The Book and Author Luncheon was created in 1938 by the American Booksellers Association. The program provided a prominent forum for authors to speak to the public about their works in one of the largest markets for books in the United States, New York City.
The American Booksellers Association (ABA) is a non-profit trade association founded in 1900 that promotes independent bookstores in the United States. ABA's core members are key participants in their communities' local economy and culture, and to assist them ABA creates relevant programs; provides education, information, business products, and services; and engages in public policy and industry advocacy. The Association actively supports and defends free speech and the First Amendment rights of all Americans through the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression. A volunteer board of 10 booksellers governs the Association. ABA is headquartered in White Plains, NY.
The ABA partnered with the New York Herald Tribune early in its first year, and with WNYC in its 11th season, in 1948. It would air on WNYC until the luncheon's end, in 1974. The Book and Author Luncheon produced 8 events per year, each with 2 to 4 speakers. It was held at a variety of locations in Manhattan, most frequently at the Waldorf Astoria. Though it predominantly featured authors as speakers, it drew from a wide variety of notable figures during its 31-year run. Some of its famous guest speakers include Vladimir Nabokov, James A. Michener, Jane Jacobs, Robert Moses, Rachel Carson, John Kenneth Galbraith, Sammy Davis Jr., Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and Marian Anderson, among many, many others. It was hosted for the majority of its run by New York Herald Tribune Book Review editor Irita Bradford Van Doren.
The New York Herald Tribune was a newspaper published between 1924 and 1966. It was created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald. It was widely regarded as a "writer's newspaper" and competed with The New York Times in the daily morning market. The paper won at least nine Pulitzer Prizes during its lifetime.
WNYC is the trademark, and a set of call letters shared by a pair of non-profit, noncommercial, public radio stations located in New York City and owned by New York Public Radio, a nonprofit organization that did business as WNYC RADIO until March 2013.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a Russian-born novelist, poet, translator and entomologist. His first nine novels were in Russian, but he achieved international prominence after he began writing English prose.
Hearst Communications often referred to simply as Hearst, is an American mass media and business information conglomerate based in New York City.
The New York Times International Edition is an English-language newspaper printed at 38 sites throughout the world and sold in more than 160 countries and territories. Founded under the title Paris Herald in 1887 in Paris as the European edition of the New York Herald, it changed owners and was renamed several times: it became the Paris Herald Tribune, global edition of the New York Herald Tribune in 1924, then the International Herald Tribune in 1967, with The Washington Post and The New York Times as joint parent newspapers.
WPXN-TV virtual and UHF digital channel 31, is the Ion Television station licensed to New York City. The station is owned and operated by Ion Media and its transmitter is located at One World Trade Center.
W & G Foyle Ltd. is a bookseller with a chain of seven stores in England. It is best known for its flagship store in Charing Cross Road, London. Foyles was once listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's largest bookshop in terms of shelf length, at 30 miles (48 km), and for number of titles on display. In 2018 it was bought by Waterstones.
The Empire Club of Canada is a Canadian speakers forum. Established in 1903, the Empire Club has provided a forum for over 3,500 different speakers.
Irving McNeil Ives was an American politician. A member of the Republican Party, he served as a United States Senator from New York from 1947 to 1959. He was previously a member of the New York State Assembly for sixteen years, serving as Minority Leader (1935), Speaker (1936), and Majority Leader (1937–1946). A liberal Republican, he was known as a specialist in labor and civil rights legislation.
Irita Bradford Van Doren was an American literary figure and editor of the New York Herald Tribune book review for 37 years.
The Daily Herald is a daily newspaper based in Arlington Heights, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. The newspaper is distributed in the northern, northwestern and western suburbs of Chicago. The paper started in 1871 and is independently owned and run by four generations of the Paddock family.
Edwin Way Teale was an American naturalist, photographer and writer. Teale's works serve as primary source material documenting environmental conditions across North America from 1930 - 1980. He is perhaps best known for his series The American Seasons, four books documenting over 75,000 miles (121,000 km) of automobile travel across North America following the changing seasons.
Adriana Trigiani is an American best-selling author of sixteen books, television writer, film director, and entrepreneur based in New York City. Trigiani has published a novel a year since 2000.
WNYC-FM is a non-profit, noncommercial, public radio station licensed to and located in New York, New York. It is owned by New York Public Radio which also owns WNYC (AM), WQXR-FM, New Jersey Public Radio, and the Jerome L. Greene Performance Space. Combined, New York Public Radio owns WNYC, WNYC-FM, WQXR-FM, WQXW, WNJT-FM, WNJP, WNJY, and WNJO.
New York Public Radio is a not-for-profit corporation, incorporated in 1979, and is a publicly supported organization.
WNYC is a non-profit, noncommercial, public radio station licensed to New York City. The station is owned by New York Public Radio along with sister station WNYC-FM & Newark, New Jersey-licensed classical music outlet WQXR-FM (105.9 MHz). It is a member of NPR and carries local and national news/talk programs. Some programming is simulcast on WNYC-FM and at other times different programming airs on each station. WNYC broadcasts from studios and offices in the Hudson Square neighborhood of Manhattan and its transmitter is located in Kearny, New Jersey;
John Schaefer is an American radio host and author. As a radio host he has been with WNYC for many years. He is also the author of the book New Sounds: A Listener's Guide to New Music, first published in 1987.
The Economic Club of New York is a U.S. nonprofit and non-partisan membership organization dedicated to promoting the study and discussion of social, economic and political questions.
John Lardner (1912–1960) was an American sports writer and the son of Ring Lardner.
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The Overseas Press Club aired a variety of programming on WNYC from the 1940s to the mid70s, including an regularly scheduled self-titled series in the l960s.