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As well as being a prize-winning, bestselling novelist, Siri Hustvedt is widely regarded as a leading thinker in the fields of neurology, feminism, art criticism and philosophy. She believes passionately that art and science are too often kept separate and that conversations across disciplines are vital to increasing our knowledge of the human mind and body, how they connect and how we think, feel and see.
The essays in this volume - all written between 2011 and 2015 - are in three parts. A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women brings together penetrating pieces on particular artists and writers such as Picasso, Kiefer and Susan Sontag as well as essays investigating the biases that affect how we judge art, literature, and the world in general. The Delusions of Certainty is an essay about the mind/body problem, showing how this age-old philosophical puzzle has shaped contemporary debates on many subjects and how every discipline is coloured by what lies beyond argument-desire, belief, and the imagination. The essays in the final section, What Are We? Lectures on the Human Condition, tackle such elusive neurological disorders as synesthesia and hysteria. Drawing on research in sociology, neurobiology, history, genetics, statistics, psychology and psychiatry, this section also contains a profound consideration of suicide and a towering reconsideration of Kierkegaard. Together they form an extremely stimulating, thoughtful, wide-ranging exploration of some of the fundamental questions about human beings and the human condition, delivered with Siri Hustvedt's customary lucidity, vivacity and infectiously questioning intelligence. 
Annette Gordon-Reed and co-author Peter S. Onuf discuss "Most Blessed of the Patriarchs: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination" with Melissa Block from NPR at the 2016 Library of Congress Book Festival in Washington, D.C.
Speaker Biography: Annette Gordon-Reed, a professor of law and history at Harvard University, is one of the country's most distinguished presidential scholars. She received the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in history for her book "The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family." Her first book was the acclaimed "Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy," which was described by The New Yorker as "brilliant." In "Race on Trial: Law and Justice in American History," Gordon-Reed edited 12 original essays that delve into the impact of race on trials and American cultural history. Her most recent book, in collaboration with Peter S. Onuf, is "Most Blessed of the Patriarchs: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination."
Speaker Biography: Peter S. Onuf is the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation professor emeritus at the University of Virginia. He graduated from Johns Hopkins University and has taught at Columbia University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Southern Methodist University. In 2008, Onuf held the Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth professor of American history chair at the University of Oxford. His books include "The Mind of Thomas Jefferson," "Nations, Markets and War: Modern History and the American Civil War," "Jefferson's Empire: The Language of American Nationhood" and "The Origins of the Federal Republic: Jurisdictional Controversies in the United States, 1775-1787." His recent book, written in collaboration with Annette Gordon-Reed, "Most Blessed of the Patriarchs: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination," uses careful analysis, painstaking research and vivid prose to develop a revealing character study which dispels many cliches and creates a portrait of Jefferson as he might have painted himself. Onuf also acts as a cohost for the radio show BackStory with the American History Guys. 
Science writer Ed Yong came into London to speak about his new book "I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life".
About the book:
Your body is teeming with tens of trillions of microbes. It's an entire world, a colony full of life. In other words, you contain multitudes. These microscopic companions sculpt our organs, protect us from diseases, guide our behaviour, and bombard us with their genes. They also hold the key to understanding all life on earth.
In I Contain Multitudes, Ed Yong opens our eyes and invites us to marvel at ourselves and other animals in a new light, less as individuals and more as thriving ecosystems.
We learn the invisible and wondrous science behind the corals that construct mighty reefs and the squid that create their own light shows. We see how bacteria can alter our response to cancer-fighting drugs, tune our immune system, influence our evolution, and even modify our genetic make-up. And we meet the scientists who are manipulating these microscopic partners to our advantage. In a million tiny ways, I Contain Multitudes will radically change how you think about the natural world, and how you see yourself.
About the author:
Ed Yong is an award-winning science writer who reports for The Atlantic. His blog, Not Exactly Rocket Science, is hosted by National Geographic, and his work has also appeared in Wired, the New York Times, Nature, the BBC, New Scientist, Scientific American, the Guardian, The Times and more. He lives in London. 
Jacqueline Woodson presents "Another Brooklyn" and Jay McInerney presents "Bright, Precious Days" in a panel discussion on stories based in New York with Leigh Haber, books editor for O, the Oprah Magazine at the 2016 Library of Congress Book Festival in Washington, D.C.
Speaker Biography: For her dedication to children and young-adult literature, Jacqueline Woodson received the Margaret A. Edwards Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2006. Woodson is known for exploring important themes in her works, including issues of gender, class, race, family and history. Her picture books, middle-grade and young-adult novels take the reader on an emotional journey by portraying characters in relatable, realistic situations. Woodson has written more than 20 books; some of the most notable include Newbery Honor Medal winners "Show Way," "Feathers," and "After Tupac and D Foster," and the Coretta Scott King Award-winning "Miracle's Boys." Her recent book "Brown Girl Dreaming" received a Newberry Honor and won the 2014 National Book Award for young people's literature. Her latest novel for adults, "Another Brooklyn" , follows August and her friends as childhood transitions to adulthood.
Speaker Biography: Jay McInerney is the best-selling author of "Bright Lights, Big City," which has been translated into more than 20 languages. His other novels include "Ransom," "Story of My Life," "Brightness Falls," "The Last of the Savages," "Model Behavior," "How It Ended" and "The Good Life." McInerney writes a monthly wine column for Town & Country Magazine and his work has appeared in various publications including the Wall Street Journal, House and Garden, New York Magazine, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. His wine columns have been collected in "Bacchus and Me: Adventures in the Wine Cellar" and "A Hedonist in the Cellar: Adventures in Wine," and his most recent book on wine is "The Juice: Vinous Veritas." In 2006, McInerney received the James Beard MFK Fisher Award for distinguished writing. In his latest novel, "Bright, Precious Days" , Corrine and Russell Calloway still feel as if they're living the dream that drew them to New York City, but their lifestyle comes at a cost which is testing their marriage more severely than they ever imagined. McInerney lives in New York and Tennessee. When Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras, and Ella Morton set out to write Atlas Obscura: An Explorer's Guide To The World's Hidden Wonders, their goal was to create a catalog of all the places, people, and things that inspire wonder (after all, when you can buy a plane ticket and be in Borneo in less than a day, the world can feel awfully small).
Atlas Obscura reveals the world's deepest places, hidden tunnels, greatest self-made castles, notable arbotecture (the art of shaping a living tree in order to create art or furniture), giant Buddha statues, abandoned film sets you can visit, murder houses, dinosaur parks, lake monsters of the USA, historical methods of preventing premature burial, a guide to psychotropic drugs used to enhance religious experiences, abandoned nuclear power plants, and much, much more. 
Calvin Trillin discusses "No Fair! No Fair! And Other Jolly Poems of Childhood" at the 2016 Library of Congress Book Festival in Washington, D.C.
Speaker Biography: Calvin Trillin is a journalist, humorist, food writer, poet, memoirist and novelist. He is best known for his humorous work on food and eating, but he also writes serious journalism, comic verse and fiction books. After a stint in the U.S. Army, Trillin worked as a reporter for Time magazine before joining the staff of The New Yorker. His books include "Jackson, 1964: And Other Dispatches from Fifty Years of Reporting on Race in America," "Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin: Forty Years of Funny Stuff" and "Alice, Let's Eat: Further Adventures of a Happy Eater." Trillin was inducted into the New York Writers Hall of Fame and received a Thurber Prize for American Humor. His latest book, "No Fair! No Fair! And Other Jolly Poems of Childhood," is inspired by Trillin's real-life experiences and celebrates the humor of familiar everyday topics. He lives in New York. 
We were joined in London by Beth Noveck (@bethnoveck) who discussed her book "Smart Citizens, Smarter State: The Technologies of Expertise and the Future of Governing". Filmed in February 2016
ABOUT THE BOOK
Government "of the people, by the people, for the people" expresses an ideal that resonates in all democracies. Yet poll after poll reveals deep distrust of institutions that seem to have left "the people" out of the governing equation. Government bureaucracies that are supposed to solve critical problems on their own are a troublesome outgrowth of the professionalization of public life in the industrial age. They are especially ill-suited to confronting today's complex challenges.
Offering a far-reaching program for innovation, Smart Citizens, Smarter State suggests that public decision making could be more effective and legitimate if government were smarter—if our institutions knew how to use technology to leverage citizens' expertise. Just as individuals use only part of their brainpower to solve most problems, governing institutions make far too little use of the skills and experience of those inside and outside of government with scientific credentials, practical skills, and ground-level street smarts. New tools—what Beth Simone Noveck calls technologies of expertise—are making it possible to match the supply of citizen expertise to the demand for it in government.
Drawing on a wide range of academic disciplines and practical examples from her work as an adviser to governments on institutional innovation, Noveck explores how to create more open and collaborative institutions. In so doing, she puts forward a profound new vision for participatory democracy rooted not in the paltry act of occasional voting or the serendipity of crowdsourcing but in people's knowledge and know-how.
