Please find below a roundup of this week’s free, public virtual events, as well as recent articles, media, and essays from PRH Speakers Bureau speakers.
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Virtual Events with Our Speakers
Tune in to these virtual Penguin Random House speakers’ book events, author Q&As and more that are happening this week.
Tuesday, March 23
- Emily St. John Mandel speaks at St. Louis County Library (7:00PM EST)
- Ta-Nehisi Coates joins Cambridge Public Library for Voices for Justice (7:30PM EST)
- David Thomson launches A LIGHT IN THE DARK at City Lights BOOKS (9:00PM EST)
Wednesday, March 24
- Lisa Gardner talks with Barnes and Noble (3:00PM EST)
Thursday, March 25
- David Thomson talks about his latest book at PCG Studio (6:00PM EST)
- Robert Kolker speaks at Club Book (7:00PM EST)
- Carl Zimmer discusses his latest book at Guilford Free Library (7:00PM EST)
Check out #BooksConnectUsLive for more live virtual events.
News and Media from PRHSB Speakers
Politics
Our speakers provide clarity and shrewd analysis of today’s issues to help make sense of our current and future political landscape.
- ‘To be Asian in this moment is to be reconciling the amount of pain and injustice’ we’ve been living with | MSNBC: Alex Wagner discusses the rise in awareness around the injustices and attacks against Asian-Americans, and what action President Biden can take in this moment.
- ‘It’s hard to even talk about’: Charles Yu and Lisa Ling unpack anti-Asian hate in U.S. | Austin American-Statesman: Charles Yu talks about the rise in violence against Asian Americans over the past year.
- “We’re both the comfortable and the afflicted”: What gets overlooked when we talk about anti-Asian racism | Vox: Cathy Park Hong speaks on unlearning internalized racism and the resurgence of Asian American activism.
- Senate confirms William Burns as next director of the CIA | Washington Post: Shane Harris reports that the Senate confirmed William J. Burns as the next director of the CIA.
Women’s History Month
Below are some recent dialogues commemorating the vital role of women in American history.
- Jane Fonda joins protests to stop pipeline replacement in Minnesota | MSNBC: Two-time Academy Award-winning actress and lifelong activist Jane Fonda is concerned about the environmental consequences of a pipeline replacement in Northern Minnesota.
- He Redefined ‘Racist.’ Now He’s Trying to Build a Newsroom. | The New York Times: Bina Venkataraman and Dr. Ibram X. Kendi have teamed up to co-found The Emancipator, an independent antiracist multimedia platform that will work to reframe today’s national conversation on race.
- White people, black authors are not your medicine | The Guardian: Yaa Gyasi warns that treating authors of color as tools for self-improvement is an impoverished response to centuries of harm.
- Shortlist for Carnegie medal offers locked-down children ‘hope and escapism’ | The Guardian: Ruta Sepetys is shortlisted for Carnegie Medal.
COVID-19
These articles from our speakers highlight practical advice and news about the current pandemic.
- What Will Future Historians Say About COVID-19? | Michigan Medicine: Howard Markel, M.D. puts the pandemic in perspective and calls for everyone to learn lessons from the past year.
- What happened at SXSW 2021 on Day 5? Priya Parker, Austin music and more | Austin American-Statesman: Priya Parker speaks with Anand Giridharadas on gatherings during this pandemic.
- Lawrence Wright looks for America through the lens of Covid-19 | KUOW: Lawrence Wright processes our experience of the Covid-19 pandemic so far with great detail and insight.
- Pandemic Changes to Beef Cattle Industry | KSAL: Jayson Lusk focuses on the impacts of the pandemic on the beef cattle sector.
Books Connect Us
With their imaginative, impactful pieces of literature, our speakers provide incredibly valuable perspectives to be read by all.
- Years Of Military Service Helped Inform 2034: A Novel Of The Next World War | WNYC: Elliot Ackerman speaks about his book.
- With or without me, Florida will always be wonderfully, unrelentingly weird | Miami Herald: Carl Hiaasen expresses his love for his state.
- Chang-rae Lee On ‘My Year Abroad’ | NPR: Chang-rae Lee takes a deep dive into the American dream and consumption, and more granular, at the transition from average college student to domestic adulthood.
- Life, As Carl Zimmer Knows It | WPR: Carl Zimmer shares some of his research looking into the different ways people in his field have sought to define (and challenge) what it means to be alive.
- Journalist Carl Hiaasen Bids Goodbye To His Day Job With The Miami Herald | wbur: Carl Hiaasen retires as a columnist for the Miami Herald.