News & Events

2020 Upcoming Appearances

All spring in-person appearances have been cancelled but some events are moving online. I’m happy to talk to your group virtually. Get in touch via the contact page.

Call Your Friends . . . Now and Later:  May 28th at 5:30 p.m. as part of #SMWONE. Save your seat here.

Friendship at The Athenaeum of Philadelphia, Wednesday, June 10 at 5:30 p.m. Buy tickets here.

2020 News

Armchair Expert

Lydia has been talking about the importance of friendship during the Covid-19 pandemic. Among the highlights were her conversation with Ari Shapiro on All Things Considered, with Alison Stewart on WNYC’s All of It, with Mina Kim on KQED Forum and with Lori Stokes on Good Day New York.

Lydia hung out in the attic with Dax Shepard and Monica Padman for an episode of Armchair Expert. The show was taped just before social distancing went into effect.

Lydia chatted with Ann Friedman on Call Your Girlfriend.

Lydia and Friendship were featured on a variety of podcasts. Here are a few links:

Friendship was featured on Good Morning America as part of their celebration of Galentine’s Day, the Feb. 13th holiday invented by Amy Poehler’s character on Parks and Recreation to celebrate girlfriends. Here’s the clip.

Lydia talked about Friendship with CBS’s Errol Barnett for the CBS This Morning podcast. Listen here.

Lydia on GMA

Friendship was named a Next Big Idea Club Must-Read Nonfiction Book for Winter 2020. The NBIC is curated by Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Susan Cain and Dan Pink. They chose six finalists and I am honored to be one of them! Read more here.

Organizational psychologist and best-selling author Adam Grant named Friendship one of his 20 new leadership books for 2020. These books were his “top picks for books that have the potential to have a lasting impact on your thoughts and actions.” Check out his full list here.

Here are all the books that made Adam Grant’s list.

Friendship has been named one of Apple Books Most Anticipated Books for Winter 2020.

Reviews are starting to roll in and they’re good!

Booklist gave Friendship a starred review: “Denworth’s work achieves the best of science writing by making complicated concepts clear. She uses intelligent observation, empathy, and curiosity to offer a friendship manifesto that will absolutely affect readers’ own personal approaches to friendship.”

Library Journal: “Verdict: After reading Denworth’s treatise on friendship, you may want to immediately call your best friend or make a new one.”

Kirkus Reviews: “Convincing evidence that evolution endowed us with a need for friends, support, comfort, stimulation, and, ultimately, happiness.”

 

 

 

 

 

2019

I was a guest on KNRS in Salt Lake City to talk about my story in Scientific American on social media and well-being. Listen in here.

 

I was a guest on Radiolab’s episode G: Problem Space. As part of a discussion of IQ tests, I shared the story of Herb Needleman and the use of such tests in the battle over lead poisoning. Give it a listen. (I appear around 27:40 but you should start at 22 minutes in for the set-up.)

Cochlear Celebration

I spoke and moderated two panels at Cochlear Celebration 2019 in Nashville.

 

2018

I was a guest on the Books in Three Bytes podcast to talk about storytelling and science. We covered the stories that inspired each of my books including the one I’m working on now.

My feature on suicide prevention appeared in the April issue of Scientific American. I talked about it on the online business network Cheddar.

I took the stage to talk about friendship as one of 14 finalists in the TED NYC Idea Search on January 24. Stay tuned for more news on this front.

2017

  • I appeared on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Morning Show to talk about empathy with John Munson. Listen in here.
  • I talked about the neuroscience of empathy with Krys Boyd, host of Think on KERA in Dallas (an NPR affiliate.) You can catch our conversation here.
  • My feature on empathy is in the December 2017 issue of Scientific American.
  • The Impact of Touch With Lydia Denworth: I talk all about affective touch with Cathy Biase on The Health Hub, a Radio Mario Canada show and podcast.

  • I talked about writing and coping with what life hands you on The Role Models Podcast with David Noël.
  • See the September 2017 issue of Scientific American for my article on the perennial and controversial question: “Is There a ‘Female’ Brain?” It’s part of a special issue on sex and gender you won’t want to miss.
  • Friendship: A Natural History (working title) will be published by W.W. Norton some time in 2019. Here’s the August 8, 2017 announcement in Publisher’s Marketplace: “Science journalist and I CAN HEAR YOU WHISPER author Lydia Denworth’s FRIENDSHIP: A Natural History, a new look at the sociobiological origins of friendship, from its evolutionary underpinnings in the animal world, to its indispensable role in humans’ ability to survive and thrive, to Quynh Do at Norton, by Dorian Karchmar at William Morris Endeavor (NA). Foreign: Janine Kamouh at WME UK: Matilda Forbes Watson at WME.”

 

2014-2016

I Can Hear You Whisper is called “timely and rigorous . . . enthralling . . . tender and moving”  in The New York Review of Books.

In June, Lydia was the Commencement speaker for CUNY Graduate Center’s Audiology Program and spoke to the Special Education Office of New York City’s Department of Education.

Lydia talked about sound, music and Deaf brains with John Schaefer on WNYC’s Soundcheck.

Lydia spent an hour talking about the book with Marty Moss-Coane on WHYY’s Radio Times.

I Can Hear You Whisper featured in People (May 12) and Parents (June)

I Can Hear You Whisper adapted on Time.com

I Can Hear You Whisper featured in The New York Times

Lydia and Alex featured on CBS This Morning

Lydia interviewed by Andy Borowitz on The Leonard Lopate Show    

Lydia is first featured author in World Science Festival’s new Smart Reads column

I Can Hear You Whisper mentioned in Vanity Fair’s “Hot Type” (May)

Reviews of I Can Hear You Whisper:
The New York Review of Books
The Washington Post
Publishers Weekly
Kirkus Reviews
About.com
Michael Chorost
Sudden Silence