Welcome to The Librarian is In, the New York Public Library's podcast about books, culture, and what to read next.
Our little podcast is three episodes old! This week, Frank and Gwen are joined by the mighty Jennifer Craft from the Mulberry Street branch.
We talk about how to fit more reading into busy schedules, Lin-Manuel Miranda, horror books and movies, childhood favorites, David Bowie, Lin-Manuel Miranda again, and our love for Downton Abbey’s kind Anna and unstoppable Edith.
What We're Reading Now
The Bunker Diaryby Kevin Brooks (and a bit of the controversy)
Carrie and The Shining
Intensity by Dean Koontz
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Eric Larsen
The Boy Who Was Raised by Librarians by Carla Morris, illustrated by Brad Sneed
Hot Topix
Hamilton cast recording
Behind-the-scenes book about Hamilton planned for April
1776 musical
Serial, season 1 and 2
Queen of Earth by Alex Ross Perry, starring Elizabeth Moss
Repulsion by Roman Polanski
The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud and her commentsabout“likeable”characters
Interviewer: I wouldn’t want to be friends with Nora, would you? Her outlook is almost unbearably grim.
Messud: For heaven’s sake, what kind of question is that? Would you want to be friends with Humbert Humbert? Would you want to be friends with Mickey Sabbath? Saleem Sinai? Hamlet? Krapp? Oedipus? Oscar Wao? Antigone? Raskolnikov? Any of the characters in The Corrections? Any of the characters in Infinite Jest? Any of the characters in anything Pynchon has ever written? Or Martin Amis? Or Orhan Pamuk? Or Alice Munro, for that matter? If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble. We read to find life, in all its possibilities. The relevant question isn’t “is this a potential friend for me?” but “is this character alive?”
Guest Star
Jennifer Craft, manager of the Mulberry Street Library in SoHo
NYPL’s Helen Bernstein Book Award
Books potentially included in Jennifer’s parents’ adorable two-person book club: James Michener, Black Sunday by Thomas Harris, Alastair McClain, Leon Uris
She by H. Rider Haggard
The bar at Pravda
Free ebooks! from Project Gutenberg
City of Fireby Garth Risk Hallberg
New York Review of Books reissues
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh by Robert C. O’Brien
Arabel’s Raven by Joan Aiken
Turning Our Pages
Something we learned, something that makes us laugh, or something that inspires us
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech, delivered by Lin-Manuel Miranda in Riverside Church at the #MLKNow event and originally written by Vincent Harding
Harding’s Hope & History: Why We Must Share the Story of the Movement
Hemingway exhibit at The Morgan Library & Museum
Hemingway’s must-read list
Thanks for listening, and find us online @NYPLRecommends, the Bibliofile blog, and nypl.org. Or email us at recommendations@nypl.org!