Program takes place on Zoom Webinar. A recording will be available at any time after the program. From award-winning writer David Joy comes a searing new novel about the cracks that form in a small North Carolina community and the evils that unfurl from its center. Richly drawn and bracingly honest, it asks what happens […]
A novel about exile, diaspora, and the impossibility of Black refuge in America and beyond. In Hangman, Maya Binyam tells the story of that search, and of the phantoms, guides, tricksters, bureaucrats, debtors, taxi drivers, relatives, riddles, and strangers that will lead to the truth. It is an uncommonly assured debut: an existential journey; a […]
Ice is everywhere: in gas stations, in restaurants, in hospitals, in our homes. Americans think nothing of dropping a few ice cubes into tall glasses of tea to ward off the heat of a hot summer day. Most refrigerators owned by Americans feature automatic ice machines. Ice on-demand has so revolutionized modern life that it’s […]
Clemens Conversations: Mark Twain, Cosmic Traveler Wednesday, July 26 at 12 PM (Noon) ET From a young age, Mark Twain was a travelling man. Whether it was travelling in a steamboat up the Mississippi, crossing the American desert in a stagecoach, or one of his countless trips across the Atlantic; it’s hard to imagine […]
Brian "Box" Brown unravels how marketing that targeted children in the 1980s has shaped adults in the present. The He-Man Effect shows how corporate manipulation brought muscular, accessory-stuffed action figures to dizzying heights in the eighties and beyond. Bringing beloved brands like He-Man, Transformers, My Little Pony, and even Mickey Mouse himself into the spotlight, […]
From phishing scams to Ponzi schemes, fraudulent science to fake art, chess cheaters to crypto hucksters, and marketers to magicians, our world brims with deception. In Nobody’s Fool, psychologists Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris show us how to avoid being taken in. They describe the key habits of thinking and reasoning that serve us well most […]
In The Parrot and the Igloo, bestselling author David Lipsky tells the astonishing story of how we moved from one extreme (the correct one) to the other and explores how “anti-science” became so virulent in American life―through a history of climate denial and its consequences. Featuring an indelible cast of heroes and villains, mavericks and […]
The acclaimed international food writer and award-winning author of Anya von Bremzen explores the history and future of six of the world's most fascinating and iconic food cultures—France, Italy, Japan, Spain, Mexico, and Turkey—in her new book National Dish. She’ll take us on a fascinating journey to the heart of those storied food traditions, going […]
The Mark Twain House & Museum and the Harriet Beecher Stowe House are proud to present a virtual program about Joseph McGill’s personal account of his groundbreaking project to sleep overnight in former slave dwellings that still stand across the country—revealing the […]