Peter Sellars, the renowned avant-garde theater director, and Ayanna Thompson, a prominent Shakespeare scholar, will discuss the ways Shakespeare remains relevant in our contemporary American world. From expressions of black rage to the challenges facing systems of justice, they hope to illustrate…
Based on years of research and in-depth interviews with prosecutors, investigators, and diplomats—authors Alexa Koenig, Victor Peskin and Eric Stover examine the global effort to capture the world’s most wanted fugitives in their seminal book, Hiding in Plain Sight. The authors trace the evolution…
Writer-performer Barry Yourgrau is a clutterbug—perhaps even a hoarder. In his hilarious and poignant memoir Mess: One Man’s Struggle to Clean Up His House and His Act, he unpacks the psychology and culture of hoarding, clutter, and collecting, presenting a compelling look at a mysterious compulsion…
Writers, musicians, and cultural critics gather to pay tribute and explore the forty-year career of Prince. Drawing on original work, music clips and the emerging field of Prince Studies, cultural workers will consider the impact of Prince on literary culture and beyond.
Leading philosopher of science Peter Godfrey-Smith dons a wet suit and journeys into the depths of consciousness in his latest book Other Minds. Combining science and philosophy with first-hand accounts of the remarkable intelligence of the octopus, Godfrey-Smith explores how primitive organisms…
In his new book, How to Survive a Plague, David France—the creator of the Oscar-nominated seminal documentary of the same name—offers a definitive history of the battle to halt the AIDS epidemic. Joined by Dr. Mark H. Katz, a physician activist on the frontlines of the affected HIV community of…
In 1989, fresh from the publication of his first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Michael Chabon traveled to his mother’s home in Oakland, California, to visit his terminally ill grandfather. Tongue loosened by powerful painkillers, memory stirred by the imminence of death, Chabon’s grandfather…
In nearly every moment of our waking lives, we face a barrage of advertising enticements, branding efforts, sponsored social media, commercials, and other efforts to harvest our attention. In his new book, The Attention Merchants, Tim Wu, author of the award-winning The Master Switch who coined the…
What makes a place? The stories of a city are inexhaustible and contradictory as cities themselves are in constant conflict between memory and erasure. Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit’s latest work in a trilogy of atlases (New York, New Orleans, San Francisco) portrays the myriad ways…
One of today’s greatest American novelists, bestselling author T.C. Boyle visits ALOUD to take audiences deep inside his electrifying, eco-visionary new novel. An epic story of science, society, sex, and survival, The Terranauts follows the high-pressured lives of eight scientists—four men and four…
When Hisham Matar was a university student in England, his father was kidnapped. One of the Qaddafi regime’s most prominent critics in exile, he was held in a secret prison in Libya. Matar, the author of In the Country of Men, a Man Booker Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist…
With all the propulsive tension that made Room an international bestseller, Emma Donoghue’s new masterpiece, The Wonder, is a tale of two strangers who transform each other’s lives. Set in Ireland in the 1850s, an English nurse arrives in a small village to keep watch over a young girl who has been…
"What happens to revolutionaries in America?" This was the question photojournalist Bryan Shih sought to answer through his lens and the first-person narratives gathered in this powerful new book, Portraits from an Unfinished Revolution, released on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Black…
Leading chronicler of science and technology and best-selling author of The Information and Chaos, James Gleick visits ALOUD with a mind-bending exploration of time travel through literature and science. His latest book, Time Travel, tracks our cultural, philosophical, technological, and…
