Soraya Chemaly is an award-winning writer and activist whose work focuses on the role of gender in culture, politics, religion, and media. She is the Director of the Women’s Media Center Speech Project and an advocate for women’s freedom of expression and expanded civic and political engagement. Her articles appear in Time, the Verge, The Guardian, The Nation, HuffPost, and The Atlantic. Following in the footsteps of classic feminist manifestos like The Feminine Mystique and Our Bodies, Ourselves, Rage Becomes Her is an eye-opening book for the twenty-first century woman: an engaging, accessible credo offering us the tools to re-understand our anger and harness its power to create lasting positive change.

We welcome Dan Siegel back to our stage for his new book, Aware, his groundbreaking new book introducing readers to his pioneering, science-based meditation practice. He is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. He is also the Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute which focuses on the development of mindsight, which teaches insight, empathy, and integration in individuals, families and communities.  Aware provides practical instruction for mastering the Wheel of Awareness, a life-changing tool for cultivating more focus, presence, and peace in one’s day-to-day life. An in-depth look at the science that underlies meditation’s effectiveness, this book teaches readers how to harness the power of the principle “Where attention goes, neural firing flows, and neural connection grows.” 

In Sapiens, he explored our past. In Homo Deus, he looked to our future. Now, one of the most innovative thinkers on the planet turns to the present to make sense of today’s most pressing issues. How do computers and robots change the meaning of being human? How do we deal with the epidemic of fake news? Are nations and religions still relevant? What should we teach our children? Yuval Noah Harari’s “21 Lessons for the 21st Century” is a probing and visionary investigation into today’s most urgent issues as we move into the uncharted territory of the future. As technology advances faster than our understanding of it, hacking becomes a tactic of war, and the world feels more polarized than ever, Harari addresses the challenge of navigating life in the face of constant and disorienting change and raises the important questions we need to ask ourselves in order to survive.

You’ve likely seen Jake Tapper behind the desk at CNN, as the network’s award-winning Chief Washington Correspondent and anchor of two flagship news programs. In 2012, Jake wrote the New York Times bestseller The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor, a nonfiction account of untold heroism in Afghanistan. The year 2018 marks another milestone in Jake’s esteemed career, with the publication of his first political thriller, THE HELLFIRE CLUB, set in 1950s Washington, DC. Arriving at a time when capital intrigue is at unprecedented levels, THE HELLFIRE CLUB is a compulsively readable novel by one of DC’s most insightful and knowledgeable observers. 

Marc Maron says of Patricia Williams: “Mind-blowing. She was able to elevate her personal stories of horror, sadness, violence, insanity into something that people can understand and relate to and see into a world that many of us don’t know.”  Patricia Williams, the fifth child of an alcoholic single mother, came of age in Atlanta at the height of the crack epidemic. At 12, she had her first boyfriend; by 15 she was a mother of two. Williams wanted to give her children the kind of life she’d always dreamed of, but with no education or job skills her options were slim. Thus began Williams’ lucrative career as a drug dealer. After numerous run-ins with the law and a stint behind bars, Williams decided to turn her life around. She now goes by the stage name Ms. Pat and enjoys a successful career as a comedian. Williams lives in Indianapolis with her husband and three children.

In celebration of The Simpsons thirtieth anniversary, the show’s longest-serving writer and producer Mike Reiss, offers a humorous look at the writing and making of the legendary Fox series that has become one of the most revered artistic achievements in television history. Joining him will be Nancy Cartwright (voice of Bart Simpson), Yeardley Smith (voice of Lisa Simpson), Mike Scully(writer/producer) & David Silverman (animator/director).

Mark Seliger’s extraordinary portfolio is 30 years in the making. Hebegan shooting small assignments for Rolling Stone in 1987; in 1992 he became their chief photographer, a position he kept for 15 years. During the course of his time at the magazine, he photographed more than 125 covers. His work has appeared in Vanity Fair, ELLE, GQ, Vogue Italia, New Yorker, Purple, and in museums and galleries worldwide. He has captured some of the most iconic images of the most famous and influential faces of our time, including Kurt Cobain, Nelson Mandela, Leonardo DiCaprio, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Emma Stone, Angelina Jolie, Bruce Springsteen, David Byrne, Matthew Barney, Jennifer Lawrence, Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, Jerry Seinfeld, Jay-Z, Misty Copeland, Amy Schumer, and Paul McCartney.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar ​is the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, a six-time NBA champion and the league’s only six-time MVP. He is has a national platform as a regular contributing columnist for newspapers and magazines around the world, such as The Guardian and The Hollywood Reporter. A New York Times best-selling author, he has written 14 books, including two recent memoirs: Becoming Kareem for young readers, and Coach Wooden and Me about his lifelong friendship with famed UCLA coach John Wooden.

Ehud Barak, former Prime Minister of Israel discusses his memoir, My Country, My Life: Fighting for Israel, Searching for Peace. Ehud Barak served as Israel’s Prime Minister from 1999 to 2001. He was the leader of the Labor Party from 2007 until 2011, and Minister of Defense, first in Olmert’s and then in Netanyahu’s government from 2007 to 2013. Before entering politics, he was a key member of the Israeli military, occupying the position of Chief-of-Staff. His memoir tells the unvarnished story of his―and his country’s―first seven decades; of its major successes, but also its setbacks and misjudgments. He offers candid assessments of his fellow Israeli politicians, of the American administrations with which he worked, and of himself.