Stories that start at the library
Brooklyn Public Library is full of stories. Our podcast brings the best of them to you.
You can listen by clicking the audio players below, or subscribe to Borrowed on your podcast app of choice.
Current Podcast Series
Borrowed and Returned
Revisiting the books that changed us, and changed America.
Borrowed and Returned is a new podcast series that examines what our reading public borrowed in the past, and what we’re all reading now. In conversations with library workers, authors and readers across the country, we’ll return to the books that changed us, and changed America, too.
Subscribe to Borrowed on your podcast app of choice so you don't miss an episode of this new series!
Previous Podcast Series
Borrowed and Banned
BPL's Peabody-nominated series about America's ideological war with its bookshelves. Over ten episodes, you'll hear from students on the frontlines, librarians and teachers whose livelihoods are endangered when they speak up, and writers whose books have become political battleground. This series also won a Webby Award and was nominated for an Ambie Award.
Start listening to the series here.
Borrowed
BPL's Anthem Award-winning podcast is a narrative show about superhero librarians, neighborhood stories and what it means to be a free, democratic place in today’s changing world. We’ve told stories about libraries during natural disasters, the challenges of homelessness, and NYC’s fraught relationship with trash.
Can I read a transcript of the podcast?
Yes! You can read full transcripts for each episode by clicking on the title of the episode below. You'll also find pictures and links to articles or books mentioned in the episode, too
I have an idea for an episode. Can I tell you about it?
Yes! We're always looking for stories about our Brooklyn community, or how public libraries impact our lives. Reach out to us by emailing podcasts@bklynlibrary.org.
How do I listen?
You can listen right on our website by clicking the audio players below. You can also listen on your smart phone. All you have to do is search for “Borrowed” in your podcast app of choice, then click “subscribe” or “follow” to get new episodes downloaded to your device as soon as they come out. Or, click the buttons below to subscribe on these apps.
Season 9, Episode 12
Sandra Cisneros Has a Prescription For Us
Over forty years after The House on Mango Street came out, Sandra Cisneros is still hearing from readers about how her words healed them. In this episode, the award-winning writer shares the books that were her medicine growing up, and the prescription she has for all of us.
Check out our booklist with books recommended for this episode.
Season 9, Episode 11
Linda Sarsour on Building a Better World
Linda Sarsour is a proud Brooklyn-born Palestinian-American activist, writer, and organizer. She’s spent her career building bridges between diverse groups of people, and working to make America a more equitable place. In this episode, she shares the stories that shaped her, and her vision for the next 250 years of American history.
Check out our booklist with books recommended for this episode.
Season 9, Episode 10
Julia Alvarez on Bilingualism as a Superpower
So many authors writing across languages and cultures point to Julia Alvarez’s debut novel, How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, as one of their ancestors. In this episode, we hear from Alvarez about the importance of defending all kinds of stories—and why the American cannon needs to be exploded.
Check out our booklist with books recommended for this episode.
Season 9, Episode 9
Edwidge Danticat Is Invited to this Party
Celebrations of the nation’s 250th anniversary can feel like a party not everyone is invited to, especially for those whose immigration status is in limbo. In this episode, Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat talks about the impact of transnational migration has had on her writing, and the kind of party she wanted to throw for America’s 250th anniversary. (Hint: it has to do with books!)
Check out our booklist with books recommended for this episode.
Season 9, Episode 8
Jacqueline Woodson on Telling Stories of our Ancestors
When award-winning author Jacqueline Woodson sat down to write her family’s story of the Great Migration, she wanted to make it accessible to all kinds of readers. So she wrote a children’s book called This Is the Rope. In this episode, Woodson talks about the importance of preserving the stories of our ancestors, and of course… her love of Brooklyn.
Check out our booklist with books recommended for this episode.
Season 9, Episode 7
Jose Antonio Vargas Redefines America
Jose Antonio Vargas is a journalist, filmmaker, and author of the book Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen. He came to the US from the Philippines when he was twelve years old, and he didn’t discover he was undocumented until he was sixteen. We talk with him about his unique perspective on America and what it means to be a citizen.
Check out our booklist with books recommended for this episode.
Season 9, Episode 6
We are the Environment: Silent Spring’s Enduring Wisdom
When Silent Spring came out in 1962, it was an instant best-seller and led to the establishment of the EPA, as well as the ban of harmful pesticides such as DDT. But Rachel Carson’s seminal work also shifted our way of thinking about nature. For the first time, the environment was not just something out there that could be tracked and measured, but something that lived inside all of us.
Season 9, Bonus
Molly Crabapple on Making Art in a Turbulent World
Molly Crabapple is an artist and writer who documents the extremes, from nightclubs to war zones. She’s also the author of several books, including Drawing Blood and Brothers of the Gun, a memoir of the Syrian War co-written with Marwan Hisham. We sat down with Crabapple to talk about the difference between words and images, making art in the world, and the power of cartoonists to disrupt fascism.
Season 9, Bonus
Art Spiegelman on Resistance, Memory, and Speaking Up
Art Spiegelman is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the graphic novel Maus, the story of his parents’ experience during the Holocaust. We got to sit down with Spiegelman at Brooklyn Public Library’s recording studio earlier this month to talk about Maus almost forty years after it first came out, about censorship, about the war in Gaza, and about what it means to stand up for others.
Season 9, Episode 5
Maus and the Power of Images
Art Spiegelman’s Maus almost single-handedly elevated comics from throw-away inserts in newspapers to a serious literary art worthy of winning the highest award in book publishing. But it’s not an accident that this book is coming back to us now. Maus was swept once again into the public eye three years ago, when the conservative movement to target marginalized stories took aim at the beloved graphic novel. In this episode, we examine how comic book censorship in the 1950s led to the creation of Maus, and eventually shifted the way we tell stories about resistance, memory, and authoritarianism.
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