Bay Area Book Festival Podcast

How do we reckon with what haunts us most? These writers pick apart trauma to understand its source, pushing past reductive conclusions and condemnations in pursuit of a fuller truth. Moderated by associate professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) and a facilitator of restorative justice. Sponsored by the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Eliot Pattison's work, which uses the lens of mystery fiction to illuminate the harsh treatment of Tibetans under Chinese rule, has earned him both literary and humanitarian honors. Pattison joins us upon the publication of the final book in the bestselling Inspector Shan Tao Yun series.

Large-scale, far-in-the-future stories tend to get most the glory in the sci-fi canon. But what happens when reality already feels like science fiction? Like George Orwell's '1984,' near-future narratives exploit current technology, politics, and fears to explore what life could be like in 10 years, one year, or even a hour. Our panelists consider how to predict the tantalizing possibility of what might be.

Through history and philosophy, Kwame Anthony Appiah, weekly columnist for The New York Times, explores the compulsion to define and gather around identity. How do groups struggling for justice use, or misuse, identity? Can a more nuanced understanding bring us together? Carlos Lozada, 2019 Pulitzer Prize winner and nonfiction book critic for The Washington Post, will interview.

Anger about economic injustice drives political change. Anand Giridharadas ("Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World") speaks with Robert Reich ("The Common Good"), to reveal how the uber wealthy are impoverishing you, yours and democracy itself. Moderated by the CEO and co-founder of Beneficial State Bank. Sponsored by Beneficial State Bank.

In "Dread Nation," Justina Ireland explores an alternate Civil War where zombie-slaying biracial teenager Jane McKeene finds herself in a desperate fight for her life. Ireland talks with author and YA librarian Alexandria Brown about how she employs planet-hopping Star Wars characters and half-god assassins to dig into complex questions about capitalism, science, racism and inequality.

Taking us from pole to pole and across decades, "Horizon," the latest by celebrated humanitarian Barry Lopez, glimmers with insights on our place in this world and on writing as a way of living and seeing. Lopez will be in conversation with John Freeman, writer, editor and prominent literary critic.

The former president of the National Book Critics Circle talks with Bay Area authors you won't want to miss: a National Book Award finalist for a poignant collection of short stories, a debut author who ignited the book world with her incendiary first book and another debut author who clinched the Caine Prize for African writing.

The landscape of sex, love and romance in New York City has undergone dramatic changes in the 20 years since Candace Bushnell published the iconic Sex and the City, which broke down major barriers in cultural representations of single women and reshaped the landscape of pop culture. Now the trailblazing Bushnell is back to ask the vital question: Is there still sex in the city for women 50+?

Look around. How much of our infrastructure — from roads and bridges to factories and food supplies — was built on the backs of American slaves? Three writer-researchers examine how the brutal history of slavery laid the foundation of American capitalism and shaped today's racial and economic inequality. Blight just won the the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Frederick Douglass. Sponsored by the Stephen M. Silberstein Foundation.