Amanda Foreman | House of SpeakEasy NYC

Posts From Author: Amanda Foreman

National Bookmobile Day: Historically SpeakEasy

At House of SpeakEasy we believe that book-ownership should be a right, not a privilege. In 2017, with the help of Billy and Kathy Rayner, we launched The SpeakEasy Bookmobile. We came up with the design logo – but – historically speaking – the idea was Aristotle’s. Owning a book is a unique form of wealth. What the SpeakEasy BookMobile is doing is enabling that wealth to be shared. The kings of Babylon built the first libraries. But they weren’t so interested in the sharing part. This is where Aristotle comes in. He amassed the largest private collection of books in the world, and let it circulate. But since not everyone could read, Aristotle also shared the knowledge they contained by giving free lectures throughout Athens. He turned himself into a bookmobile – on legs. Aristotle’s mission was the same as SpeakEasy’s today: to foster a sense of community, spread ideas, and educate young people. Libraries and mass literacy were among the first casualties from the Fall of Rome in the 5th century. Book ownership became the greatest privilege of all. Few people ever questioned why it should be this way until the rise of universal education in the 19th […]

How it all started:

It was a eureka moment. I was walking down Irving Street in Manhattan at the time. Going through my mind was a well-worn train of thought that went like this: “I feel that I am a passive spectator to the huge structural changes taking place in the arts and media. I want to change the way writers interact with their audiences. And I want to give writers a better stake in the fruits of their labor because it often seems that the value of writing is being priced out of the market place. And then there’s connecting the writers of today with the young writers of tomorrow. We need to do more of it, and in a more systematic way. But how?” And that’s when it came to me. There’s no literary coast guard to call on; start swimming or stop complaining. As it happened, I was walking with Lucas Wittmann, my fellow producer of a year-long speaking series at the Players Club. He agreed; let’s bring together the team behind the series and start a literary non-profit – one that breaks new ground for writers in its aims and reach. Two weeks later, on a sultry summer afternoon, six of us […]