Watch Richard Ford, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, José Andrés, David Brooks, Raina Telgemeier, David McCullough, Michael Beschloss — By Michelle Rago We hope we see you this Saturday, August 31, at the Library’s National Book Festival. If you are attending in person get all the info you need on the National Book Festival website. If you can’t attend in person we’ll miss you, but do not despair. We…

By John Sayers The poster for the 2019 Library of Congress National Book Festival has been unveiled! This year’s poster is the work of Marian Bantjes, a designer, illustrator, typographer and writer whose work is invested in beauty and structure, and the intersection of words and graphics. …

By Mark Hartsell This story is adapted from an upcoming story in the Library of Congress Magazine. It recounts the day of July 2, 1881–138 years ago — when President James A. Garfield was shot at a train station in…

By Michelle Rago What does the Library of Congress website have in common with Justin Bieber, Harry Styles, Amazon.com, the TV show “Friends” and Netscape’s first web browser? Give up? They were all born 25 years ago. (Did you have other guesses?) We debuted our website at the American Library…

By Neely Tucker Montana’s Jeannette Rankin came to Capitol Hill as the first woman elected to Congress in the spring of 1917. She was 36, Republican, single, a trailblazing suffragist and lobbyist. Nearly 7,000 representatives had served in the House’s 128 years, all of them men. …

By Neely Tucker “Game of Thrones” is back for its final season, and the fate of Westeros may well depend on how the ice dragon (Viserion), now the winged weapon of the White Walkers, fares against his still-living counterparts. If you’re still reading, you know that the HBO series is…

By Neely Tucker Tracy K. Smith concluded her remarkable term as U.S. Poet Laureate with a speech and on-stage conversation at the Library of Congress Monday night, capping two years of travel, podcasts and community conversations across the nation. Smith began her tenure with a packed reading at the Coolidge…

By Neely Tucker “Super Fly”! “September”! “Sweet Caroline”! “Soul Man”! And those are just the ones that start with “S”! Ladies and gentlemen, this year’s selections for the National Recording Registry are now official, as per the announcement of the Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden. The inductees span a century…

By Neely Tucker In Tom Martin’s life, the U.S. Army seemed like the family trade. His dad, Ed, put in 29 years. His mom, Candy, 38. Erika (Noyes) Holownia, his fiancé, graduated from West Point in 2005, the same year as Tom. They served in Iraq together. She flew helicopters…