Dave Eggers is the author of many books, including Zeitoun, What Is the What, and You Shall Know Our Velocity. In 2000, Eggers made his enormously popular literary debut with his memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. His latest book, The Every, is a follow-up to his 2013 dystopian novel, The Circle. It follows protagonist Delaney Wells as she tries to take down a dangerous monopoly from the inside. Eggers is founder and editor of McSweeney’s and co-founder of 826 Valencia, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center for youth started in San Francisco’s Mission District in 2002 now with branches in over seven cities nationwide. This program was originally recorded in October of 2021.

Mary Roach is the author of the books Stiff, Spook, Bonk, Gulp, Grunt, and Packing for Mars, all of which bring her distinctly funny voice to popular science subjects. Her new book Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law, combines little-known forensic science and conservation genetics with a motley cast of laser scarecrows, trespassing squirrels, and more of “nature’s lawbreakers,” offering hope for compassionate coexistence in our ever-expanding human habitat. Roach has written for National Geographic, Wired, and The New York Times Magazine. Malia Wollan is director of the UC Berkeley-11th Hour Food and Farming Journalism Fellowship at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. She co-founded the fellowship in 2013 with Michael Pollan. Wollan is also a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine where she writes the weekly Tip column. This program was recorded live at the Sydney Goldstein Theater on September 29, 2021.

This week, a story of transformation with Los Angeles chef and restaurateur Keith Corbin. Corbin grew up in Watts, his early years entangled in drugs and gangs. After serving time in one of California’s most notorious maximum security prisons, Corbin experienced the employment challenges all too common for the formerly incarcerated. A model employee at one of his jobs, Corbin was promoted to a manager, only to be fired simply for having a criminal record.  Then he encountered a restaurant startup in his neighborhood that wasn’t concerned with its employees’ pasts - Locol, the joint venture by Daniel Patterson and Roy Choi, that aimed to bring a quality alternative to fast food to underserved neighborhoods. Corbin became a chef and kitchen manager for Locol in Watts and Oakland, and although the restaurant ultimately closed, Corbin says it was not a failure - it put him and many others on the path to success. Now a chef and co-owner of one of America’s best restaurants, Corbin’s paying it forward to others. Keith Corbin’s new book “California Soul” tells the story of his uneven journey.  On August 10, 2022, Corbin talked to KQED’s Brian Watt.

This week, we’re going into the City Arts and Lectures archives for highlights from the many times Salman Rushdie has come to San Francisco.  Rushdie is the author of fifteen novels, including Victory City, which is expected to be published in early 2023, as well as non-fiction works and short stories. Of course, he’s much in our thoughts these days after being attacked on August 12th, 2022, minutes before he was to appear onstage in New York. In the first half of this program, we’ll hear part of Rushdie’s most recent visit to City Arts and Lectures in 2017 where he talked with fellow author Michael Chabon.  In the second half, we’ll hear excerpts from conversations recorded in 2008, 2010, and 2015 Rushdie had with his most frequent partner on our stage, KQED’s Michael Krasny.   Rushdie talks about his writing and the creative process – as well as becoming an unwilling “celebrity fugitive” and spokesman for free speech after the publication of The Satanic Verses.  In these wide-ranging, funny, and thoughtful conversations, he also touches on The Marx Brothers, Kurt Vonnegut, Bollywood, the Wizard of Oz, baseball, and his chance encounters with Donald Trump.

Mohsin Hamid is the author of five novels, including The Reluctant Fundamentalist, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, and Exit West. All display Hamid’s lyrical prose, his acute understanding of some of the most dire conflicts faced by our modern world, and his belief in the immense and near-magical power of fiction. In his newest novel The Last White Man, Hamid writes about racial metamorphosis. On August 2, 2022, Mohsin Hamid came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an on-stage conversation with Alexis Madrigal, co-host of KQED’s Forum and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. 

For more than thirty years, Michael Pollan has been writing books and articles about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect: on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in our minds. His many acclaimed titles include How to Change Your Mind, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and The Botany of Desire. In his recent essay collection, This is Your Mind on Plants, Pollan takes a deep dive into three psychoactive plants: opium, caffeine, and mescaline. Pollan co-founded the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics. The center combines research, training, and public education to explore the psychological and biological effects of psychedelics on cognition, perception and emotion. Pollan was interviewed on stage at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco on July 26, 2022, by Lauren Schiller. She is the co-author of the forthcoming book It’s a Good Day to Change the World, and the creator and host of Inflection Point, an award-winning podcast and public radio show about how women rise up, build power and lead change.

This week, we look at the connection between the state of our bodies and the state of the planet, with physician Rupa Marya and journalist Raj Patel, Their new book Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice, draws on Dr. Marya’s work as a physician, as well as scientific research and scholarship on the social and environmental causes of poor health. On July 21, 2022, the two spoke to author Anna Lappé about how we ought to be re-thinking medicine, and the links between illnesses that reside inside our bodies and the injustices that exist in society at large.

An encore of a two-part miniseries from 2020, in which past City Arts & Lectures guests talk across, among, and around one another. In the second half of Crosstalk, our guests discuss genre. What is a novel? What is autofiction? What is poetry, a fable, creative nonfiction, a short story? Does perfect writing exist? Then, some of our writers speak to cancel culture – the contentious concept of striking from the cultural ledger figures who have villainous personal histories, whose actions are deemed too abhorrent to allow us to continue consuming their work. Finally, these artists celebrate the other artists they are engaging with, and sharing community among. Meg Wolitzer, Ocean Vuong, Zadie Smith, Ben Lerner, Marlon James, Rebecca Solnit, Sally Rooney, Rachel Cusk, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and more defend, dismiss, and celebrate.

An encore presentation from 2020: Crosstalk is a two-part series of compiled conversations between City Arts & Lectures guests from recent years discussing literary identity and the sometimes pleasurable, sometimes painful, act of writing. Guests include Ocean Vuong, Zadie Smith, Marlon James, Ottessa Moshfegh, Tommy Orange, Eileen Myles, Rebecca Solnit, and Ta-Nehisi Coates. Crosstalk is produced by Juliet Gelfman-Randazzo.

A conversation on the science of sleep and how we can improve it for better health with Dr. Matt Walker. Walker is a professor of neuroscience and psychology at UC Berkeley and the director of the Center for Human Sleep Science whose research examines the impact of sleep on human health and disease. He is the author of Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreaming and over 100 scientific research studies on everything from sleep’s effects on memory, diet and motor skills to the consequences of sleep deprivation. Indre Viskontas is a cognitive neuroscientist with the University of California, San Francisco and a faculty member at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She has published groundbreaking work on the neural basis of memory and creativity, and co-hosts the popular science podcast Inquiring Minds. This program was recorded at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco on June 10, 2022.