Borrowed & Returned
Arts & Culture Podcasts
Brooklyn Public Library is full of stories. Borrowed brings the best of them to you.
Current podcast series:
Launching July 8, 2025, Borrowed & 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.
Previous podcast series:
Borrowed and Banned is our limited series about America's ideological war with its bookshelves. From September to December 2023, we released ten episodes featuring the stories of students on the frontlines, librarians and teachers whose livelihoods are endangered when they speak up, and writers whose books have become political battleground.
Borrowed, BPL's flagship podcast, is a narrative series about superhero librarians, neighborhood stories and what it means to be a free, democratic place in today’s changing world. We tell stories about libraries during natural disasters, the challenges of homelessness, and NYC’s fraught relationship with trash.
For transcripts, pictures, book lists, and resources, please visit our web page: bklynlib.org/podcasts
Location:
United States
Genres:
Arts & Culture Podcasts
Description:
Brooklyn Public Library is full of stories. Borrowed brings the best of them to you. Current podcast series: Launching July 8, 2025, Borrowed & 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. Previous podcast series: Borrowed and Banned is our limited series about America's ideological war with its bookshelves. From September to December 2023, we released ten episodes featuring the stories of students on the frontlines, librarians and teachers whose livelihoods are endangered when they speak up, and writers whose books have become political battleground. Borrowed, BPL's flagship podcast, is a narrative series about superhero librarians, neighborhood stories and what it means to be a free, democratic place in today’s changing world. We tell stories about libraries during natural disasters, the challenges of homelessness, and NYC’s fraught relationship with trash. For transcripts, pictures, book lists, and resources, please visit our web page: bklynlib.org/podcasts
Language:
English
Episodes
Art Spiegelman on Resistance, Memory, and Speaking Up
9/30/2025
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.
You can read a transcript of this episode on our website, and check out these further resources:
booklistcomic collaboration with Joe SaccoPalestineWar on GazaArt Spiegelman discuss MetaMaus
Duration:00:19:53
Maus and the Power of Images
9/23/2025
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.
You can read a transcript of this episode on our website. Further resources:
booklistFlying CouchDrawing Blood. theirwebsitescomic collaboration with Joe SaccoPalestineWar on GazaComic Book Legal Defense Fund comic book censorshipMaia KobabeGender Queer,Mike CuratoFlamerBorrowed and Banned.Art Spiegelman discuss MetaMaus
Duration:00:26:29
Book Riot: The Untold Story of Black Librarians
9/9/2025
This episode comes to us from our friends at Book Riot! In this segment, you'll hear Book Riot’s Erica Ezeifedi speak with Rodney Freeman, a librarian and producer of the forthcoming documentary, Are You a Librarian? The Untold Story of Black Librarians. This is part of their Reading and Resistance series, which looks at the relationship between reading and the pursuit of freedom in America.
Subscribe to Book Riot: The Podcast wherever you listen!
Duration:00:20:02
Matt de la Peña on Small Stories and the Power of Perspective
9/2/2025
Matt de la Peña is the Newbery Medal-winning author of seven Young Adult novels and five picture books. We talked with him about writing small stories and what it means to write a book that is, as he calls it, “Diversity 2.0.”
You can read a transcript of this episode on our website.
booklistde la PeñaChristian Robinson.Books Unbanned
Duration:00:18:58
Meg Medina on Latine Stories and Reading as a Family
8/26/2025
Meg Medina is an award-winning author of books for kids and young adults, and she was the 2023-2024 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. We talked to her about what it meant to be the first Latinx author in that role, about the need for more diverse kids books, and the importance of reading in families.
You can read a transcript of this episode on our website.
booklistWe Need Diverse BooksNational Ambassador for Young People’s Literature
Duration:00:17:07
How The Snowy Day Changed Children’s Books
8/19/2025
The Snowy Day wasn’t the first picture book to feature a Black child as its beloved protagonist, but it might be the most visible. When it came out in 1962, it challenged the publishing industry to champion books that depict kids of color. Today, we find ourselves in a moment not so different from the one Ezra Jack Keats was in when he sat down to create The Snowy Day. We are, once again, fighting for the right to let kids read the books they love, and we’re still reminding each other that the characters kids see in those books really matters.
Read a transcript of this episode on our website and check out these great links:
booklistThe Snowy DayEzra Jack Keats FoundationEJK Awardbookmaking competitionThe Brownies’ BookThe All-White World of Children’s Books2018 graphicCooperative Children’s Book CenterPEN AmericaBooks Unbannedin-person event with Art Spiegelman
Duration:00:28:22
The Legacy of Howard Zinn's Radical History
8/4/2025
When Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States came out in 1980, it literally rocked the boat. Instead of starting where most histories of the Americas start — on the deck of Columbus’s ship as it approached land — Howard Zinn flipped the script, focusing instead on what the people standing on the shore would have seen. In this episode, we look at the ripple effects of Zinn’s radical take on history.
You can read a transcript of this episode on our web page.
booklistA People’s History of the United States.Popularizing the Past ReVisioning HistoryZinn Education ProjectBooks UnbannedBorrowed and Banned,
Duration:00:21:27
Reginald Dwayne Betts on Freedom and Poetic Constraint
7/29/2025
Reginald Dwayne Betts is a poet, a lawyer, and the founder and CEO of Freedom Reads, an organization with the goal of bringing a library to every cell block in America. We talked with him about what he read – and wrote – while he was incarcerated, and what it taught him about what it means to be free, to be loved, and to be part of a community.
Read a transcript of this episode on our website, and find books by Betts in our library catalog.
Duration:00:20:33
On Reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X in Prison
7/22/2025
There are so many reasons to read – and reread – The Autobiography of Malcolm X. But for this episode, we’re revisiting the book with the perspectives of readers who are, or were, incarcerated. Malcolm X’s story isn’t just radical for its narrative of change and self-improvement; it also encourages readers to think more critically about the prison system itself.
You can read a transcript of this episode on our website.
booklistThe Autobiography of Malcolm X.Justice InitiativesWilliamsburgh LibraryCentral LibraryFreedom LibrariesInside Story, Reading and Resistance
Duration:00:25:42
N.K. Jemisin on Truth, Education, and Speculation
7/15/2025
N.K. Jemisin is a New York Times-bestselling science fiction and fantasy writer. She’s a Brooklynite, the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, and the first author to win three Best Novel Hugos in a row. We talked to her about Octavia Butler’s influence on her writing, and how she processes the present moment in her own fiction.
You can read a transcript of this episode on our website, and check out our booklist with titles from Octavia Butler, N.K. Jemisin, and more!
Duration:00:22:02
What Parable of the Sower Taught Us About the Future
7/8/2025
In these unfathomable moments, when the world seems to be falling apart—we often turn to stories for guidance. For the folks in Southern California earlier this year, that story was Parable of the Sower. Readers are returning to the book today because it shows us how speculation – and Afrofuturism in particular – can help us move through the world with our eyes open.
Read a transcript of this episode on our website.
booklistOctavia’s BookshelfPatreonAltadena Community Land TrustOde to ‘Dena: Black Artistic Legacies of Altadena,’ Octavia’s ParablesParable League of Extraordinary ReadersLiterature NoiroperaParable
Duration:00:27:12
Introducing: Borrowed and Returned
6/24/2025
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.
First episode drops July 8, with new episodes coming out weekly. Spend your summer re-reading with us!
Duration:00:02:48
Tracing the Legacy of Slavery in Brooklyn
6/18/2025
A new exhibit at BPL's Center for Brooklyn History explores the history and legacy of slavery here in Brooklyn. The team at CBH gathered documents and accounts from people who were touched by slavery in Brooklyn, and traced the descendants of both the enslaved and enslavers.
"Trace/s" is up at the Center for Brooklyn History (128 Pierrepont Street) through August 30, 2025. This audio story is a companion to the exhibit, and it was produced by audio journalist and historian Ula Kulpa.
Trace/s is supported as part of the Dutch Culture USA FUTURE 400 program by the Consulate General of the Netherlands in New York, and by the Alvin and Fanny B. Thalheimer Foundation in memory of Bill Coleman. You can find more information about the exhibition, and listen to Part 2 of Finding Traces here: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/exhibitions/traces
Duration:00:14:03
A New Year’s Plunge (Rebroadcast)
12/30/2024
As 2024 comes to a close, we wanted to share with you an episode that we produced all the way back in 2020. That year, we went to Coney Island to record the Coney Island Polar Bear Club, the group of swimmers that congregate on Coney Island every Sunday in winter to swim in the frigid ocean as a way to renew themselves. It’s a fun one, and we hope you enjoy!
Further resources:
Polar Bear ClubConey IslandTake the plungethis surveybooks we loved in 2024
Duration:00:11:25
Why We Still Read Together: The Joy of Book Clubs
11/27/2024
Graphic novels, Haitian-American book bingo, and The Power Broker. These are just a few of the book clubs happening at Brooklyn Public Library! This episode, we take a tour around the borough to listen in on our patrons' reading habits and ask why we still read together.
Read a transcript of this episode here.
Further resources:
book clubsThe Power Broker?club at Macon Library99% Invisible.Haitian Heritage Book Bingocomics in Chinesequiet reading partyanime club for teensCheck out what our staff are reading in “The Cover Is Blue” book club.
Duration:00:18:23
Book Sanctuaries, Buttons and Bouncy Houses
10/15/2024
We're pulling out all the stops for the first annual Freedom to Read Day of Action on Saturday, October 19th! Hear from libraries in Los Angeles, San Diego, Hoboken, NJ and Austin, TX about what they're doing to promote the freedom to read. And, if you're in Brooklyn, meet us on the steps of Central Library this Saturday for a book rally!
You can read the transcript here.
Further resources:
Freedom to Read Day of Actionevents across the countrySan Diego Public LibraryLA County LibraryCalifornia Freedom to Read AcNew York TimesHoboken Librarybook sanctuary movementAustin Public LibrarySave the Books!
Duration:00:14:42
Banned Books Week: All for a Library Card
9/23/2024
For Banned Books Week this year, we’re returning to our award-winning series, Borrowed and Banned. Because the fight isn’t over. In 2023, the American Library Association documented a 65% increase in the number of book titles challenged across the country.
Listen to the first episode of the series about what happened in one Oklahoma town when their freedom to read was challenged. And how one teacher’s response caught the nation’s attention.
Read the transcript here, and check out the following resources:
Borrowed and Bannedvisiting this pageweek of programmingFreedom to Read Day of Action.
Duration:00:27:03
Rebroadcast: Blocks and Brownstones
8/15/2024
Bedford-Stuyvesant is perhaps one of Brooklyn’s most iconic neighborhoods. Its tree-lined streets and grand brownstones have been here for over 150 years. This episode, a re-broadcast from 2019, tells the story of Bed-Stuy through the lives of three women who set down roots here in different ways: activist Hattie Carthan, writer Paule Marshall, and novelist Naomi Jackson.
Read a transcript of this episode here.
Further resources:
list of books more about Hattie CarthanMagnolia Tree Earth Center archiveMagnolia Tree Earth Centerart exhibition openingBrown Girl, Brownstones, From the Poets in the Kitchen
Duration:00:24:57
Bed-Stuy Tea: An Interview with Cookbook Author Nicole A. Taylor
7/30/2024
Splitting her time between Athens, Georgia and Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, Nicole A. Taylor is a food writer and author of several cookbooks. She sat down with BPL’s Bed-Stuy Tea podcast to discuss finding and preserving her Southern voice, the pleasures of restaurant research, and her favorite local spots to eat and drink.
Read a transcript of this episode here.
Further resources:
websiteSpotifyApple Podcastscookbooks and books
Duration:00:29:14
Explore Your City This Summer!
6/26/2024
It's summer and school's out! No matter what age you are, you can spend your summer at the library with book lists and activities galore. We go over the facts and stats of BPL's popular Culture Pass program, which has helped thousands of New Yorkers visit museums and performance spaces in the city ... for free!
Read a transcript of the episode here.
More resources:
Culture Passlibrary cardsummer at the libraryBrooklyn Botanic GardenNew-York Historical Society100 otherBrowse the Branchesadultsteenskids of all ages
Duration:00:11:38