Enjoy recent author events, interviews, and bookseller series. Visit our website to learn more: www.skylightbooks.com
Episodes
Wednesday Nov 25, 2020
SKYLIT: Frederick Kaufman, "THE MONEY PLOT" w/ Indrani Sen
Wednesday Nov 25, 2020
Wednesday Nov 25, 2020
Frederick Kaufman tackles the complex history of money, beginning with the earliest myths and wrapping up with Wall Street’s byzantine present-day doings. Along the way, he exposes a set of allegorical plots, stock characters, and stereotypical metaphors that have long been linked with money and commercial culture, from Melanesian trading rituals to the dogma of Medieval churchmen faced with global commerce, the rationales of Mercantilism and colonial expansion, and the U.S. dollar’s 1971 unpinning from gold.
The Money Plot offers a tool to see through the haze of modern banking and finance, demonstrating that the standard reasons given for economic inequality—the Neoliberal gospel of market forces—are, like dollars, euros, and yuan, contingent upon structures people have designed. It shines a light on the one percent’s efforts to contain a money culture that benefits them within boundaries they themselves are increasingly setting. And Kaufman warns that if we cannot recognize what is going on, we run the risk of becoming pawns and shells ourselves, of becoming characters in someone else’s plot, of becoming other people’s money.
Kaufman is in conversation with Indrani Sen, editor-in-chief at Forge and editorial director at Medium.
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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Saturday May 09, 2020
Handsell, Ep. 4, "Mick, Sydney, Joseph, & Sarah"
Saturday May 09, 2020
Saturday May 09, 2020
In this week's episode, Maddie gives us a quick update on Skylight and whether it will open after California Governor Gavin Newsom's big announcement this week. Mick gives you a book recommendation, and Sydney is joined by Joseph and Sara, two bookselling pals from Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena, for a great discussion on what we mean when we talk about bookstores as essential businesses, and the real impact on booksellers. Don't miss it!
Staff Pick:
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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Saturday Apr 18, 2020
Handsell, Ep. 1, "Lane & Sydney"
Saturday Apr 18, 2020
Saturday Apr 18, 2020
In the premiere episode of the Skylight Books Booksellers Series, Lane and Sydney handsell us their staff picks. Plus, Mary gives us an update on how Skylight is faring during the coronavirus crisis, and Maddie details how the events staff is switching course when you...can't have any events.
Staff Picks:
Lane - Cantoras by Carolina de Robertis
Sydney - The Perfect Nanny by Leïla Silmani.
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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Tuesday Dec 04, 2018
Randy Shaw, "GENERATION PRICED OUT"
Tuesday Dec 04, 2018
Tuesday Dec 04, 2018
Generation Priced Out calls for action on one of the most talked-about issues of our time: how skyrocketing rents and home values are pricing the working and middle classes out of urban America. Telling the stories of tenants, developers, politicians, homeowner groups, and housing activists from over a dozen cities impacted by the national housing crisis, Generation Priced Out criticizes cities for advancing policies that increase economic and racial inequality. Shaw also exposes how boomer homeowners restrict millennials’ access to housing in big cities, a generational divide that increasingly dominates city politics. Defying conventional wisdom, Randy Shaw demonstrates that neighborhood gentrification is not inevitable and presents proven measures for cities to preserve and expand their working- and middle-class populations and achieve more equitable and inclusive outcomes. Generation Priced Out is a must-read for anyone concerned about the future of urban America.
Saturday Nov 10, 2018
Dan Lyons, "LAB RATS" w/ Karen Grigsby Bates
Saturday Nov 10, 2018
Saturday Nov 10, 2018
At a time of soaring corporate profits and plenty of HR lip service about "wellness." millions of workers—in virtually every industry—are deeply unhappy. Why did work become so miserable? Who is responsible? And does any company have a model for doing it right? For two years, Dan Lyons ventured in search of answers. From the innovation-crazed headquarters of the Ford Motor Company in Detroit, to a cult-like "Holocracy" workshop in San Francisco, and to corporate trainers who specialize in ... Legos, Lyons immersed himself in the often half-baked and frequently lucrative world of what passes for management science today. In Lab Rats: How Silicon Valley Made Work Miserable for the Rest of Us, he shows how new tools, workplace practices, and business models championed by empathy-impaired power brokers in Silicon Valley have shattered the social contract that once existed between companies and their employees. These new, dystopian beliefs, which are now seeping into virtually every industry, are often masked by pithy slogans like "We're a Team, Not a Family." And they have dire consequences: millions of workers who are subject to constant change, dehumanizing technologies—even health risks.
A few companies do get it right. Dan Lyons makes an impassioned plea for business leaders to look at how they are running their companies and employees (into the ground) and a case for a new “approach to work and business that puts people first, profitability serves customers, and makes the world a little bit better in the process” (Tom Peters, New York Times bestselling author of In Search of Excellence).
Lyons is in conversation with Karen Grigsby Bates, the Los Angeles-based correspondent for NPR News.