The National Parks: America's Best Idea

Ken Burns

An American filmmaker who revolutionized the documentary film genre, Ken Burns is the award-winning creator of the documentary series Baseball, Jazz, and Unforgivable Blackness. His landmark film, The Civil War, was the highest-rated series in public television history, boasting an audience of 40 million viewers when it first aired and going on to win more than 40 prizes, including two Emmy and two Grammy awards. Airing this fall on public television, Burns’s new work, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, tells the story of the creation and evolution of the National Parks System using archival photographs, first-person accounts, and some of the most breathtaking new images of our national parks ever captured on film. In his review of the companion book to the series, historian Joseph J. Ellis writes, “the book permits the eye and mind to linger over the truly breathtaking pictures in a more meditative way that film does not allow. The result is almost elegiac, producing the same kind of goose bumps that Burns created in his early work on the Brooklyn Bridge and the Civil War.”

 Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

This is a TICKETED event; $14 General Admission, $7 Students

For tickets and more information, call 215.567.4341, or click HERE

Adam Gopnik

Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Endowed Lecture
Co-sponsored by the American Philosophical Society Museum

Adam Gopnik's Angels and Ages is a study of the cultural impact of Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln. Time magazine calls the book "a succinct, convincing, and moving account of how two men ripped mankind out of its past unreason and thrust it into a more enlightened age." Gopnik appears at the Free Library to speak of these celebrated thinkers--who were born on the same day in 1809--on the 150th anniversary (to the day!) of the publication of On the Origin of Species.  A contributor to the New Yorker for more than two decades, Gopnik is a three-time recipient of the National Magazine Award.

Central Library 
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

This is a TICKETED event; $14 General Admission, $7 Students.

For tickets and more information, call 215.567.4341, or click HERE

Breaking the Sound Barrier

Amy Goodman

The host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, an award-winning independent news program airing on over 800 stations throughout the world, Amy Goodman has a passion for truth in journalism. She is a recipient of the first Right Livelihood Award, a preeminent commendation for personal courage and social transformation that is known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize.” She is also the co-author of New York Times bestselling books Standing up to the Madness, Static, and The Exception to the Rulers. In her new book—a collection of investigative reports on topics scarcely covered by corporate media outlets—Goodman talks about the inordinate control these media giants exert over public opinion and the role that grassroots activists and independent media can play in the struggle for a better world. Cornel West proclaims, “Amy Goodman is a towering progressive freedom-fighter in the media and the world. Breaking the Sound Barrier is another expression of her vision and courage.”

Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

This is a FREE event; no tickets or reservations are required.

For more information, call 215.567.4341, or click here

Lidia Bastianich

Carole Phillips Memorial Lecture

Renowned chef and restaurateur Lidia Bastianich is co-owner of Felidia and Becco, two of Manhattan's finest restaurants. As host of her own PBS television show, Lidia's Italy, she travels her native country to visit the farmers, shepherds, foragers, and artisans who produce the local cheeses, meats, olive oils, and wines that define regional Italian cuisine. In her new cookbook, these wonderful, uncomplicated dishes--from Molise, Abruzzo, Calabria, and more--are translated for the home cook.

Central Library 
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

This is a TICKETED event; $14 General Admission, $7 Students

For tickets and more information, call 215.567.4341, or click HERE

Leslie Caron

A beloved film star of MGM's Golden Era, Leslie Caron has appeared in such classic movies as An American in Paris, Gigi, Daddy Long Legs, and Lili. More recently she acted in the film Chocolat and won an Emmy Award for her performance in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Offering an intimate view of the characters and settings of old Hollywood, Thank Heaven is a candid account of Caron's life from her discovery in Paris by Gene Kelly to her successes in Hollywood and her personal struggles with alcoholism and depression.

Ms. Caron will be interviewed by Philadelphia Inquirer film critic Carrie Rickey.

Walton Ford: Pancha Tantra

Walton Ford

The Academy of Natural Sciences presents famed artist Walton Ford, who will discuss his artwork and sign copies of the recently published retrospective of his work, Walton Ford: Pancha Tantra.

Ford's artwork, described by New York Magazine as "Audubon-as-Viagra", features large-scale and highly detailed watercolors of animals and reveals a complex universe full of symbols, sly jokes and allusions to the "operatic" nature of traditional natural history themes.

The Academy of Natural Sciences Auditorium 
1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

This is a FREE event, but reservations are required. Please call 215-299-1060, or email reservations@ansp.org to RSVP.

Sue Grafton

Published in 26 languages, Sue Grafton's bestselling Kinsey Millhone mysteries feature "a heroine with foibles you can laugh at and faults you can forgive," writes the New York Times Book Review. "As this master of suspense continues to demonstrate ... there are more ugly twists in the human heart than there are letters in the alphabet," praises Entertainment Weekly. Grafton has received the Ross Macdonald Literary Award and was named a co-Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America. U is for Undertow is the latest Millhone mystery.

Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

This is a FREE event; no tickets or reservations are required.

For more information, call 215.567.4341, or click HERE

Mary Karr

Meelya Gordon Memorial Lecture

Poet and memoirist Mary Karr is the Peck Professor of English Literature at Syracuse University. She was a Guggenheim Fellow in poetry in 2005 and has won Pushcart Prizes for both her poetry and essays. Her bestselling memoir, The Liars' Club, won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award and was named best book of the year by many publications. Her follow-up memoir, Cherry, was also a bestseller. Filled with the dark humor that suffuses much of her work, Karr's new memoir Lit chronicles her descent into alcoholism and her conversion to Catholicism with an unlikely tribe of gurus and saviors.

Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

Gordon S. Wood, Brown University Professor of History and Chair of the National Constitution Center’s Distinguished Scholars Advisory Panel, discusses the Founders’ attitudes and beliefs about aristocracy in America, where “titles of nobility” are prohibited by the Constitution, but where aristocratic elements of privilege and power nevertheless have survived. The men who espoused the radical idea that all are created equal shared the tradition of British aristocracy, and Wood will examine how their beliefs differed from or mirrored those held in England, which beliefs have lingered, and what their effects have been.

F.M. Kirby Auditorium
National Constitution Center
Independence Mall
525 Arch Street
Philadelphia, PA, 19106 

This is a FREE event, but reservations are required. Please call 215.409.6700, or click HERE

The Architecture of Community

Leon Krier

Leon Krier is one of the best known and most provocative architects and urban theoreticians in the world, and a leading influence on today's generation of classical and traditional architects and planners. In The Architecture of Community, Mr. Krier refines and distills forty years of thinking on the making of sustainable, humane, and attractive villages, towns, and cities, and shares thoughts on how to make today's communities more vibrant. The book includes drawings, diagrams, and photographs of his built works, which have not been widely seen until now.

This is a unique opportunity to hear and meet Mr. Krier at his only appearance in Philadelphia, and it promises to be a lively evening.

Carpenter's Hall

320 Chestnut Street

Philadelphia, PA, 19106

This is a TICKETED event; $20 General Admission, $10 for ICA & CA members, FREE for students. Advance registration is requested; please call 215-790-0300, or email icacaphila@verizon.net

Deborah Willis

A graduate of the Philadelphia College of Art, Deborah Willis--a 2005 Guggenheim Fellow and a 2000 MacArthur Fellow--chairs the Photography Department at New York University. Dedicated to sharing visual representations of the African American experience, Willis authored the groundbreaking and highly praised book Reflections in Black, a collection of photographs of African American life from 1840 to the present, as well as The Black Female Body and VanDerZee: The Portraits of James VanDerZee. Her new book, Posing Beauty, was inspired by a realization she had as a student in the 1970s: that images of black beauty did not exist in the mainstream culture. This arresting new collection of photographs of African Americans, from Billie Holiday to Muhammad Ali to Michele Obama, redefines what it means to be "beautiful."

Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

This is a FREE event; no tickets or reservations are required.

For more information, call 215.567.4341, or click HERE

Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong

Terry Teachout writes about literature and the arts for the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New York Times, among many other publications. The Washington Post described his biography, The Skeptic: A Life of H.L. Mencken, as "a balanced, judicious assessment, flecked with sharply critical insights." Drawing on several previously unavailable sources, including hundreds of hours of backstage recordings, Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong offers new insight into the life of the legendary jazz musician.

Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

This is a FREE event; no tickets or reservations are required.

For more information, call 215.567.4341, or click HERE

How Capitalism Will Save Us

Steve Forbes

Can democratic capitalism still be effective in improving our lives? In the wake of the nation's worst recession in decades, people's faith in our capitalist system has been deeply shaken.

In his newest book, How Capitalism Will Save Us: Why Free People and Free Markets are the Best Answer in Today's Economy, Forbes Media chairman and CEO, Steve Forbes, posits that when free people in free markets have energy to solve problems and meet the needs and wants of others, they turn scarcity into abundance and develop the innovations that are the foremost drivers of economic growth. Join us to hear his thoughts on why capitalism is the world's greatest economic success story.

The Crystal Tea Room

Wanamaker Building

100 East Penn Square

Philadelphia, PA, 19107

This is a TICKETED event; for registration and additional information, please click here

Julie Powell

Julie Powell, tired of working dead-end jobs, decided to try something new. What she started was a year-long odyssey cooking every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and blogging about it. The resultant book, Julie and Julia, spent weeks on the New York Times Best Sellers list, earned a 2006 Quill Award, and was adapted into a major motion picture starring Meryl Streep. Her new book, Cleaving, chronicles a new chapter in Powell's personal life and offers another facet of her fascination with food and a new fixation: butchery. Described as "hilarious and ferociously articulate" by Entertainment Weekly, Powell brings a fresh new voice to the art of biography and cooking.

Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

This is a FREE event; no tickets or reservations are required.

For more information, call 215.567.4341, or click HERE

The Fourth Part of the World: The Race to the Ends of the Earth, and the Epic Story of the Map That Gave America Its Name

Toby Lester 

For millennia Europeans believed that the world consisted of three parts: Europe, Africa, and Asia. They drew the three continents in countless shapes and sizes on their maps, but occasionally they hinted at the existence of a "fourth part of the world," a mysterious, inaccessible place, separated from the rest by a vast expanse of ocean. It was a land of myth -- until 1507, that is, when Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann, two obscure scholars working in the mountains of eastern France, made it real. Columbus had died the year before convinced that he had sailed to Asia, but Waldseemüller and Ringmann, after reading about the Atlantic discoveries of Columbus's contemporary Amerigo Vespucci, came to a startling conclusion: Vespucci had reached the fourth part of the world. To celebrate his achievement, Waldseemüller and Ringmann printed a huge map, for the first time showing the New World surrounded by water and distinct from Asia, and in Vespucci's honor they gave this New World a name: America.

The Fourth Part of the World is the story behind that map, a thrilling saga of geographical and intellectual exploration, full of outsize thinkers and voyages. Taking a kaleidoscopic approach, Toby Lester traces the origins of our modern worldview. His narrative sweeps across continents and centuries, zeroing in on different portions of the map to reveal strands of ancient legend, Biblical prophecy, classical learning, medieval exploration, imperial ambitions, and more.

The Athenaeum of Philadelphia

219 South 6th Street

Philadelphia, PA, 19106

This is a FREE event, but reservations are required; please contact Susan Gallo at 215.925.2688, or email sgallo@philaathenaeum.org

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Daniel H. Pink

Forget everything you thought you knew about how to motivate people--at work, at school, at home. It's wrong. As Daniel H. Pink explains in his new and paradigm-shattering book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, the secret to high performance and satisfaction in today's world is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.

Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does--and how that affects every aspect of our lives. He demonstrates that while the old-fashioned carrot-and-stick approach worked successfully in the 20th century, it's precisely the wrong way to motivate people for today's challenges. Drive is bursting with big ideas--the rare book that will change how you think and transform how you live.

Friends Select School 

1651 Benjamin Franklin Parkway

Philadelphia, PA, 19103

For more information, please click here

Remarkable Creatures

Tracy Chevalier

Tracy Chevalier is the author of the international bestseller Girl with a Pearl Earring. The book, based on the creation of the famous painting by Johannes Vermeer, was adapted into an award-winning film starring Colin Firth and Scarlett Johansson. Noted for her mesmerizing storytelling and the fluid use of period language, Chevalier pays exquisite attention to detail in both plot and setting in her historical novels. Her latest novel, Remarkable Creatures, is based on the life of the 19th-century English fossil collector Mary Anning, who discovered the first complete specimen of an ichthyosaur.

Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

This is a FREE event; no tickets or reservations are required.

For more information, call 215.567.4341, or click here

Daring Young Men: The Heroism and Triumph of the Berlin Airlift

Richard Reeves

Acclaimed presidential biographer Richard Reeves discusses his new book, Daring Young Men: The Heroism and Triumph of the Berlin Airlift.  Reeves recounts the stories of the brave pilots who risked their lives to supply humanitarian aid to those who were considered enemies only a few short years earlier during World War II.  Utilizing previously unpublished documents and numerous interviews, Reeves provides a voice for these pilots to tell their stories.  Thomas Childers, Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, moderates.

The pilots who took part in the Berlin Airlift supplied vital goods to West Berlin, due to the land and water blockade instituted by the Soviets in 1948.  Over the following year, some 227,000 flights were made with an average of 8,000 tons of goods delivered daily, mainly consisting of food and fuel.  The success of the Berlin Airlift is viewed as the first Cold War victory for Britain and America against the Soviet Union.  The Soviets were humiliated, as they never believed such a plan could work, and hoped to push the Allied powers out of the city.  By May of 1949, the Soviets lifted the blockade, but goods continued to be delivered until September of that year, in order to provide a surplus for the people of West Berlin.

A starred review in Publishers Weekly says “Reeves gives us a mesmerizing portrait of America at its best when challenged by Russia’s tyranny.”

Annenberg Center for Education and Outreach
F.M. Kirby Auditorium
National Constitution Center
Independence Mall
525 Arch Street
Philadelphia, PA

 This is a FREE event; but reservations are required. Please call 215.409.6700, or click here

All Things at Once

Mika Brzezinski

In conversation with Joe Scarborough

One of television’s most outspoken and respected journalists, Mika Brzezinski is an MSNBC anchor and co-host of Morning Joe with Joe Scarborough—a program Time magazine calls “revolutionary” and the New York Times ranked as the top news show of 2008. She also appears on NBC Nightly News and Weekend Today. Prior to joining NBC, Brzezinski worked at CBS, where she anchored CBS Evening News Weekend Edition and later became the network’s principal “Ground Zero” reporter following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Her book, All Things at Once, is a motivational book geared toward helping women deal with the unique challenges they face in balancing personal life, family life, and career.

Joe Scarborough is the host of Morning Joe. He served as a member of the United States Congress for seven years and is the author of The Last Best Hope, which outlines a plan to guide conservatives back to a political majority after their defeats in the 2006 midterm and the 2008 Presidential elections. Along with Brzezinski, Joe can be heard daily on the Joe Scarborough Show, a syndicated talk-radio show on ABC Radio Networks.

Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

This is a FREE event; no tickets or reservations are required.

For more information, call 215.567.4341, or click here

36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction

Rebecca Goldstein

Rebecca Goldstein’s fiction explores “the dichotomies between mind and body, intellect and passion, logos and eros,” according to one New York Times reviewer. A professor of philosophy, a MacArthur Fellow, and a 1995 winner of the National Jewish Book Award, Goldstein is the author of several novels, including The Mind-Body Problem, Properties of Light, and Mazel. She is also the author of the nonfiction biographies Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel and Betraying Spinoza. In 36 Arguments for the Existence of God, Goldstein combines fiction and philosophy to tell the story of Cass Seltzer, an atheist who must reexamine religion’s place in his life when his novel becomes a surprise bestseller.

Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

This is a FREE event; no tickets or reservations are required.

For more information, call 215.567.4341, or click here

The Swan Thieves

Elizabeth Kostova

The fastest-selling debut novel in U.S. history, Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian was the first debut novel to enter the New York Times Best Sellers list at no. 1. The culmination of 10 years of research, the intricately plotted historical novel brought to life the story behind the legend of Vlad the Impaler who inspired the Dracula legend. In her eagerly awaited second novel, Kostova unspools a sweeping tale of historical intrigue spanning centuries and continents—with madness, obsession, and the power of art to preserve human hope taking center stage.

Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

This is a FREE event; no tickets or reservations are required.

For more information, call 215.567.4341, or click here