Adrian Nicole LeBlanc

Adrian Nicole LeBlanc shares some of her favorite authors, stand-up comedians, and tells us why she's been re-reading some feminist classics.

Leonard Lopate Show Book Club’s first selection for 2014 is Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx. Author Adrian Nicole LeBlanc spent years with one extended family in the Bronx to create a portrait of poverty, and of life in and of public housing, prison, and court. It received high praise when it was published in 2003, and remains as relevant and important a decade later. We chose it after we read Andrea Elliott's powerful New York Times series Invisible Child: Dasani's Homeless Life, which reminded us of the extensive reporting on a family's struggles with poverty in Random Family.

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