lange, documents how these seemingly respectable, mostly middle-class white Protestants used celebrations of “Americanism” combined with the perception of threats to white supremacy to gain control of 150 newspapers and usher in immigration restrictions and anti-miscegenation laws. Gordon’s account is especially chilling in its parallels between the KKK and the rise of the Tea Party and the Trump movement.http://www.politics-prose.com/book/9781631493690Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bartlett’s handbook for telling real facts from alternative versions is a practical tool for citizens concerned about the quality of the news they consume. Bartlett, who served in both the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations and more recently has written for Forbes and The New York Times “Economix” blog, is uniquely positioned to advise readers on how to evaluate sources for accuracy and reliability. Using his inside knowledge of both government and the journalists who cover it, Bartlett offers clear and direct guidelines for assessing  the truth value of what gets reported, how it’s reported, and where.http://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780399581168Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices