The Library is open for stack and reading/study room access: |
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TONIGHT! CONVERSATION - OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
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The Past Is Never Past:
Jan Eliasberg, Hannah's War
Ellen Feldman, Paris Never Leaves You
Wednesday, September 16, 6:00 PM
online | $10 per person | registration required
Two acclaimed novelists discuss their research and writing about the experiences of women in the Second World War and its aftermath.
Alternating between wartime Paris and 1950s New York publishing, Ellen Feldman's Paris Never Leaves You is an extraordinary story of resilience, love, and impossible choices, exploring how survival never comes without a cost.
A "mesmerizing" re-imagination of the final months of World War II (Kate Quinn, author of The Alice Network), Jan Eliasberg's Hannah's War is an unforgettable love story about an exceptional woman and the dangerous power of her greatest discovery.
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LECTURE - OPEN TO THE PUBLIC |
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S.A. Cosby, Blacktop Wasteland
Tuesday, September 22, 6:00 PM
A husband, a father, a son, a business owner...And the best getaway driver east of the Mississippi.
Like Ocean's Eleven meets Drive with a Southern noir twist, S. A. Cosby's Blacktop Wasteland is a searing, operatic story of a man pushed to his limits by poverty, race, and his own former life of crime. Lee Child calls it "sensationally good - new, fresh, real, authentic, twisty, with characters and dilemmas that will break your heart. More than recommended."
S.A. Cosby is a writer from Southeastern Virginia. He recently won an Anthony Award for Best Short Story.
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WRITING LIFE WORKSHOP - FOR MEMBERS ONLY |
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25 Great Sentences and How They Got That Way
with Geraldine Woods
Wednesdays September 23, October 7, 6:00 PM
25 Great Sentences and How They Got That Way unpacks powerful examples of “the smallest element differentiating one writer’s style from another’s, a literary universe in a grain of sand.” And that universe is very large: the hundreds of memorable sentences gathered here come from sources as wide-ranging as Edith Wharton and Yogi Berra, Toni Morrison and Yoda, T.S. Eliot and Groucho Marx.
Join master teacher Geraldine Woods to take apart classic sentences, see how they tick, and apply their secrets to your own writing. Each session lasts 75-90 minutes.
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SEMINAR - FOR MEMBERS ONLY |
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Virgil's Aeneid, Books VII-XII
with Jane Mallison
Thursdays September 24, October 8, October 22, November 5, 11:00 AM
online | $60 per person for the four sessions | registration required
Less widely read than the first half of the epic poem, these books offer many interesting aspects of their own. With the survivors of Troy on Italian soil, they now attempt to make the land their own. There will be a stalwart female warrior, a tour of the primordial site of Rome, and a moment where pious Aeneas loses his cool. And Book IX will provide, in a provocative context, the line chosen for inscription at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum: No day shall erase you from the memory of time.
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WRITING LIFE WORKSHOP - OPEN TO THE PUBLIC |
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Write What Life Feels Like Now
with Esther Cohen
Thursdays September 24, October 8, October 22, 3:00 PM
It's an unusual year. There are so many words to say how we feel. Let's try together.
November and December dates follow those listed above. Register once to attend any or all sessions.
Esther Cohen is a writer and poet in New York City. She also teaches and is a cultural activist. Most days she posts a poem at esthercohen.com.
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LECTURE - FOR LIBRARY MEMBERS AND MEMBERSHIP LIBRARY MEMBERS |
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Christopher Bonner, Runaways, or Citizens Claimed as Such
Tuesday, September 29, 6:00 PM
online | free of charge | registration through the Athenaeum of Philadelphia required
In the decades before the Civil War, African Americans in the North lived in a tenuous freedom, denied political rights and threatened with kidnapping and enslavement. In this presentation, Remaking the Republic author Christopher Bonner explores individual and collective strategies African Americans used to defend their freedom and secure rights.
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SEMINAR - FOR MEMBERS ONLY |
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An Outsized Reality: The Novels of Gabriel García Márquez
with Nicholas Birns
Wednesdays September 30, October 14, October 28, November 11, 11:00 AM
online | $60 per person for the four sessions | registration required
Gabriel García Márquez was the most influential writer in the Spanish language since Cervantes. This seminar takes a deep look at his three major works One Hundred Years of Solitude, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, and Love in the Time of Cholera.
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LECTURE - OPEN TO THE PUBLIC |
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Lowell Thing, Cover Treasure: The Adventures of a Margaret Armstrong Collector
Thursday, October 1, 6:00 PM
online | $10 per person | registration required
The foremost expert on the book art of Margaret Armstrong talks about her life and career, with stunning images from his own comprehensive collection of her bindings.
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NEW! LECTURE - OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
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Meredith Talusan
Fairest: A Memoir
Thursday, October 22, 6:00 PM
online | $10 per person | registration required
A singular, beautifully written coming-of-age memoir of a Filipino boy with albinism whose story travels from an immigrant childhood to Harvard to a gender transition and illuminates the illusions of race, disability, and gender.
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New events are added throughout the season.
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The Writing Life events in 2020 are generously underwritten by Jenny Lawrence. |
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Quick Links
Library Hours
Monday and Friday 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM
Saturday and Sunday 11:00 AM – 5:00 PM
The Library will be closed Monday, October 12, for Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples' Day.
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