City Arts & Lectures

This week, a conversation with one of today’s most beloved and historically imaginative authors: Amor Towles. Towles earned wide critical acclaim and a loyal international audience with his 2016 novel, A Gentleman in Moscow. His new book, The Lincoln Highway, follows four boys on an exhilarating ten-day trip across America, from the farmlands of Nebraska to the bustling streets of New York City. On June 7, 2022, Amor Towles came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Steven Winn. 

Our guest is writer, scholar, and activist Angela Davis. For more than 5 decades, Davis has been fighting for Black liberation, equal rights for women, queer and transgender people. Davis first received national attention in 1969, after being removed from her teaching position at UCLA for her social activism and membership to the Communist Party. In 1970, she was placed on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted List” on false charges, which culminated in one of the most famous trials in recent U.S. history. A massive international “Free Angela Davis” campaign was organized, leading to her acquittal in 1972. Davis is a founding member of Critical Resistance, a national organization dedicated to dismantling the prison-industrial complex, and the author of books including Freedom is a Constant Struggle and Women, Race & Class. On May 24, 2022, Angela Davis came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to choreographer and activist Alonzo King.

This week, we’ll listen to a conversation with David Mitchell and Pico Iyer, recorded on May 8, 2021. David Mitchell’s many novels include Cloud Atlas, The Bone Clocks, and Ghostwritten. . His most recent novel, Utopia Avenue, follows the strangest British band you’ve never heard of. Mitchell’s stories often weave together the supernatural and the philosophical.  He’s also one of the most structurally inventive writers of our time, featuring nonlinear storylines and multiple genres within a single book. Pico Iyer is a travel writer, essayist, and novelist, whose many books include Video Night in Kathmandu and The Lady and the Monk.

This week,  journalist Michael Lewis is in conversation with his fellow writer and friend Dave Eggers. Michael Lewis is the author of books including Moneyball and The Big Short, and most recently The Premonition: A Pandemic Story. It’s a nonfiction thriller filled with the unforgettable characters that Lewis is known for. His knack for storytelling is also what makes his podcast Against the Rules so captivating.  It’s about the state of “fairness” in American life – and each episode tackles the issue through the lens of people who depend on public trust - from sports referees to health care providers. On May 19, 2022, Michael Lewis came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Dave Eggers about season three of the podcast, and share stories of his own life too.  

Neil Gaiman has been called one of the modern masters of fantasy writing, but his work includes other genres too, from novels like American Gods and Neverwhere, to song lyrics, and poetry. His groundbreaking series The Sandman was the first comic ever to receive a literary award. It’s now being adapted into a show on Netflix. Coraline, his dark fantasy for children, was made into a movie too. In this bonus podcast taken from his appearance at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco on May 3, 2022 , Gaiman reads his story “Chivalry”, which he published in 1998 as part of the collection “Smoke and Mirrors”. It’s the story of an elderly woman who finds the Holy Grail in a thrift shop. .

This week, our guest is Neil Gaiman. He’s been called one of the modern masters of fantasy writing, but his work includes other genres too, from novels like American Gods and Neverwhere, to song lyrics, and poetry. His groundbreaking series The Sandman was the first comic ever to receive a literary award. It’s now being adapted into a show on Netflix. Coraline, his dark fantasy for children, was made into a movie too. On May 3, 2022, Neil Gaiman appeared at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to read and take questions from fans.

This week, our guest is Richard Powers. He’s the author of thirteen novels on everything from neuroscience, to artificial intelligence to the environment. His book, “The Overstory” earned him a Pulitzer prize in fiction. The Financial Times called it “A Great American Eco-Novel.” His latest book is called “Bewilderment”, and it also deals with environmental catastrophe. It’s the story of a widowed father and his son, and their journey into the wilderness.  On April twenty-fifth, 2022, Richard Powers came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to neuroscientist Indre Viskontas. Mutual admirers, the two had much to discuss, from the cognitive basis of creativity to our relationship with the natural and digital worlds.

This week, a conversation between two accomplished multi-disciplinary minds - writer Jennifer Egan and computer scientist and artist Jaron Lanier. Egan won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel A Visit from The Goon Squad. Now, a decade later, she’s written a sort of sibling to that book. It’s called The Candy House and it imagines a technology that allows people to access every memory they’ve ever had, and give away those recollections in exchange for access to the memories of other people. Technology’s dystopian potential is something scientist Jaron Lanier has given a lot of thought to… Lanier is a composer, artist, and a pioneer in the field of virtual reality. He’s both developed new technologies, as well as taken a critical approach to them – particularly in his research into their social impacts and political ramifications. Lanier’s books include You Are not A Gadget, and Who Owns the Future. On April 18, 2022, Jaron Lanier and Jennifer Egan sat down to talk to one another about the relationship between fiction and consciousness, and technology’s impacts - both good and bad.

Musician, actor, and fashion icon Janelle Monáe has long been creating sci-fi worlds through her albums and performances. With her new short story collection The Memory Librarian, Monáe, along with a team of collaborators, expands on the Afrofuturistic world of one of her critically acclaimed albums, Dirty Computer.  Dirty Computer introduced us to a world where people’s memories—a key to self-expression and self-understanding—could be controlled or erased by an increasingly powerful few. And whether human, A.I., or something in-between, citizen’s lives and sentience were dictated by those of the New Dawn, who’d convinced themselves they had the right to decide fate—that was, until Jane 57821 remembered and broke free. On April 24, 2022, Monáe came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to appear in conversation with one of the Memory Librarian collaborators, short story writer Yohanca Delgado, and George M. Johnson, whose memoir All Boys Aren’t Blue, has been banned in a recent wave of censorship of books dealing with themes like race and gender identity.

This week, our guest is Krista Tippett, host of the On Being podcast. Tippett started the program in 2003.  It features conversations about faith, ethics and moral wisdom. Tippett often begins her interviews by asking guests what their relationship to faith was like growing up. It’s a prompt that grounds them in memory before Tippett takes the conversation into an expansive examination of their views on everything from their work, to how they see the world and what wisdom they can impart. On April 23, 2022, Tippett came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Pico Iyer, another uncommonly thoughtful host. Iyer is the author of numerous books, including one on his friend, the Dalai Lama, and The Art of Stillness, a beautiful investigation of the benefits of quiet contemplation and travel to “nowhere.