Enjoy recent author events, interviews, and bookseller series. Visit our website to learn more: www.skylightbooks.com
Episodes
Thursday Mar 09, 2023
SKYLIT: Michael Schulman, ”OSCAR WARS” w/ Alex Ross
Thursday Mar 09, 2023
Thursday Mar 09, 2023
It's Oscar season! Join us for a deep dive into the Academy Awards as Michael Schulman discusses his new book, Oscar Wars, with fellow New Yorker writer Alex Ross. They discuss the Academy's dark history with union busting, its philosophical struggles in awarding spectacle vs. intimacy, and the lessons Michael learned while writing this book that he's excited to apply before this year's ceremony. This episode is well worth the listen before your Oscar party!
Produced by Mick Kowaleski
Order a signed copy of Oscar Wars here: https://www.skylightbooks.com/book/9780062859013
Monday Nov 28, 2022
SKYLIT: Dr. Clarence Lusane, ”TWENTY DOLLARS AND CHANGE” w/ Janell Hobson
Monday Nov 28, 2022
Monday Nov 28, 2022
In Twenty Dollars and Change, political scientist Clarence Lusane, author of the acclaimed The Black History of the White House, writes from a basic premise: Racist historical narratives and pervasive social inequities are inextricably linked--changing one can transform the other. Taking up the debate over the future of the twenty-dollar bill, Lusane uses the question of Harriet Tubman vs. Andrew Jackson as a lens through which to view the current state of our nation's ongoing reckoning with the legacies of slavery and foundational white supremacy. He places the struggle to confront unjust social conditions in direct connection with the push to transform our public symbols, making it plain that any choice of whose life deserves to be remembered and honored is a direct reflection of whose basic rights are deemed worthy of protection, and whose are not.
Join us for a conversation on reparations and legacy with Dr. Lusane and Janell Hobson, hosted by Skylight's Tyler Austin.
Friday Jul 22, 2022
SKYLIT: Madhushree Ghosh, ”KHABAAR” w/ Guy Branum
Friday Jul 22, 2022
Friday Jul 22, 2022
Produced by Nat Freeman, Lance Morgan, & Michael Kowaleski.
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," an unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Friday May 27, 2022
LIVE ON CROWDCAST: María Sánchez, ”LAND OF WOMEN” w/ Curtis Bauer
Friday May 27, 2022
Friday May 27, 2022
María Sánchez is obsessed with what she cannot see. As a field veterinarian following in the footsteps of generations before her, she travels the countryside of Spain bearing witness to a life eroding before her eyes--words, practices, and people slipping away because of depopulation, exploitation of natural resources, inadequate environmental policies, and development encroaching on farmland and villages. Sánchez, the first woman in her family to dedicate herself to what has traditionally been a male-dominated profession, rebuffs the bucolic narrative of rural life often written by--and for consumption by--people in cities, describing the multilayered social complexity of people who are proud, resilient, and often misunderstood.
Sánchez interweaves family stories of three generations with reflections on science and literature. She focuses especially on the often dismissed and undervalued generations of women who have forgone education and independence to work the land and tend to family. In doing so, she asks difficult questions about gender equity and labor. Part memoir and part rural feminist manifesto, Land of Women acknowledges the sacrifices of Sánchez's female ancestors who enabled her to become the woman she is.
Produced by Nat Freeman, Lance Morgan, & Michael Kowaleski.
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," an unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Wednesday May 25, 2022
LIVE ON CROWDCAST: Angel Dominguez, ”DESGRACIADO” w/ Sesshu Foster
Wednesday May 25, 2022
Wednesday May 25, 2022
Produced by Nat Freeman, Lance Morgan, & Michael Kowaleski.
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," an unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Monday Apr 04, 2022
SKYLIT: Daisy Pitkin, ”ON THE LINE”
Monday Apr 04, 2022
Monday Apr 04, 2022
The drive to unionize is led by two women: author Daisy Pitkin, a young labor organizer, who addresses this exhilarating narrative to Alma Gomez García, a second-shift immigrant worker, who risks her livelihood to join the struggle and convinces her fellow workers to take a stand.
Forged in the flames of a grueling legal battle and the company’s vicious anti-union crusade, including the retaliatory firing of Alma, the relationships that grow between Daisy, Alma, and the rest of the factory workers show how a union, at its best, can reach beyond the workplace and form a solidarity so powerful that it can transcend friendship and transform communities. But when political strife divides the union, and her friendship with Alma along with it, Daisy must reflect on her own position of privilege and the complicated nature of union hierarchies and top-down organizing.
Produced by Natalie Freeman, Lance Morgan, & Michael Kowaleski.
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," an unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Wednesday Mar 30, 2022
SKYLIT: Paul Haddad, ”FREEWAYTOPIA” w/ Steve DeVorkin
Wednesday Mar 30, 2022
Wednesday Mar 30, 2022
From the Arroyo Seco Parkway, which began construction during the Great Depression, to the Century Freeway, completed in 1993, author Paul Haddad provides an entertaining and thought-provoking history of the 527 miles of roadways that comprise the Los Angeles freeway system.
Each of Los Angeles's twelve freeways receives its own chapter, and these are supplemented by "Off-Ramps"--sidebars that dish out pithy factoids about Botts' Dots, SigAlerts, and all matter of freeway lexicon, such as why Southern Californians are the only people in the country who place the word "the" in front of their interstates, as in "the 5," or "the 101."
Freewaytopia also explores those routes that never saw the light of day. Imagine superhighways burrowing through Laurel Canyon, tunneling under the Hollywood Sign, or spanning the waters of Santa Monica Bay. With a few more legislative strokes of the pen, you wouldn't have to imagine them--they'd already exist.
Haddad is joined in conversation by Steve DeVorkin.
Produced by Natalie Freeman, Lance Morgan, & Michael Kowaleski.
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," an unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Monday Mar 07, 2022
SKYLIT: Jeff Yang, Philip Wang, Phil Yu: ”RISE”
Monday Mar 07, 2022
Monday Mar 07, 2022
When the Hart-Celler Act passed in 1965, opening up US immigration to non-Europeans, it ushered in a whole new era. But even to the first generation of Asian Americans born in the US after that milestone, it would have been impossible to imagine that sushi and boba would one day be beloved by all, that a Korean boy band named BTS would be the biggest musical act in the world, that one of the most acclaimed and popular movies of 2018 would be Crazy Rich Asians, or that we would have an Asian American Vice President. And that’s not even mentioning the creators, performers, entrepreneurs, execs and influencers who've been making all this happen, behind the scenes and on the screen; or the activists and representatives continuing to fight for equity, building coalitions and defiantly holding space for our voices and concerns. And still: Asian America is just getting started.
The timing could not be better for this intimate, eye-opening, and frequently hilarious guided tour through the pop-cultural touchstones and sociopolitical shifts of the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and beyond. In Rise, Jeff Yang, Phil Yu, and Philip Wang chronicle how we’ve arrived at today’s unprecedented diversity of Asian American cultural representation through engaging, interactive infographics (including a step-by-step guide to a night out in K-Town, an atlas that unearths historic Asian American landmarks, a handy “Appreciation or Appropriation?” flowchart, and visual celebrations of both our "founding fathers and mothers" and the nostalgia-inducing personalities of each decade), plus illustrations and graphic essays from major AAPI artists, exclusive roundtables with Asian American cultural icons, and more, anchored by extended insider narratives of each decade by the three co-authors. Rise is an informative, lively, and inclusive celebration of both shared experiences and singular moments, and all the different ways in which we have chosen to come together.
Produced by Natalie Freeman, Lance Morgan, & Michael Kowaleski.
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," an unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Friday Aug 13, 2021
SKYLIT: Allyson Brantley, "BREWING A BOYCOTT"
Friday Aug 13, 2021
Friday Aug 13, 2021
In the late twentieth century, nothing united union members, progressive students, Black and Chicano activists, Native Americans, feminists, and members of the LGBTQ+ community quite as well as Coors beer. They came together not in praise of the ice cold beverage but rather to fight a common enemy: the Colorado-based Coors Brewing Company. Wielding the consumer boycott as their weapon of choice, activists targeted Coors for allegations of antiunionism, discrimination, and conservative political ties. Over decades of organizing and coalition-building from the 1950s to the 1990s, anti-Coors activists molded the boycott into a powerful means of political protest.
In Brewing a Boycott, the first narrative history of one of the longest boycott campaigns in U.S. history, Allyson P. Brantley draws from a broad archive as well as oral history interviews with long-time boycotters to offer a compelling, grassroots view of anti-corporate organizing and the unlikely coalitions that formed in opposition to the iconic Rocky Mountain brew. The story highlights the vibrancy of activism in the final decades of the twentieth century and the enduring legacy of that organizing for communities, consumer activists, and corporations today.
Produced by Maddie Gobbo, Lance Morgan, & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," an unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Saturday Jun 19, 2021
SKYLIT: Liz Brown, "TWILIGHT MAN" w/ Alex Ross
Saturday Jun 19, 2021
Saturday Jun 19, 2021
Produced by Maddie Gobbo, Lance Morgan, & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," an unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Monday Feb 22, 2021
SKYLIT: Richard Thompson Ford, "DRESS CODES" w/ Lance Morgan
Monday Feb 22, 2021
Monday Feb 22, 2021
Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," an unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Saturday Feb 13, 2021
SKYLIT: Amy Shira Teitel, "FIGHTING FOR SPACE"
Saturday Feb 13, 2021
Saturday Feb 13, 2021
While the American and international media spun the shocking story of a "woman astronaut" program, Jackie and Jerrie struggled to gain control of the narrative, each hoping to turn the rumored program into their own ideal reality—an issue that ultimately went all the way to Congress.
Fighting for Space, a dual biography of audacious trailblazers Jackie Cochran and Jerrie Cobb presents these fascinating and fearless women in all their glory and grit, using their stories as guides through the shifting social, political, and technical landscape of the time.
Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," an unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Friday Feb 05, 2021
LIVE ON CROWDCAST: Megan Rosenbloom, "DARK ARCHIVES" w/ Caitlin Doughty
Friday Feb 05, 2021
Friday Feb 05, 2021
In Dark Archives, Megan Rosenbloom seeks out the historic and scientific truths behind anthropodermic bibliopegy—the practice of binding books in this most intimate covering. Dozens of such books live on in the world’s most famous libraries and museums. Dark Archives exhumes their origins and brings to life the doctors, murderers, innocents, and indigents whose lives are sewn together in this disquieting collection. Along the way, Rosenbloom tells the story of how her team of scientists, curators, and librarians test rumored anthropodermic books, untangling the myths around their creation and reckoning with the ethics of their custodianship.
A librarian and journalist, Rosenbloom is a member of The Order of the Good Death and a cofounder of their Death Salon, a community that encourages conversations, scholarship, and art about mortality and mourning. In Dark Archives—captivating and macabre in all the right ways—she has crafted a narrative that is equal parts detective work, academic intrigue, history, and medical curiosity: a book as rare and thrilling as its subject.
Rosenbloom is joined by mortician and activist Caitlin Doughty.
Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," an unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Monday Dec 14, 2020
SKYLIT: Rebecca Simon, "WHY WE LOVE PIRATES"
Monday Dec 14, 2020
Monday Dec 14, 2020
During his life and even after his death, Captain William Kidd's name was known around England and the American colonies. He was infamous for the very crime for which he was hanged, piracy. Why We Love Pirates, by Rebecca Simon, dives into the details of the two-year manhunt for Captain Kidd and the events that ensued afterward. Captain Kidd was hanged in 1701, and from that sprung a massive hunt for all pirates led by the British during a period known as the Golden Age of Piracy. Ironically, public executions only led to pirates' growth in popularity and interest. In addition, because the American colonies relied on pirates for smuggled goods such as spices, wines, and silks, they sought to protect pirates from being captured.
The more pirates were hunted and executed, the more people became supportive of them. They felt for the "Robin Hoods of the Sea"--both because they saw the British's treatment of them as an injustice and because they treasured the goods that pirates brought to them. These historical events were pivotal in creating the portrayal of pirates as we know them today. They grew into romantic antiheroes--which ultimately led to characters like the mischievous but lovable Captain Jack Sparrow. Simon has presented her research on the history of pirates around the world and now she's bringing the spectacular story of Captain Kidd to her readers.
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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.
Monday Nov 30, 2020
Monday Nov 30, 2020
In The Accident of Color, Daniel Brook journeys to nineteenth-century New Orleans and Charleston and introduces us to cosmopolitan residents who elude the racial categories the rest of America takes for granted. Before the Civil War, these free, openly mixed-race urbanites enjoyed some rights of citizenship and the privileges of wealth and social status. But after Emancipation, as former slaves move to assert their rights, the black-white binary that rules the rest of the nation begins to intrude. During Reconstruction, a movement arises as mixed-race elites make common cause with the formerly enslaved and allies at the fringes of whiteness in a bid to achieve political and social equality for all.
In some areas, this coalition proved remarkably successful. Activists peacefully integrated the streetcars of Charleston and New Orleans for decades and, for a time, even the New Orleans public schools and the University of South Carolina were educating students of all backgrounds side by side. Tragically, the achievements of this movement were ultimately swept away by a violent political backlash and expunged from the history books, culminating in the Jim Crow laws that would legalize segregation for a half century and usher in the binary racial regime that rules us to this day.
Brook is in conversation with journalist Erin Aubry Kaplan and actor/director/writer Roger Guenveur Smith.
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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.