Special preview: Season 2 of “Velshi Banned Book Club”
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Hi, I'm Ali Velshi. I'm excited to tell you that my podcast, Velshi Band Book Club, is back for a second season. Book bans continue to surge, targeting libraries, schools, and communities across the nation. On Velshi Band Book Club, I speak with authors of banned books to explore their work and what is causing the staggering rise in book banning. This

This season features new literature and authors including Tim O'Brien, Jacqueline Woodson, Roxanne Gay, Lois Lowry, Stephen Chbosky, and more.

You can stay right here and listen to a preview of the first episode and search for Velshi Band Book Club now to follow the podcast and listen to the first two episodes. Plus, you can subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts to listen to all of Season 1 and Season 2 ad-free. With MSNBC Premium, you'll also get early access to this season's episodes one week before they drop. Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening.

There's one part of the book that I want to bring up to you that makes it particularly relevant to the Velshi Bambo Club, and it's that your parents didn't know what a public library was until they left South Africa. So I want to read a quick passage here. Socially and culturally, my parents lived in a small community, maybe 3,500 people, one large extended family of Indians.

I'd love to hear more about that.

I didn't even know this part of the story, and I'm not even sure it would have come up. It was actually after one of our very early episodes of the Velshi Band Book Club. My parents tend to text me after every show, sometimes during the show. And my dad texted me. He just texted me that one little thing. He said, I didn't even know there were such a thing as public libraries until I left South Africa. What a remarkable example of how governments can use books as tools to keep people ignorant.

They weren't even going to let them read any books. They were going to read what the government through the school system told them they were going to read. And in South Africa, if you were black, you had a different dictionary. And it was meant to give you definitions for words so that you could be an effective laborer.

It was not meant to invoke your curiosity and cause you to want bigger things. It was going to be the words that you needed to exchange with your boss to get the job done. They actually designed a separate dictionary. So this is a remarkable concept that if you keep books away from people, you can keep them in their place, whatever you think their place should be. When you give knowledge to people, you give them a sense of adventure. You give them a sense of what life could

be, and they might live up to that. They may be able to do that. At least they'll know something else is out there for them. I didn't realize this because if you grew up in America, you take for granted that free public libraries exist. It's not a model that has been all over the world. It is something to aspire to. It is one more thing about America that we should be defending and promoting around the world. Free access to books in public libraries that are safe spaces for people to discover anything they want to discover.

We hope you enjoyed this special preview. Search for Velshi Band Book Club now and follow, and subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts for early access and ad-free listening.

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