Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Dreams in a Time War: A Childhood Memoir

A novelist and a theorist of post-colonial literature at the University of California, Irvine, Ngugi wa Thiong’o is one of Kenya’s best-known public intellectuals. In 1977, following the publication of his novel Petals of Blood—which relates the disillusionment of people living in post-independence Kenya—he was arrested and imprisoned without charge. Now, living in exile for more than 20 years, Thiong’o still writes for the oppressed Kenyan working class. His novels include A Grain of Wheat, Matigari, and the highly praised Wizard of the Crow. In his new memoir, Dreams in a Time of War, Thiong’o recalls growing up under British colonialist rule and his survival during the war for independence in Kenya.

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 Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama

Gwen Ifill

Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North

Thomas J. Sugrue

On the two-year anniversary of then-Senator Barack Obama's pivotal campaign speech, A More Perfect Union, Gwen Ifill, moderator and managing editor of Washington Week and senior correspondent for The PBS Newshour, Martin Luther King III, Founding President and CEO of Realizing the Dream, Inc., and Thomas J. Sugrue, David Boies Professor of History and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, will join the National Constitution Center for an open dialogue on race, moderated by Charles A. Williams III, assistant clinical professor and director of the Center for the Prevention of School-Aged Violence at Drexel University. Before joining the panel, Dr. Michael L. Lomax, President and CEO of UNCF (the United Negro College Fund), will begin the conversation with a presentation proposing that education leads America's racial priorities.

Annenberg Center for Outreach and Education

F.M. Kirby Auditorium 

National Constitution Center
Independence Mall, 525 Arch Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103

This is a FREE event; reservations are required.

For more information, call 215.409.6700, or click here 

Dimiter

William Peter Blatty

An Academy Award-winning screenwriter and producer, William Peter Blatty is the author of the iconic horror novel The Exorcist. Based loosely on a real-life possession story, the book sold more than 13 million copies and remained on the New York Times Best Sellers list for more than 55 weeks. The 1973 film adaptation broke box office records and effectively set the standard by which horror movies are still measured. Blatty wrote two bestselling books following The Exorcist: The Ninth Configuration and Legion, and he wrote and directed the film The Exorcist III: Legion. Set in 1970’s Albania, Dimiter—Blatty’s first full-length novel since Legion—is a chilling psychological drama that opens on a torture table.

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

For more information, call 215.567.4341, or click here

The Things They Carried

Tim O'Brian

Now in its 20th year of publication, Tim O’Brien’s modern classic The Things They Carried has more than two million copies in print. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Things They Carried is a collection of short stories that form a fictionalized account of O’Brien’s military service during the Vietnam War. In her New York Times review of the book, Michiko Kakutani commented, “Mr. O’Brien has written a vital, important book—a book that matters not only to the reader interested in Vietnam, but to anyone interested in the craft of writing as well.” O’Brien won the 1979 National Book Award for Going After Cacciato, and his other books include If I Die in a Combat Zone: Box Me Up and Ship Me Home, Tomcat in Love, and July, July.

This is a TICKETED event; $14 General Admission, $7 Students. Tickets on sale Friday, January 15 at 10:00 a.m. at freelibrary.org/authorevents or by phone at 1-800-595-4TIX (4849).

For more information, call 215.567.4341, or click here

Appetite for America: How Visionary Businessman Fred Harvey Built a Railroad Hospitality Empire That Civilized the Wild West

Stephen Fried

The legendary life and entrepreneurial vision of Fred Harvey helped shape American culture and history for three generations—from the 1880s all the way through World War II—and still influence our lives today in surprising and fascinating ways. Now award-winning journalist Stephen Fried re-creates the life of this unlikely American hero, the founding father of the nation’s service industry, whose remarkable family business civilized the West and introduced America to Americans.

Appetite for America is the incredible real-life story of Fred Harvey—told in depth for the first time ever—as well as the story of this country’s expansion into the Wild West of Bat Masterson and Billy the Kid, of the great days of the railroad, of a time when a deal could still be made with a handshake and the United States was still uniting. As a young immigrant, Fred Harvey worked his way up from dishwasher to household name: He was Ray Kroc before McDonald’s, J. Willard Marriott before Marriott Hotels, Howard Schultz before Starbucks. His eating houses and hotels along the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroad (including historic lodges still in use at the Grand Canyon) were patronized by princes, presidents, and countless ordinary travelers looking for the best cup of coffee in the country. Harvey’s staff of carefully screened single young women—the celebrated Harvey Girls—were the country’s first female workforce and became genuine Americana, even inspiring an MGM musical starring Judy Garland.

With the verve and passion of Fred Harvey himself, Stephen Fried tells the story of how this visionary built his business from a single lunch counter into a family empire whose marketing and innovations we still encounter in myriad ways. Inspiring, instructive, and hugely entertaining, Appetite for America is historical biography that is as richly rewarding as a slice of fresh apple pie—and every bit as satisfying.

Power Plant Studios
230 North Second Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106

This is a FREE event; no tickets or reservations are required. For more information, please click here.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton: An American Life

Lori D. Ginzberg

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was one of the best-known advocates of women’s suffrage in the 19th century. Outspoken, energetic, and controversial, she organized the first Women's Rights Convention in 1848 and, with Susan B. Anthony, co-founded the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869. She spent her life writing and speaking about women’s rights, but her views on class, race, and intellect, are characterized by a startling elitism. Lori D. Ginzberg, a professor of history and women’s studies at Pennsylvania State University and author of Untidy Origins: A Story of Woman’s Rights in Antebellum New York, is at once critical and admiring in this new biography that examines Stanton’s ambiguous legacy.

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

Cezanne's Quarry

Barbara Pope

"At the beginning of 1885, Cezanne's lonely contemplation of nature was interrupted by a violent love affair with a woman about whom little is known except that he met her in Aix" -- John Rewald, Cezanne 

A beautiful young woman is found murdered in Aix-en-Provence...and the clues toward her death point to her spurned lover, Paul Cezanne. Could he be a killer?

Barbara Pope, Professor Emerita of Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Oregon and the author of Cezanne's Quarry, animates her canvas with many vivid period details. Francophiles, history buffs, and art lovers will find much to savor.

This lecture and booksigning includes cocktails, Provencal drinks, and hors d'oeuvre.

Ethical Society of Philadelphia
1906 South Rittenhouse Square
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

This is a TICKETED event; admission is $15 for Alliance Francaise and American Association of Teachers of French, $25 for non AF/AATF. Seating is limited, please call the Alliance Francaise for reservations at 215-735-5283.

This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All

Marilyn Johnson

Journalist Marilyn Johnson has been a staff writer for Life and an editor at Esquire, Redbook, and Outside. An obituary expert, she is the author of The Dead Beat and has written obituaries for Princess Diana, Jackie Onassis, Katharine Hepburn, Johnny Cash, Bob Hope, and Marlon Brando. In her kaleidoscopic new book, Johnson argues that far from being obsolete, libraries and librarians are essential in facilitating the new information revolution. Nora Rawlinson declares in EarlyWord that This Book is Overdue! “does for the library profession what Malcolm Gladwell did for the theory of memetics in The Tipping Point.”

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

Noir: A Novel

Robert Coover

Robert Coover is an avant-garde novelist, critic, and playwright whose work combines fact with fiction and twists familiar stories in ways that expose the absurdities of modern society. He is the author of the William Faulkner Award winner The Origin of the Brunists and the acclaimed novels The Public Burning, Spanking the Maid, Gerald's Party, Pinocchio in Venice, John's Wife, Ghost Town, and Briar Rose, among many others. With Noir, Coover—who was described in the New York Times as “a one-man Big Bang of exploding creative force”—creates a classic crime story in which nothing is what it seems to be.

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

No Apology: The Case for American Greatness

Mitt Romney

In No Apology, Mitt Romney asserts that American strength is essential—not just for our own well-being, but for the world’s.  Governments such as China and a newly-robust Russia threaten to overtake us on many fronts, and Islam continues its dangerous rise.  Drawing on history for lessons on how great powers collapse, Romney shows how and why our national advantages have eroded.  From the long-term decline of our manufacturing base, our laggard educational system that has left us without enough engineers, scientists, and other skilled professionals, our corrupted financial practices that led to the current crisis, and the crushing impact of entitlements on our future obligations, America is in debt, overtaxed, and unprepared for the challenges it must face.

We need renewal: fresh ideas to cut through complicated problems and restore our strength.  Creative and bold, Romney proposes simple solutions to rebuild industry, create good jobs, reduce out of control spending on entitlements and healthcare, dramatically improve education, and restore a military battered by eight years of war.  Most important, he calls for a new commitment to citizenship, a common cause we all share, rather than a laundry list of individual demands.  Many of his solutions oppose President Obama’s policies, many also run counter to Republican thinking, but all have one strategic aim: to move America back to political and economic strength. 

Personal and dynamically-argued, No Apology is a call to action by a man who cares deeply about America’s history, its promise, and its future.

Loews Philadelphia Hotel 
Regency Ballroom
1200 Market Street
Philadelphia, PA

This is a TICKETED event, for more information including pricing and registration, please call 215.561.4700, or click here.

How to Walk to School: Blueprint for a Neighborhood School Renaissance

Jacqueline Edelberg

When two moms ventured inside their neighborhood’s struggling public elementary school, the new principal asked what it would take for them to enroll their children. Sensing opportunity, they returned the next day with an extensive wish list. The principal read their list and said, “Well, let’s get started, girls! It’s going to be a busy year…” In How to Walk to School, Jacqueline Edelberg, the neighborhood mom, and Susan Kurland, the school principal, provide a blueprint for reclaiming public education based on their efforts to transform their own challenged urban school into one of Chicago’s best.

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 Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

Michael Lewis

Acid yet entertaining, Michael Lewis is a skilled chronicler of our times. He was a top bond salesman at Salomon Brothers before he left to become a writer, and Liar’s Poker, his semiautobiographical account of life on Wall Street in the 1980s, is considered one of the defining books of that time. He has gone on to tackle topics from Silicon Valley (The New New Thing and Next) to the electoral process (Trail Fever) to sports (Moneyball). His book about football, The Blind Side, was recently adapted into a movie starring Sandra Bullock. Now, he returns to his financial roots with The Big Short, a look at the 2008 crash of the United States economy.

Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

This is a TICKETED event; $14 General Admission, $7 Students. Tickets on sale Friday, January 15 at 10:00 a.m. at freelibrary.org/authorevents or by phone at 1-800-595-4TIX (4849).

For more information, call 215.567.4341, or click here

Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time

Paul Rogat Loeb

A lifelong participant in social and environmental causes, Seattle-based scholar, Paul Rogat Loeb calls for a renewal of personal engagement and  a return to the community involvement and activism of the 60s. In this updated edition of his best-selling Soul of a Citizen, Loeb profiles new stories of social commitment, drawing inspiration from the accomplishments of individuals who believe that striving for a better world is worth the effort. Howard Zinn pronounced it, “An essential book for anyone who wants to work for change.”

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 to Hire A-Players: Finding the Top People for Your Team - Even If You Don't Have a Recruiting Department

Eric Herrenkohl

How to find great employees, make great hires, and take your business to the next level

It is always easy to find people who want a job, but it's never easy to find and hire A-players. In How to Hire A-Players, consultant Eric Herrenkohl shows owners, executives, and managers of small and medium-size businesses where and how to find A-player employees. It is these individuals who will help keep quality high and growth and profits strong.

Herrenkohl explains how to use your existing marketing, sales, and networking efforts to find top candidates. He provides current examples of companies that consistently hire A-players without big recruiting departments as well as step-by-step explanations for making these strategies work in your own company.

• Shows you how to find and hire top employees.

• Ideal for owners of small businesses, executives and managers of large businesses, as well as corporate recruiters and HR specialists who need new ideas

• Herrenkohl's client list includes privately held businesses in over 50 industries as well as big corporate names like Bank of America, Edward Jones, and Northwestern Mutual Life

A-player employees are the life blood of any growing business. This handy hiring guide shows you where to look, what to ask, and who to hire to boost your business today

ROAR! Get Heard in the Sales and Marketing Jungle

Kevin Daum

Please join us at the Sofitel Philadelphia for the Philadelphia book launch of marketing consultant Kevin Daum's ROAR! Get Heard in the Sales and Marketing Jungle. Kevin is an author, marketer, and Inc. 500 entrepreneur who combines 25 years of experience in theatre, finance and marketing. Kevin has used his expertise and writing to help individuals build their dream homes, manage the financial aspects of going green and communicate effectively to reach their goals in business and life. ROAR! is a captivating business parable that reveals exactly how to create the right marketing message, deliver it consistently, connect with different buyers, run a business efficiently, and still have plenty of time for family. It may be a jungle out there, but it's a little less scary once you know how to ROAR!

The Joseph Fox Bookshop would like to extend our thanks to Sofitel Philadelphia for graciously hosting this special event. Please visit Sofitel Philadelphia for more information about this refined 4-star hotel, offering the height of contemporary comfort and convenience in downtown Philadelphia.

Sofitel Philadelphia

120 South 17th Street

Philadelphia, PA, 19103

This is a FREE event, but reservations are required. RSVP for this special book launch at http://registration.sbnonline.com/KevinDaum or email ccalfee@sbonlie.com

For more information about Kevin Daum, please visit his website.

GreenSense for the Home: Rating the Real Payoff from 50 Green Home Projects

Kevin Daum and Eric Corey Freed

Please join Kevin Daum at the Philadelphia Go Green Expo, one of the nation's largest eco-friendly business and consumer lifestyle showcases. Go Green Expo invites business leaders, eco-minded consumers and their families to explore every aspect of green living and sustainable business practices including energy, home and building, transportation, electronics, food, and health & beauty. Kevin will join various eco-experts for the lectures "Greening Your Business" (Friday, April 16th at 11:00AM), covering all aspects of managing a business in a sustainable, eco-conscious way, and "Living Eco-logically/Green Homes" (Saturday, April 17th at 3:00PM), evaluating costs and relative values of environmentally friendly home improvements, including converting to solar energy, composting and recycling, upgrading appliances, and building with reclaimed materials.

Greater Philadelphia Expo Center
100 Station Avenue
Oaks, PA 19456

This is a TICKETED event; for complete Go Green Expo information, please click here

GreenSense for the Home: Rating the Real Payoff from 50 Green Home Projects

Kevin Daum and Eric Corey Freed

Please join Kevin Daum at the Philadelphia Go Green Expo, one of the nation's largest eco-friendly business and consumer lifestyle showcases. Go Green Expo invites business leaders, eco-minded consumers and their families to explore every aspect of green living and sustainable business practices including energy, home and building, transportation, electronics, food, and health & beauty. Kevin will join various eco-experts for the lectures "Greening Your Business" (Friday, April 16th at 11:00AM), covering all aspects of managing a business in a sustainable, eco-conscious way, and "Living Eco-logically/Green Homes" (Saturday, April 17th at 3:00PM), evaluating costs and relative values of environmentally friendly home improvements, including converting to solar energy, composting and recycling, upgrading appliances, and building with reclaimed materials.

Greater Philadelphia Expo Center
100 Station Avenue
Oaks, PA 19456

This is a TICKETED event; for complete Go Green Expo information, please click here

Free Library Festival

Join us for the 4th annual Free Library Festival at the Parkway Central Library on Saturday and Sunday, April 17 & 18, 2010, from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The Festival weekend will be packed with free events for the whole family, including celebrity author appearances, live musical performances, and children’s authors and entertainment—plus a bustling Street Fair and Literary Marketplace showcasing what’s new in the publishing world.

The Joseph Fox Bookshop will be the official bookseller for all adult author events. Check back regularly for individual event listings.

For more information about the Free Library Festival, please click here

Be U: Be Honest, Be Beautiful, Be Intentional, Be Strong, Be You! 

Tina Campbell

of the urban gospel duo Mary Mary

The urban gospel duo Mary Mary, comprised of sisters Erica and Tina Campbell, first came to national attention with a song for the Prince of Egypt soundtrack. Since then, they have released five platinum- or gold-certified albums, and have won three Grammy Awards, two American Music Awards, an NAACP Image Award, and a BET Award, among others. Their music is widely praised for crossing genre boundaries, with gospel songs including “Shackles (Praise You),” “Get Up,” and “God In Me,” all of which became top hits on both R&B and pop music charts. Their first book, Be U encourages young women to discover themselves by focusing on their natural beauty, and utilizing their unique inner strengths and talents.

The Stranger Manual

Catie Rosemurgy

The recipient of a Rona Jaffe Award for Emerging Female Writers and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Catie Rosemurgy contributes poetry to a number of periodicals, including Best American Poetry, Ploughshares, River Styx, Verse, and Poetry Northwest. In a review of her first book of poetry, My Favorite Apocalypse, former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins praised her “clear, authentic, compelling voice.” The Stranger Manual is her second collection of poems, all following the story of the eccentric original character Miss Peach.

Skyline Room

Free Library Festival
Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

Festival events are free and open to the public. Seating begins 15 minutes prior to event start times. Seating is first come, first seated. Space is limited in some venues.  Authors will be on-hand to sign copies of their books after their events, unless noted. Books are sold on-site.

For more information about this event, please click here

For more information about the Free Library Festival, please click here

If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This

Robin Black

Robin Black’s stories and personal essays have appeared in numerous publications including Alaska Quarterly Review, Colorado Review, Bellevue Literary Review, The Southern Review, and the anthology The Best Creative Nonfiction. She has received multiple special mentions by the Pushcart Prizes, as well as fellowships from the Leeway Foundation and the MacDowell Colony. Of her debut collection, author Jim Shepard writes, “Few first collections … are as intelligent and as moving about both the durability of love and the implacability of loss.”

Writers Salon: Room 108

Morning Haiku

Sonia Sanchez

An acclaimed poet, activist, and scholar, Sonia Sanchez is the former Laura Carnell Professor of English and Women's Studies at Temple University. Called a “lion in literature’s forest” by Maya Angelou, Sanchez has written more than a dozen books of poetry, including the American Book Award-winner Homegirls and Handgrenades. Her new book of poems is a collection of haiku that celebrates the lives and mourns the deaths of revered African-American leaders.

Skyline Room

Free Library Festival
Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

Festival events are free and open to the public. Seating begins 15 minutes prior to event start times. Seating is first come, first seated. Space is limited in some venues.  Authors will be on-hand to sign copies of their books after their events, unless noted. Books are sold on-site.

For more information about this event, please click here

For more information about the Free Library Festival, please click here

Caught

Harlan Coben

Mystery writer Harlan Coben has won the Edgar Award, the Shamus Award, and the Anthony Award; he is the first author ever to win all three.  His books have debuted at #1 on the New York Times Best Sellers list, and his novel Tell No One was adapted into a critically acclaimed French film. The author of more than 37 books, his work includes bestselling novels Long Lost and Hold Tight, as well as the Myron Bolitar mysteries, stories of an ex-basketball star turned sports agent who works part-time as a private investigator. Caught is his latest thriller.

Main Stage

Free Library Festival
Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

Festival events are free and open to the public. Seating begins 15 minutes prior to event start times. Seating is first come, first seated. Space is limited in some venues.  Authors will be on-hand to sign copies of their books after their events, unless noted. Books are sold on-site.

For more information about this event, please click here

For more information about the Free Library Festival, please click here

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky

Heidi W. Durrow

A timely and moving bicultural coming-of-age tale about the daughter of a Danish immigrant and an African-American G.I., Heidi W. Durrow’s debut novel, The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, is the winner of the 2008 Bellwether Prize for best fiction manuscript addressing issues of social justice. In the tradition of Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John and Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, The Girl Who Fell From the Sky is a portrait of a young girl—and society’s ideas of race, class, and beauty. Durrow is the co-host of the award-winning weekly podcast Mixed Chicks Chat, and the co-founder and co-producer of the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival, an annual free public event, that celebrates stories of the Mixed experience.

Writers Salon: Room 108

Free Library Festival
Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

Festival events are free and open to the public. Seating begins 15 minutes prior to event start times. Seating is first come, first seated. Space is limited in some venues.  Authors will be on-hand to sign copies of their books after their events, unless noted. Books are sold on-site.

For more information about this event, please click here 

For more information about the Free Library Festival, please click here

Kitty Kelley

Oprah: A Biography

Kitty Kelley is the most widely read biographer of our times. Her previous subjects have included the Bush dynasty (The Family), the British royal family (The Royals), Nancy Reagan (Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography), and Frank Sinatra (His Way)—each of these books debuted at #1 on the New York Times Best Sellers list. With Oprah: A Biography, she brings new insight into the life of talk show icon Oprah Winfrey. Based on years of research and reporting, as well as 850 interviews with sources, many of whom have never before spoken for publication, Oprah is the first comprehensive biography of one of the most influential, powerful, and admired public figures of our time.

The Surrendered

Chang-rae Lee

Native Speaker, Chang-rae Lee’s widely acclaimed debut novel, explored the alienation that modern-day immigrants face—from both American culture and the cultures they leave behind. The book went on to win several awards, including the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for first fiction. His subsequent novels, the New York Times bestseller Aloft and the New York Times Notable Book A Gesture Life, reflect on similar themes. The Surrendered, his new novel, “looks to be Lee’s epic masterpiece,” commented novelist Junot Díaz. Following three characters throughout the Korean War and well into its aftermath, the novel “bursts with drama and human anguish as it documents the ravages and indelible effects of war…not to be missed,” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

Room 108 

Free Library Festival
Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

Festival events are free and open to the public. Seating begins 15 minutes prior to event start times. Seating is first come, first seated. Space is limited in some venues.  Authors will be on-hand to sign copies of their books after their events, unless noted. Books are sold on-site.

For more information about this event, please click here

For more information about the Free Library Festival, please click here

The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems

Edward Hirsch

The president of the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and a former MacArthur fellow, Edward Hirsch received the Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets for his first book of poetry, For the Sleepwalkers, and the National Book Critics Circle Award for his second collection, Wild Gratitude. He has since written five more books of poetry and the bestselling nonfiction guide, How to Read a Poem. His work is regularly published in national poetry journals and magazines, including the Paris Review and American Poetry Review.

Skyline Room

Free Library Festival
Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

Festival events are free and open to the public. Seating begins 15 minutes prior to event start times. Seating is first come, first seated. Space is limited in some venues.  Authors will be on-hand to sign copies of their books after their events, unless noted. Books are sold on-site.

For more information about this event, please click here

For more information about the Free Library Festival, please click here

The Eerie Silence: Renewing the Search for Alien Intelligence

Paul Davies

The acclaimed British-born theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and astrobiologist Paul Davies is the director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science and co-director of the Cosmology Initiative, both at Arizona State University. He also chairs the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence’s (SETI) Post-Detection Taskgroup. Among his numerous scientific distinctions, Davies is a recipient of the prestigious Templeton Prize for his work on science and religion. His writings include the bestsellers The Mind of God, About Time, How to Build a Time Machine, The Fifth Miracle, and The Goldilocks Enigma. In his provocative new book, Davies challenges existing ideas of what form an alien intelligence might take, how it might try to communicate with us, and how we should respond if we ever do make contact.

A User's Guide to the Universe: Surviving the Perils of Black Holes, Time Paradoxes, and Quantum Uncertainty

Dave Goldberg and Jeff Blomquist

In A User’s Guide to the Universe, Drexel University professor Dave Goldberg and Boeing Aerospace engineer Jeff Blomquist share the answers to pressing science questions about science like: Will the Large Hadron Collider destroy the world? Can we really build time machines? What is the probability of finding intelligent life on other planets? Their funny, clear, and illustrated explanations lead the reader through new and exciting discoveries in physics and cosmology. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jonathan Weiner commends, “I wish I’d had Goldberg and Blomquist as my physics teachers.”

Writers Salon: Room 108

Free Library Festival
Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

Festival events are free and open to the public. Seating begins 15 minutes prior to event start times. Seating is first come, first seated. Space is limited in some venues.  Authors will be on-hand to sign copies of their books after their events, unless noted. Books are sold on-site.

For more information about this event, please click here

For more information about the Free Library Festival, please click here

Beatrice and Virgil

Yann Martel

Yann Martel is the author of The Life of Pi, winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize. The story of a young boy—shipwrecked and stranded at sea—with a Bengal tiger and other wild animals, The Life of Pi explores issues of spirituality and practicality through the child’s relationships with the animals aboard his lifeboat.  The novel, which earned comparisons to the works of Hemingway, Marquez, and Beckett, became an international bestseller, with more than three million copies sold worldwide. In his long-awaited new novel, Beatrice and Virgil, Martel also uses animals to discuss the human condition, in this case, the limitations of language in understanding and describing the horrors of the Holocaust.

Main Stage

Free Library Festival
Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

Festival events are free and open to the public. Seating begins 15 minutes prior to event start times. Seating is first come, first seated. Space is limited in some venues.  Authors will be on-hand to sign copies of their books after their events, unless noted. Books are sold on-site.

For more information about this event, please click here

For more information about the Free Library Festival, please click here

A Heartbeat and a Guitar: Johnny Cash and the Making of Bitter Tears

Antonino D'Ambrosio

In A Heartbeat and a Guitar, writer/filmmaker Antonino D’Ambrosio tells the story behind Johnny Cash’s little-known 1964 protest album, Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian. Inspired by the Native People’s rights movement, Cash’s controversial lyrics were deemed “unpatriotic,” the Ku Klux Klan threatened stores that carried the album, and radio stations across the country pulled the album from rotation. D’Ambrosio is the writer behind the book and documentary Let Fury Have the Hour: The Punk Politics of Joe Strummer, inspired by The Clash’s cultural activism; he also wrote, directed, and produced the film No Free Lunch starring comedian Lewis Black.

Performance Stage: Shakespeare Park

Free Library Festival
Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

Festival events are free and open to the public. Seating begins 15 minutes prior to event start times. Seating is first come, first seated. Space is limited in some venues.  Authors will be on-hand to sign copies of their books after their events, unless noted. Books are sold on-site.

For more information about this event, please click here

For more information about the Free Library Festival, please click here

Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang

Chelsea Handler

Proclaimed one of the “Queens of Comedy” by Vanity Fair, Chelsea Handler recently earned the A-List Funny Award from Bravo, beating out Tina Fey, Conan O'Brien, Ricky Gervais, and Amy Poehler. Her late-night talk show Chelsea Lately is consistently the highest-rated program on E!, and her live stand-up comedy routines play to sold-out audiences nationwide. Called a “terrific comedian and a hilarious writer” by Jay Leno, Handler is also the author of the internationally bestselling book My Horizontal Life and the follow-up Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea, which debuted at no. 1 on the New York Times Best Sellers list. Her latest book Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang follows in their irreverent tradition, a collection of hilarious essays that reflect on both her personal life and her outrageous family life.

SIGNING ONLY

LOCATION TBA

Free Library Festival
Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

Festival events are free and open to the public. Seating begins 15 minutes prior to event start times. Seating is first come, first seated. Space is limited in some venues.  Authors will be on-hand to sign copies of their books after their events, unless noted. Books are sold on-site.

For more information about this event, please click here

For more information about the Free Library Festival, please click here

Houses are Fields

Taije Silverman

Taije Silverman’s poems have appeared in journals such as Poetry, Shenandoah, Ploughshares, Five Points, Massachusetts Review, and Prairie Schooner. She has won several first-place awards from the Academy of American Poets, held residencies from the MacDowell Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and was the 2005-2007 Emory University Creative Writing Fellow. Houses are Fields, a moving collection of elegies for her mother, is her first book of poetry.

Skyline Room

Free Library Festival
Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

Festival events are free and open to the public. Seating begins 15 minutes prior to event start times. Seating is first come, first seated. Space is limited in some venues.  Authors will be on-hand to sign copies of their books after their events, unless noted. Books are sold on-site.

For more information about this event, please click here 

For more information about the Free Library Festival, please click here

Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace

David Lipsky

One of the most talented authors of his generation, David Foster Wallace achieved international literary success with Infinite Jest, a darkly comic and sprawling novel that Time magazine included on its 100 Best English-Language Novels list. In his new book, David Lipsky recalls a five-day period he spent with Wallace during the last leg of the Infinite Jest tour.  He offers new insight into the troubled literary genius—relaying intimate conversations he had with Wallace about Wallace’s writing and interior life. Lipsky is a contributing editor to Rolling Stone magazine, with articles and short fiction appearing in the New Yorker, New York Times, New York Times Book Review, and Harper's. His nonfiction book Absolutely American: Four Years at West Point won the Time magazine Best Book of the Year Award.

Room 108 

Free Library Festival
Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

Festival events are free and open to the public. Seating begins 15 minutes prior to event start times. Seating is first come, first seated. Space is limited in some venues.  Authors will be on-hand to sign copies of their books after their events, unless noted. Books are sold on-site.

For more information about this event, please click here

For more information about the Free Library Festival, please click here

Last Looks, Last Book: Stevens, Plath, Lowell, Bishop, Merrill

Helen Vendler

The eminent critic Helen Vendler is the A. Kingsley Porter University Professor at Harvard University. She writes poetry reviews and articles for the New York Times Book Review and, from 1978-1990, served as poetry critic for the New Yorker. Her work includes studies of poets W.B. Yeats, George Herbert, Wallace Stevens, John Keats, William Shakespeare, and Seamus Heaney, as well as an award-winning collection of criticism, Part of Nature, Part of Us: Modern American Poets. In Last Looks, Last Book, Vendler examines the ways in which five great modern American poets—writing at the end of their lives—evolved new styles that attempt to do justice to life and death alike.

Skyline Room

Free Library Festival
Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

Festival events are free and open to the public. Seating begins 15 minutes prior to event start times. Seating is first come, first seated. Space is limited in some venues.  Authors will be on-hand to sign copies of their books after their events, unless noted. Books are sold on-site.

For more information about this event, please click here

For more information about the Free Library Festival, please click here

The 188th Crybaby Brigade: A Skinny Jewish Kid from Chicago Fights Hezbollah

Joel Chasnoff

Unsatisfied with his life upon graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, stand-up comedian Joel Chasnoff decided to follow his dream of giving back to Israel by joining the Israeli Defense Force.  What follows is both a hilarious and disturbing coming-of-age story, as he wages war against Hezbollah and bonds with the 18-year-old soldiers of the 188th Armored Brigade, mama’s boys who would do anything to avoid service. An inside look at one of the world’s most embattled armies, Anthony Swofford, author of Jarhead, says, “Chasnoff does for the IDF what Mailer did for the Pacific campaign and O'Brien for the war in Vietnam.” As a comedian, Chasnoff has opened for Jon Stewart and Lewis Black, done voice work for cartoons, and recently returned from a U.S.O. Comedy Tour of Japan and Korea, where he entertained American Marines.

Writers Salon: Room 108

Free Library Festival

Join us for the 4th annual Free Library Festival at the Parkway Central Library on Saturday and Sunday, April 17 & 18, 2010, from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The Festival weekend will be packed with free events for the whole family, including celebrity author appearances, live musical performances, and children’s authors and entertainment—plus a bustling Street Fair and Literary Marketplace showcasing what’s new in the publishing world.

The Joseph Fox Bookshop will be the official bookseller for all adult author events. Check back regularly for individual event listings.

For more information about the Free Library Festival, please click here

The End of the West

Michael Dickman

Michael and Matthew Dickman, twin brothers and poets from Portland, Oregon, have enjoyed a recent swift rise in the poetry world. Recently profiled in Poets & Writers and The New Yorker, both brothers have newly-published debut poetry collections. In her New Yorker profile, Rebecca Mead characterizes each: “Reading Michael is like stepping out of an overheated apartment building to be met, unexpectedly, by an exhilaratingly chill gust of wind; reading Matthew is like taking a deep, warm bath with a glass of wine balanced on the soap dish.” Michael Dickman is the recipient of the 2010 Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, and his debut collection, The End of the West, explores drug abuse and domestic violence in simple, spare language.

Poetry Salon: Skyline Room

Free Library Festival
Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

Festival events are free and open to the public. Seating begins 15 minutes prior to event start times. Seating is first come, first seated. Space is limited in some venues.  Authors will be on-hand to sign copies of their books after their events, unless noted. Books are sold on-site.

For more information about this event, please click here 

For more information about the Free Library Festival, please click here

Push

Sapphire

Sapphire is the author of two collections of poetry, American Dreams and Black Wings & Blind Angels, as well as the brutal, poignant novel, Push. In Push—the basis for the 2009 prize-winning film Precious—Precious Jones can find no way to make a better life for herself. Physically and emotionally abused by her mother, sexually abused by her father, overweight and illiterate, Precious is saved by an incredibly determined teacher who teaches her to read and shows her the power of telling her own story. The film adaptation won the 2009 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize as well as the Audience Award and was nominated for three 2010 Golden Globe Awards.

Main Stage

Free Library Festival
Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

Festival events are free and open to the public. Seating begins 15 minutes prior to event start times. Seating is first come, first seated. Space is limited in some venues.  Authors will be on-hand to sign copies of their books after their events, unless noted. Books are sold on-site.

For more information about this event, please click here

For more information about the Free Library Festival, please click here

IFLIFE

Bob Perelman

Bob Perelman is the associate chair of the Department of English at the University of Pennsylvania and a leading figure in the language poetry movement. His work includes two books of criticism that focus on modern poetry, The Trouble with Genius and The Marginalization of Poetry, and more than 15 poetry collections, among them Braille, Face Value, Ten to One, and Virtual Reality. He is described by a reviewer in Publishers Weekly as a “sort of poker-faced, technocratically versed Ginsberg.”

Skyline Room

Free Library Festival
Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

Festival events are free and open to the public. Seating begins 15 minutes prior to event start times. Seating is first come, first seated. Space is limited in some venues.  Authors will be on-hand to sign copies of their books after their events, unless noted. Books are sold on-site.

For more information about this event, please click here 

For more information about the Free Library Festival, please click here

Birdology: Adventures with a Pack of Hens, a Peck of Pigeons, Cantankerous Crows, Fierce Falcons, Hip Hop Parrots, Baby Hummingbirds, and One Murderously Big Living Dinosaur  

Sy Montgomery

Sy Montgomery is “part Indiana Jones and part Emily Dickinson” writes one Boston Globe reviewer. An author, scriptwriter, and radio commentator, Montgomery works to bring the plight of endangered animals to the attention of children and adults alike, traveling the globe to seek out new stories. Her award-winning books include The Good Good Pig, Journey of the Pink Dolphins, Spell of the Tiger, and Search for the Golden Moon Bear. In Birdology, Montgomery explores the natural history of birds, highlighting their unique abilities and little-known emotional capacities.

Writers Salon: Room 108

1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die: A Listener's Life List

Tom Moon

Tired of listening to the same old music? Check out Tom Moon’s 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die. A music critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer for nearly 20 years, Moon is a two-time recipient of the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Music Journalism Award and has contributed reviews to GQ, Rolling Stone, and National Public Radio's All Things Considered, among others. In this book, Moon uses his expert knowledge to direct listeners to exceptional recordings in genres ranging from classical to jazz, rock, pop, blues, country, folk, musicals, hip-hop, and more.

Writers Salon: Room 108

The Wisdom of Sam: Observations on Life from an Uncommon Child

Daniel Gottlieb

Psychologist Daniel Gottlieb hosts WHYY’s mental health radio call-in show Voices in the Family and wrote a highly regarded column for the Philadelphia Inquirer for 15 years. He is the author of two award-winning works: the self-improvement book Learning from the Heart and a collection of letters addressed to his autistic grandson, Letters to Sam. The Wisdom of Sam is a touching follow-up that shares the invaluable lessons his grandson has taught him about acceptance, compassion, and joy.

Main Stage: Montgomery Auditorium

Free Library Festival
Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

Festival events are free and open to the public. Seating begins 15 minutes prior to event start times. Seating is first come, first seated. Space is limited in some venues.  Authors will be on-hand to sign copies of their books after their events, unless noted. Books are sold on-site.

For more information about this event, please click here

For more information about the Free Library Festival, please click here

Why Translation Matters

Edith Grossman

Born in Philadelphia and a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Edith Grossman is now one of the most important American translators of current Spanish-language literature. In an award-winning career that has spanned nearly 40 years and more than 30 books, Grossman has translated the work of authors such as Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Mayra Montero, and Carlos Fuentes. Her nationally bestselling 2003 adaptation of Don Quixote was widely praised, with Carlos Fuentes himself calling it “truly masterly.” In her new book, Grossman argues the importance of translation as a way to intimately experience cultures and viewpoints other than your own. Critic Harold Bloom praises, “Edith Grossman, the Glenn Gould of translators, has written a superb book on the art of the literary translation…this should become a classic text.”

Skyline Room

Free Library Festival
Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

Festival events are free and open to the public. Seating begins 15 minutes prior to event start times. Seating is first come, first seated. Space is limited in some venues.  Authors will be on-hand to sign copies of their books after their events, unless noted. Books are sold on-site.

For more information about this event, please click here

For more information about the Free Library Festival, please click here

Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof; Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths

Roy Blount, Jr.

Admired for his off-center perceptions and sense of humor, multitalented Roy Blount, Jr. is a prolific author, performer, and broadcaster. A panelist on NPR’s Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me, Blount has also performed stories and verses on A Prairie Home Companion, and appears on the CBS Morning Show, Tonight Show, David Letterman Show, Good Morning America, Today Show, and Larry King. He has contributed to more than 166 publications, including Sports Illustrated, New Yorker, Atlantic, New York Times, Esquire, Playboy, Rolling Stone, and GQ. Blount is the author of more than 21 books on a wide range of subjects, from the first woman president of the United States to what barnyard animals are thinking—among his most notable titles are About Three Bricks Shy: And the Load Filled Up, Crackers, One Fell Soup, First Hubby, Feet on the Street, and Alphabet Juice. Blount also appeared in the Off-Broadway one-man show, Roy Blount's Happy Hour and a Half, and performs with the Rock Bottom Remainders.

Main Stage

Free Library Festival
Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

Festival events are free and open to the public. Seating begins 15 minutes prior to event start times. Seating is first come, first seated. Space is limited in some venues.  Authors will be on-hand to sign copies of their books after their events, unless noted. Books are sold on-site.

For more information about this event, please click here 

For more information about the Free Library Festival, please click here

Jesus , Jobs, and Justice: African Amaerican Women and Religion

Bettye Collier Thomas

The recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, Bettye Collier-Thomas is the director of the Temple University Center for African-American History and Culture and an important figure in the study of African American women’s history.  She formerly served as the founding Executive Director of the Bethune Memorial Museum, the nation’s first museum and archives for Black women's history. Her previous nonfiction books include Daughters of Thunder: Black Women Preachers and Their Sermons and Sisters in the Struggle: African-American Women in the Civil Rights–Black Power Movement. In her new book, which a New York Times reviewer calls “a revelation,” Collier-Thomas shows the important roles Black women played in developing African-American religion, politics, and culture.

Writers Salon: Room 108

Free Library Festival
Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

Festival events are free and open to the public. Seating begins 15 minutes prior to event start times. Seating is first come, first seated. Space is limited in some venues.  Authors will be on-hand to sign copies of their books after their events, unless noted. Books are sold on-site.

For more information about this event, please click here 

For more information about the Free Library Festival, please click here

Me, the Mob, and the Music: One Helluva with Tommy James & the Shondells

Tommy James

Legendary rock and roll artist Tommy James is the creator of dozens of memorable hit songs, including “I Think We’re Alone Now,” “Mony Mony,” “Crimson and Clover,” “Sweet Cherry Wine,” “Crystal Blue Persuasion,” and “Draggin’ the Line.” As the leader of Tommy James and the Shondells he has sold over 100 million records, has been awarded 23 gold singles, and nine gold and platinum albums. His songs regularly appear on television and film soundtracks, and they have been covered by many famous artists, including Joan Jett, Billy Idol, Tiffany, and Prince. His new book follows his lengthy career, from his start at age 12 in a small town in Michigan, to his work with Morris Levy—the infamous “godfather” of the music business—at Roulette Records. Val Kilmer praises “This book not only takes me into Tommy’s charmed and tragic personal life, but into the dark side of a music industry few have seen.”

Main Stage

Free Library Festival
Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

Festival events are free and open to the public. Seating begins 15 minutes prior to event start times. Seating is first come, first seated. Space is limited in some venues.  Authors will be on-hand to sign copies of their books after their events, unless noted. Books are sold on-site.

For more information about this event, please click here

For more information about the Free Library Festival, please click here

All the Whiskey in Heaven

Charles Bernstein

A professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of 40 books, poet Charles Bernstein has held fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He is co-founder of both the influential poetry journal L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, considered the leading outlet for the post-modern “language” school of poetry, and the Electronic Poetry Center at SUNY-Buffalo. All the Whiskey in Heaven brings together some of his best poetry from over the past 30 years.

Skyline Room

Free Library Festival
Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

Festival events are free and open to the public. Seating begins 15 minutes prior to event start times. Seating is first come, first seated. Space is limited in some venues.  Authors will be on-hand to sign copies of their books after their events, unless noted. Books are sold on-site.

For more information about this event, please click here 

For more information about the Free Library Festival, please click here

Human Dark with Sugar

Brenda Shaughnessy

Born in Okinawa, Japan, and raised in Southern California, Brenda Shaughnessy is the poetry editor of Tin House magazine and Tin House Books. Her acclaimed debut collection, Interior with Sudden Joy—“a heady, infectious celebration of the range and peculiarity of erotic life” (The New Yorker)—was a finalist for the Lambda Award. Her new collection, Human Dark with Sugar, won the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. “Human Dark with Sugar is both wonderfully inventive… and emotionally precise,” writes Matthea Harvey, a judge for the Laughlin Award. “Her ‘I’ is madly multidexterous—urgent, comic, mischievous—and the result is a new topography of the debates between heart and head.”

Skyline Room

Free Library Festival
Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

Festival events are free and open to the public. Seating begins 15 minutes prior to event start times. Seating is first come, first seated. Space is limited in some venues.  Authors will be on-hand to sign copies of their books after their events, unless noted. Books are sold on-site.

For more information about this event, please click here

For more information about the Free Library Festival, please click here

Scent of The Missing: Love and Partnership with a Search-and-Rescue-Dog

Susannah Charleson

Susannah Charleson’s Scent of the Missing explores the complex relationship she shares with her search-and-rescue (SAR) dog, a feisty golden retriever named Puzzle. It begins as they as they train to certify together as a canine SAR team, and follows them as they join the Metro Area Rescue K9 unit in Dallas, Texas, and track missing children, strayed Alzheimer’s patients, drowning victims, and pieces of the downed Columbia shuttle. Kirkus Reviews calls the book, “An inspiring collection of rescue tales ideal for dog lovers and armchair detectives.”

Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know

Alexandra Horowitz

Alexandra Horowitz holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive Science from the University of California and has spent years studying the cognition of humans, rhinoceroses, bonobos—and dogs. In her New York Times bestselling book, Inside of a Dog, she offers insight into the unique worldview of man’s best friend, by considering the world from a dog’s-eye view.

One Nation Under Dog: Adventures in the New World of Prozac-Popping Puppies, Dog-Park Politics, and Organic Pet Food

Did you know Americans spend more than $40 billion a year on their pets? A sympathetic insider—with a depressed St. Bernard to prove it—author Michael Schaffer reflects on modern dog life in One Nation Under Dog, covering everything from Chihuahua social networking, hypoallergenic-kitty breeders, leash-law political activists, chew-toy industrialists, pet-bereavement counselors, and more from every corner of our pet-crazed country. Jonathan Yardley in the Washington Post calls the book, “informative, entertaining, and sobering…As the man says in this terrific book, it’s not about the dogs, it’s about the people.”

Main Stage

Free Library Festival
Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

Festival events are free and open to the public. Seating begins 15 minutes prior to event start times. Seating is first come, first seated. Space is limited in some venues.  Authors will be on-hand to sign copies of their books after their events, unless noted. Books are sold on-site.

For more information about this event, please click here

For more information about the Free Library Festival, please click here

A Friend of the Family

Lauren Grodstein

Washington Post book reviewer Ron Charles, finds Lauren Grodstein’s new novel, A Friend of the Family, to be “such an incisive diagnosis of aspirational America that someone should hand out copies at Little League games and ballet recitals… Horrifyingly plausible and deeply poignant, [it] will leave you shaken and chastened – and grateful for the warning.” The book has received wide critical acclaim and was selected as a New York Times Editor’s Pick and a Washington Post Book of the Year. Grodstein is author of the highly praised novel Reproduction is the Flaw of Love, the short story collection The Best of Animals, and Girls Dinner Club, a young adult novel published pseudonymously.

Writers Salon: Room 108

Pearl of China: A Novel

Anchee Min

Praised for her lyrical writing and historical knowledge, Anchee Min is the author of the bestselling memoir Red Azalea. Growing up during the Cultural Revolution in China, Min spent time in a labor camp and was chosen for a lead role in a propagandist movie before the Mao communist regime collapsed. The New York Times Book Review said that Red Azalea, her account of that time, exists as "a powerful political as well as literary statement.” Min has since written five other works of historical fiction, among them Becoming Madame Mao and Empress Orchid. Her new novel is an intimate portrayal of Nobel Laureate Pearl S. Buck, exploring the fateful friendship between the writer and a young Chinese woman.

Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

This is a TICKETED event; $14 General Admission, $7 Students. Tickets on sale Friday, January 15 at 10:00 a.m. at freelibrary.org/authorevents or by phone at 1-800-595-4TIX (4849).

For more information, call 215.567.4341, or click here

Unhibited, Robust, and Wide-Open: A Free Press for a New Century

Lee Bollinger

Lee Bollinger, President of Columbia University, is one of the nation’s foremost experts on the First Amendment. In his new book, Uninhibited, Robust, and Wide-Open: A Free Press for a New Century, Bollinger explores the troubled history of a free press in America and looks toward the challenges ahead. The First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press in seemingly clear terms. However, over the course of American history, Bollinger notes, the idea of freedom of the press has evolved, in response to social, political, technological, and legal changes. It was not until the twentieth century that freedom of the press came to be understood as guaranteeing an “uninhibited, robust, and wide-open” public discourse. But even during the twentieth century, the government has tried to erect barriers: the sedition laws of WWI, the use of libel law, the Pentagon Papers case, and efforts to limit press access to information. Bollinger sheds light on this history and explores the meaning of freedom of the press in our globalized, internet-dominated era.  Bill Marimow, editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, moderates.

Annenberg Center for Outreach and Education

F.M. Kirby Auditorium 

National Constitution Center
Independence Mall, 525 Arch Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103

This is a TICKETED event; $9 for members, $15 for non-memebers, $7 for students & teachers, FREE for 1787 Society members. Reservations required. Please call 215.409.6700 or click here.

Everything but the Coffee: Learning About America from Starbucks

Bryant Simon

Bryant Simon’s new book, Everything but the Coffee, looks at Starbucks’ psychological, emotional, political, and sociological power to discover how the chain’s explosive success and rapid deflation reflect American culture today. Most importantly, it shows that Starbucks speaks to a deeply felt American need for predictability and class standing, community and authenticity, and reveals that Starbucks’ appeal lies not in the product it sells, but in the easily consumed identity it offers.

Appetite for America: How Visionary Businessman Fred Harvey Built a Railroad Hospitality Empire That Civilized the Wild West

Stephen Fried

A two-time winner of the National Magazine Award and a professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Stephen Fried is the author of Thing of Beauty, Bitter Pills, The New Rabbi, and Husbandry. In Appetite for America, he tells the story of entrepreneur Fred Harvey, founder of the renowned “Harvey House” hotels, restaurants, and bookstore chains that served patrons along the Santa Fe railroad well into the 1960’s and became a family empire whose marketing and business innovations are still used in chain stores and restaurants today.

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

Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes

Elizabeth Bard

In Paris for a weekend visit, Elizabeth Bard sat down to lunch with a handsome Frenchman--and never went home again. Was it love at first sight? Or was it the way her knife slid effortlessly through her pave au poivre, the steak's pink juices puddling into the buttery pepper sauce? Lunch in Paris is a memoir about a young American woman caught up in two passionate love affairs--one with her new beau, Gwendal, the other with French cuisine. Packing her bags for a new life in the world's most romantic city, Elizabeth is plunged into a world of bustling open-air markets, hipster bistros, and size 2 femmes fatales. She learns to gut her first fish (with a little help from Jane Austen), soothe pangs of homesickness (with the rise of a chocolate souffle) and develops a crush on her local butcher (who bears a striking resemblance to Matt Dillon). Elizabeth finds that the deeper she immerses herself in the world of French cuisine, the more Paris itself begins to translate. French culture, she discovers, is not unlike a well-ripened cheese-there may be a crusty exterior, until you cut through to the melting, piquant heart.

Peppered with mouth-watering recipes for summer ratatouille, swordfish tartare and molten chocolate cakes, Lunch in Paris is a story of falling in love, redefining success and discovering what it truly means to be at home.

Grange

Marketplace Design Center, #106

2400 Market Street

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19103

This is a FREE event, but reservations are required. Please RSVP by April 19th by calling 215.217.1367, or emailing marketing@grangeny.com

Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters

Louis Begley

In December 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a brilliant French artillery officer and a Jew of Alsatian descent, was court-martialed for selling secrets to the German military attaché in Paris based on perjured testimony and trumped-up evidence. The sentence was military degradation and life imprisonment on Devil’s Island, a hellhole off the coast of French Guiana. Five years later, the case was overturned, and eventually Dreyfus was completely exonerated. Meanwhile, the Dreyfus Affair tore France apart, pitting Dreyfusards—committed to restoring freedom and honor to an innocent man convicted of a crime committed by another—against nationalists, anti-Semites, and militarists who preferred having an innocent man rot to exposing the crimes committed by ministers of war and the army’s top brass in order to secure Dreyfus’s conviction.

Was the Dreyfus Affair merely another instance of the rise in France of a virulent form of anti-Semitism? In Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters, the acclaimed novelist draws upon his legal expertise to create a riveting account of the famously complex case, and to remind us of the interest each one of us has in the faithful execution of laws as the safeguard of our liberties and honor.

For more information, call 215-665-2300  or click here 

Ballistics

Billy Collins

Billy Collins served two terms as the Poet Laureate of the United States, from 2001 to 2003, and was selected as the New York State Poet from 2004 to 2006. One of America’s bestselling poets, Collins writes with a feel for the mystery of the everyday and is lauded as “a poet of plentitude, irony, and Augustan grace” (The New Yorker). His acclaimed books include Questions About Angels; The Art of Drowning; Picnic, Lightning; and Sailing Alone Around the Room. In Ballistics, Collins employs his trademark wit and comic insight as he considers the difficult topics of death and loneliness.

Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

This is a TICKETED event; $14 General Admission, $7 Students. Tickets on sale Friday, January 15 at 10:00 a.m. at freelibrary.org/authorevents or by phone at 1-800-595-4TIX (4849).

For more information, call 215.567.4341, or click here

The Rock Bottom Remainders

The Rock Bottom Remainders, a band of bestselling and award-winning authors, are playing a special benefit concert on Thursday, April 22nd at the Electric Factory.

Featuring a musical line-up including Amy Tan, Scott Turow, Mitch Albom, Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, Roy Blount, Jr., Greg Iles, James McBride, and Kathi Goldmark--plus some surprise guests!--the Rock Bottom Remainders will take to the stage during their first-ever stop in Philadelphia!

Since the band's inception in 1992, the Rock Bottom Remainders have generously donated proceeds to literary organizations, and this year, the Free Library will receive 100 percent of the ticket profits in Philadelphia. Merchandise sales and proceeds from an exciting auction, as well as profits from a special VIP reception with members of the band, will benefit the Free Library and its valuble programs, services, and resources.

General Admission Ticket Information

General admission tickets cost $35 and are available for purchase at ticketmaster.com. Doors open at 7:30PM, and the concert runs from 8:00PM to 9:30PM.

VIP Ticket Information

This rockin' evening includes an exclusive VIP reception at 6:30PM (doors at 6:15PM), where guests can mix and mingle with the band while enjoying appetizers by Stephen Starr Events and drinks from an open bar. All of the authors' latest works will be for sale during the reception, and guests may have their books signed by the band. These guests will also have access to the VIP area throughout the reception and the concert that follows. VIP Tickets are $150.00 and can be optained by calling Sabrina at 215.567.7710.

Electric Factory
421 N. Seventh St.
Philadelphia, PA 19123

 For more information about this special benefit concert,

 please click here

Philadelphia International Children's Festival

Shows for the young and young-at-heart! The 26th annual Philadelphia International Children's Festival at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts will be April 27th-May 1st. Enjoy a variety of family-friendly performances including a live-action musical version of The Little Engine That Could by Omaha Theater Company, a comical puppetry adaptation of The Man Who Planted Trees by Puppet State Theatre Company of Scotland, the explosive hip-hop and break-dance moves of STREET BEAT and a sing along musical journey through African American history with Linda Tillery & The Culteral Heritage Choir. In addition, famillies can participate in a host of fun and interactive activities for free in the FUN ZONE on the Outdoor Plaza including crafts, face painting, jugglers, musicians and more!

On Saturday, May 1st, join the Joseph Fox Bookshop and the actors from The Little Engine That Could for an autograph signing after the 1:00PM performance, and the actors from The Man Who Planted Trees for an autograph signing after the 2:30PM performance!

Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts

3680 Walnut Street

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19104

This is a TICKETED event; all tickets are $10 each, groups of ten or more, $8 each. For tickets, call 215.898.3900, group orders call 215.898.6789. For more information, please click here

Wait

and

On Whitman

C.K. Williams

A winner of the Pushcart Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Award, C.K. Williams has been called “one of the most distinguished poets of his generation,” by the Times Literary Supplement. He writes with harrowing psychological insight about war, death, and desire in his poems. His books include The Singing, which won the National Book Award; Repair, winner of a Pulitzer Prize; and Flesh and Blood, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Wait is his new collection of poems. In On Whitman, Williams examines why Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass remains so important both to the public and to himself. Former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky describes the book as “the exuberant, true book of a poet, of two poets: a personal, illuminating, and beautiful demonstration of the truest reading.”

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

Philadelphia International Children's Festival

Shows for the young and young-at-heart! The 26th annual Philadelphia International Children's Festival at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts will be April 27th-May 1st. Enjoy a variety of family-friendly performances including a live-action musical version of The Little Engine That Could by Omaha Theater Company, a comical puppetry adaptation of The Man Who Planted Trees by Puppet State Theatre Company of Scotland, the explosive hip-hop and break-dance moves of STREET BEAT and a sing along musical journey through African American history with Linda Tillery & The Culteral Heritage Choir. In addition, famillies can participate in a host of fun and interactive activities for free in the FUN ZONE on the Outdoor Plaza including crafts, face painting, jugglers, musicians and more!

On Saturday, May 1st, join the Joseph Fox Bookshop and the actors from The Little Engine That Could for an autograph signing after the 1:00PM performance, and the actors from The Man Who Planted Trees for an autograph signing after the 2:30PM performance!

Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts

3680 Walnut Street

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19104

This is a TICKETED event; all tickets are $10 each, groups of ten or more, $8 each. For tickets, call 215.898.3900, group orders call 215.898.6789. For more information, please click here

Philadelphia International Children's Festival

Shows for the young and young-at-heart! The 26th annual Philadelphia International Children's Festival at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts will be April 27th-May 1st. Enjoy a variety of family-friendly performances including a live-action musical version of The Little Engine That Could by Omaha Theater Company, a comical puppetry adaptation of The Man Who Planted Trees by Puppet State Theatre Company of Scotland, the explosive hip-hop and break-dance moves of STREET BEAT and a sing along musical journey through African American history with Linda Tillery & The Culteral Heritage Choir. In addition, famillies can participate in a host of fun and interactive activities for free in the FUN ZONE on the Outdoor Plaza including crafts, face painting, jugglers, musicians and more!

On Saturday, May 1st, join the Joseph Fox Bookshop and the actors from The Little Engine That Could for an autograph signing after the 1:00PM performance, and the actors from The Man Who Planted Trees for an autograph signing after the 2:30PM performance!

Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts

3680 Walnut Street

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19104

This is a TICKETED event; all tickets are $10 each, groups of ten or more, $8 each. For tickets, call 215.898.3900, group orders call 215.898.6789. For more information, please click here

Every Last One

Anna Quindlen

The no. 1 New York Times bestselling author Anna Quindlen has made her mark writing about families, relating domestic concerns to wider social issues. Quindlen earned earning the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for commentary for her New York Times column “Public and Private,” and she now writes the “My Turn” column for Newsweek. Her bestselling books include the novels Object Lessons and One True Thing, the collection Living Out Loud, and the bestseller A Short Guide to a Happy Life. Her new novel portrays a loving mother, her depressed son, and the explosive, violent consequences of what seem like inconsequential actions.

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 Enemies Become Friends: The Sources of Stable Peace

Charles Kupchan

Is the world destined to suffer endless cycles of conflict and war? Can rival nations become partners and establish a lasting and stable peace? How Enemies Become Friends provides an account of how nations escape geopolitical competition and replace hostility with friendship. Drawing on historical examples that span the globe range from the thirteenth century through the present, Kupchan explores how can transform enmity in amity - and he exposes prevalent myths about the causes of peace.

Dr. Kupchan is senior fellow for Europe studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), as well as professor of international affairs at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He was previously director for European affairs at the National Security Council (NSC) during the Clinton administration. Before joining the NSC, he worked in the U.S. Department of State on the policy planning staff. Prior to government service, he was an Assistant Professor of Politics at Princeton University. He is the author of multiple books and articles, including The End of the American Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-first Century (2002), Power in Transition: The Peaceful Change of the International Order (2001), Civic Engagement in the Atlantic Community (1999), and Atlantic Security: Contending Visions (1998).

 Foreign Policy Research Institute Library
1528 Walnut Street, Suite 610
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19102

This is a FREE event; however reservations are requested.

For more information, call 215-732-3774, email lux@fpri.org or click here 

Parrot and Olivier in America

Peter Carey

Peter Carey “has built a distinguished career out of offbeat, risk-taking novels,” writes Time magazine critic Paul Gray. He has won the prestigious Man Booker Prize twice, for his novel Oscar and Lucinda and for True History of the Kelly Gang, a fictionalized memoir of legendary Australian outlaw Ned Kelly. With inventiveness and humor, Carey’s new novel explores the unlikely friendship between a Frenchman and an Englishman working in early 19th-century America.

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

Philadelphia International Children's Festival

Shows for the young and young-at-heart! The 26th annual Philadelphia International Children's Festival at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts will be April 27th-May 1st. Enjoy a variety of family-friendly performances including a live-action musical version of The Little Engine That Could by Omaha Theater Company, a comical puppetry adaptation of The Man Who Planted Trees by Puppet State Theatre Company of Scotland, the explosive hip-hop and break-dance moves of STREET BEAT and a sing along musical journey through African American history with Linda Tillery & The Culteral Heritage Choir. In addition, famillies can participate in a host of fun and interactive activities for free in the FUN ZONE on the Outdoor Plaza including crafts, face painting, jugglers, musicians and more!

On Saturday, May 1st, join the Joseph Fox Bookshop and the actors from The Little Engine That Could for an autograph signing after the 1:00PM performance, and the actors from The Man Who Planted Trees for an autograph signing after the 2:30PM performance!

Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts

3680 Walnut Street

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19104

This is a TICKETED event; all tickets are $10 each, groups of ten or more, $8 each. For tickets, call 215.898.3900, group orders call 215.898.6789. For more information, please click here

Philadelphia International Children's Festival

Shows for the young and young-at-heart! The 26th annual Philadelphia International Children's Festival at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts will be April 27th-May 1st. Enjoy a variety of family-friendly performances including a live-action musical version of The Little Engine That Could by Omaha Theater Company, a comical puppetry adaptation of The Man Who Planted Trees by Puppet State Theatre Company of Scotland, the explosive hip-hop and break-dance moves of STREET BEAT and a sing along musical journey through African American history with Linda Tillery & The Culteral Heritage Choir. In addition, famillies can participate in a host of fun and interactive activities for free in the FUN ZONE on the Outdoor Plaza including crafts, face painting, jugglers, musicians and more!

On Saturday, May 1st, join the Joseph Fox Bookshop and the actors from The Little Engine That Could for an autograph signing after the 1:00PM performance, and the actors from The Man Who Planted Trees for an autograph signing after the 2:30PM performance!

Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts

3680 Walnut Street

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19104

This is a TICKETED event; all tickets are $10 each, groups of ten or more, $8 each. For tickets, call 215.898.3900, group orders call 215.898.6789. For more information, please click here

Living Beyond Breast Cancer

4th Annual Conference for Women Living with Advanced Breast Cancer: Enhancing Your Health and Quality of Life

Join Living Beyond Breast Cancer for a national conference focusing on the unique needs of women living with advance breast cancer. Leaders in breast cancer research and support will explore the medical, emotional, and practical concerns affecting this group of women.

Featuring

The Council of Dads: My Daughters, My Illness, and the Men Who Could Be Me

Bruce Feiler

Bestselling author Bruce Feiler was a young father when he was diagnosed with cancer. He instantly worried what his daughters' lives would be like without him. "Would they wonder who I was? Would they wonder what I thought? Would they yearn for my approval, my love, my voice?" Three days later he came up with a stirring idea of how he might give them that voice. He would reach out to six men from all the passages in his life, and ask them to be present in the passages in his daughters' lives. The Council of Dads is the inspiring story of what happened next. Feiler introduces the men in his Council and captures the life lesson he wants each to convey to his daughters. He mixes these with an intimate, highly personal chronicle of his experience battling cancer while raising young children, along with vivid portraits of his father, his two grandfathers, and various father figures in his life that explore the changing role of fathers in America.

Through Rose Colored Glasses

Donna Deegan

Donna Deegan is the evening anchor for First Coast News in Jacksonville, Florida. She will share her inspiring journey of thriving while managing breast cancer. After her initial diagnosis, Ms. Deegan established The Donna Foundation, which provides financial support to northern Florida women living with breast cancer. Deegan also founded 26.2 with Donna: The National Marathon to Fight Breast Cancer, the only marathon in the country that is dedicated exclusively to raising funds for breast cancer research and care.

Her first book, The Good Fight, chronicles her second bout with breast cancer and the on-line journal that she kept during that time. Deegan's second book, Through Rose Colored Glasses, gives hope to women living with the reality of breast cancer and inspires them to not let this reality damage their spirit and outlook on life.

Philadelphia Marriot West

111 Crawford Avenue

West Conshohocken, PA, 19428

For full conference information, including registration, please click here

Dreaming of Dior: Every Dress Tells a Story

Charlotte Smith

Charlotte Smith had already had more than her fair share of fabulous dresses and adventures. She lived life to the fullest in London, Paris and New York before falling in love with Australia and making it her home.Then she discovered that she had inherited a priceless vintage clothing collection from her American Quaker godmother, Doris Darnell.When the boxes started arriving, they were filled with more than three thousand pieces dating from 1790 to 1995, from Dior and Chanel originals to a dainty pioneer dress.But when she unearthed her godmother’s book of stories, the true value of what she had been given hit home. This wasn’t merely a collection of beautiful things; it was a collection of lives. Women’s lives. Tiny snapshots of our joys and disappointments, our entrances and exits, triumphant and tragic.This is a book for any woman who knows a dress can hold a lifetime of memories. 

The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Historic Landmark Building

118 North Broad Street

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 19102 

This is a TICKETED event; $50 Admission. Reservations are required; please contact the Alliance Francaise at 215.735.5283

Living Beyond Breast Cancer

4th Annual Conference for Women Living with Advanced Breast Cancer: Enhancing Your Health and Quality of Life

Join Living Beyond Breast Cancer for a national conference focusing on the unique needs of women living with advance breast cancer. Leaders in breast cancer research and support will explore the medical, emotional, and practical concerns affecting this group of women.

Featuring

The Council of Dads: My Daughters, My Illness, and the Men Who Could Be Me

Bruce Feiler

Bestselling author Bruce Feiler was a young father when he was diagnosed with cancer. He instantly worried what his daughters' lives would be like without him. "Would they wonder who I was? Would they wonder what I thought? Would they yearn for my approval, my love, my voice?" Three days later he came up with a stirring idea of how he might give them that voice. He would reach out to six men from all the passages in his life, and ask them to be present in the passages in his daughters' lives. The Council of Dads is the inspiring story of what happened next. Feiler introduces the men in his Council and captures the life lesson he wants each to convey to his daughters. He mixes these with an intimate, highly personal chronicle of his experience battling cancer while raising young children, along with vivid portraits of his father, his two grandfathers, and various father figures in his life that explore the changing role of fathers in America.

Through Rose Colored Glasses

Donna Deegan

Donna Deegan is the evening anchor for First Coast News in Jacksonville, Florida. She will share her inspiring journey of thriving while managing breast cancer. After her initial diagnosis, Ms. Deegan established The Donna Foundation, which provides financial support to northern Florida women living with breast cancer. Deegan also founded 26.2 with Donna: The National Marathon to Fight Breast Cancer, the only marathon in the country that is dedicated exclusively to raising funds for breast cancer research and care.

Her first book, The Good Fight, chronicles her second bout with breast cancer and the on-line journal that she kept during that time. Deegan's second book, Through Rose Colored Glasses, gives hope to women living with the reality of breast cancer and inspires them to not let this reality damage their spirit and outlook on life.

Philadelphia Marriot West

111 Crawford Avenue

West Conshohocken, PA, 19428

For full conference information, including registration, please click here

We Don't Know We Don't Know

Nick Lantz

Nick Lantz is a former Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.  Called a startling new voice, he is author of We Don’t Know We Don’t Know, winner of the Breadloaf Writers’ Conference Bakeless Prize and Winner of the 2008 Katharine Bakeless Nason Prize for Poetry.

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

Farrow & Ball: The Art of Color

Barry Dixon Interiors

Brian Coleman

Inspiration is the beginning of any good design, establishing a particular ambience and appeal. Brian Coleman, author of Farrow & Ball®: The Art of Color and Barry Dixon Interiors, and nationally recognized designer Barry Dixon take us on a tour of homes Barry has designed, from an urban loft in New York to an idyllic mountain villa in the Caribbean, giving us perspective and inspiring design tips and advice.

Marketplace Design Center 
Grand Hall, Fourth Floor
2400 Market Street
Philadelphia, PA

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

For more information, call 215.561.5000 or click here

Isabel Allende

Island Beneath the Sea: A Novel

Isabel Allende takes traditional Latin-American magical realism and bends it to her own purposes to weave beguiling historic, political, and feminist narratives. Her first international bestseller was The House of the Spirits, which was adapted into the eponymous film starring Meryl Streep. She is the author of several other popular novels, including Daughter of Fortune (a 2000 Oprah Book Club selection), Zorro, and Portrait in Sepia. She has also written a collection of stories, three memoirs, and a trilogy of young adult novels. Her books have been translated into more than 27 languages and are bestsellers across four continents. Her new novel tells of Tété, a slave and concubine, and her struggle for independence.

Central Library
1901 Vine St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103

This is a TICKETED event; $14 General Admission, $7 Students. Tickets on sale Friday, January 15 at 10:00 a.m. at freelibrary.org/authorevents or by phone at 1-800-595-4TIX (4849).

For more information, call 215.567.4341, or click here

Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution

Richard Beeman

In May 1787, in an atmosphere of crisis, delegates met in Philadelphia to design a radically new form of government. Distinguished historian Richard Beeman captures as never before the dynamic of the debate and the characters of the men who labored that historic summer. Virtually all of the issues in dispute-the extent of presidential power, the nature of federalism, and, most explosive of all, the role of slavery-have continued to provoke conflict throughout our nation's history. This unprecedented book takes readers behind the scenes to show how the world's most enduring constitution was forged through conflict, compromise, and fragile consensus. As Gouverneur Morris, delegate of Pennsylvania, noted: "While some have boasted it as a work from Heaven, others have given it a less righteous origin. I have many reasons to believe that it is the work of plain, honest men."

Athenaeum of Philadelphia
219 S. 6th Street
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106

This is a FREE event, but reservations are required; please contact Susan Gallo at 215-925-2688 or sgallo@philaathenaeum.org For more information, please click here

The Living Constitution

David A. Strauss

Guns and Violence: The English Experience

Joyce Lee Malcolm

Join the National Constitution Center for a conversation with Joyce Lee Malcolm and David A. Strauss about one of the most important and controversial case before the Supreme Court this term: the Chicago gun-rights case. At issue in McDonald v. Chicago is whether the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental constitutional privilege - like freedom of speech, press and religion - that can be invoked by individuals against the actions of state and federal government. As the briefs start coming to the Court for the case, a battle is brewing over the so-called "incorporation doctrine" which has applied most, but not all, guarantees of the federal Bill of Rights to state and local governments.

Annenberg Center for Education and Outreach
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

Dead in the Family: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel

Charlaine Harris

Dead in the Family is book 10 of Charlaine Harris’s no. 1 New York Times bestselling Sookie Stackhouse series. The basis for the hit HBO series True Blood, the novels follow telepathic barmaid Sookie Stackhouse as she navigates a southern Louisiana world full of vampires, werewolves, shape shifters, and fairies. The books have garnered an Agatha Award nomination and an Anthony Award for best paperback original; the television series has won Golden Globe, People’s Choice, and Emmy awards. Harris is the author of three more mystery series (Aurora Teagarden, Lily Bard, and Harper Connelly), as well as the stand-alone mysteries, Sweet and Deadly and A Secret Rage.

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

Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Iquiry into the Value of Work

Matthew B. Crawford

In Shop Class as Soul Craft, Matthew B. Crawford—a mechanic with a Ph.D. in political philosophy from the University of Chicago—examines the pretentions of the high-prestige workplace and, he writes, “advances a nestled set of arguments on behalf of work that is meaningful because it is genuinely useful. It also explores what we might call the ethics of maintenance and repair.” Francis Fukuyama, in his New York Times review, called Shop Class as Soul Craft “a beautiful little book about human excellence and the way it is undervalued in contemporary America.” As jobs become increasingly abstract, Crawford offers a moving reflection on why and how to live more meaningfully in the world.

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

White Cat (The Curse Workers, Book One)

Holly Black

City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, Book Three)

Cassandra Clare

White Cat is the first of the Curse Workers books, the highly-anticipated new fantasy series from Holly Black. Black isthe New York Times bestselling author of The Spiderwick Chronicles, basis for the successful eponymous feature film. With White Cat, Black leaves behind tales of old-world faerie mischief for a modern-day dark fantasy caper complete with con artists, criminal curses, family intrigue, and romance. Black’s first book, Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale, was included in the American Library Association’s Best Books for Young Adults; her other young adult novels include Valiant and Ironside, winner of the Andre Norton Award for excellence in young adult literature. 

Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series has a fan in Twilight author Stephenie Meyer, who writes, “The Mortal Instruments series is a story world that I love to live in… if it has to end, then City of Glass is the most perfect way for that to happen. Beautiful!” Beginning with City of Bones and City of Ashes—both New York Times bestsellers—this dark, urban fantasy tells the story of Clary Fray, a teenage girl who becomes entangled with Shadowhunters—a race of powerful, demon-destroying warriors—and the quest to find the “mortal instruments” that can control them. Clare’s next book, Clockwork Angel, is due to be released in September 2010.

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

Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America

Jack Rakove

On the release of his newest book, Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America, Pulitzer Prize-winner Jack Rakove joins the National Constitution Center to discuss how the country came to be and why the idea of America endures. Richard Beeman moderates.

Rakove tells the stories of the founders before they were fully formed leaders, as individuals whose lives were radically altered by the explosive events of the mid-1770s. They were ordinary men who became extraordinary. Spanning the two crucial decades of the country's birth, from 1773 to 1792, Rakove uses little-known stories of these famous (and not so famous) men to capture--in a way no single biography ever could--the intensely creative period of the republic's founding. From the Boston Tea Party to the First Continental Congress, from Trenton to Valley Forge, from the ratification of the Constitution to the disputes that led to our two-party system, he explores the competing views of politics, war, diplomacy, and society that shaped our nation.

Annenberg Center for Education and Outreach
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 

Ask Arthur Frommer: And Travel Better, Cheaper, Smarter

Arthur Frommer

Fifty years ago, only the rich vacationed in Europe. Then along came the guidebook Europe on $5 a Day. Traveling was changed forever! Travel writing legend Arthur Frommer continues to inform the world with books, blogs, articles, and interviews. His latest book, Ask Arthur Frommer: And Travel Better, Cheaper, Smarter is an indispensible addition to anyone's travel library with savvy advice on everything from internet tools to exposing the myths of modern travel.

His daughter carries on the family tradition in 14 of her own award-winning Pauline Fommer Guides with more tips on how to Spend Less, See More...in Paris, New York, London, Costa Rica, and more destinations worldwide.

The Geographical Society welcomes this unique father/daughter team for an evening of outspoken and entertaining commentary on travel.

Hyatt Regency Philadelphia at Penn's Landing
201 South Columbus Boulevard
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19106 

This is a TICKETED event; $25 for program only, $90 for program & dinner. Reservations are required. Please RSVP by May 1st. 

For more information, call 610.649.5220, or click here

Beat Cop to Top Cop: A Tale of Three Cities

John F. Timoney

Named “America’s Top Cop” by Esquire magazine, John F. Timoney has served as First Deputy Commissioner for the New York Police Department, Police Commissioner for the City of Philadelphia, and Chief of Police for the City of Miami. An immigrant from Dublin, Ireland, Timoney joined the New York Police Department, serving as a Narcotics Specialist in the South Bronx and rising to become the youngest four-star chief in the history of the NYPD. At the NYPD, he helped develop CompStat, a crime analysis and police management process, which he also implemented in Philadelphia to great success—crime decreased in all categories, especially homicide. Beat Cop to Top Cop is a riveting ride through Timoney’s career and offers advice on how police departments can make lower crime rates last.

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 Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of Little Bighorn

Nathaniel Philbrick

The author of modern and authoritative historical narratives, New York Times bestselling author Nathaniel Philbrick won the National Book Award in 2000 for In the Heart of the Sea, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Mayflower in 2007, and won the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Revenge of the Whale. In The Last Stand, Philbrick evokes the history, geography, and haunting beauty of the Great Plains and tells one of the most iconic and misunderstood stories of the American West.

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

 Crime Does Pay

A Special Panel Discussion

featuring

William Lashner, Merry Jones, George Anastasia, Gerald Kolpan,  and Jonathan Levitan with moderator Codelia Frances Biddle

Join local authors William Lashner, Merry Jones, George Anastasia, Gerald Kolpan, Jonathan Levitan, and moderator Cordelia Frances Biddle for a lively discussion of the art of mystery and suspense writing.  Whether the genre is historical, thriller, traditional, or true crime with plots ripped out of the daily headlines, these experts will reveal their fascination with all things dangerous and sinister.

Athenaeum of Philadelphia
219 S. 6th Street
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106

This is a FREE event, but reservations are required; please contact Susan Gallo at 215-925-2688 or sgallo@philaathenaeum.org For more information, please click here

One Hundred Great French Books: From the Middle Ages to the Present

Lance Donaldson-Evans

One Hundred Great French Books invites readers to discover - or rediscover - some of the major achievements of French culture and civilization. Concise, provocative, and entertaining, it features one hundred timeless masterworks across ten centuries of writing in French. Many of the famous classics of French literature are presented, along with political, philosophical, and devotional texts, and detective novels and science fiction. Each of the chronologically arranged entries introduces one book in its historic, cultural, and social context, provides key information about the author, and gives a clear and focused summary of its content. Included are books by writers from metropolitan France as well as by francophone authors from Canada, the Caribbean, Africa, Belgium, and Switzerland. One Hundred Great French Books offers a rich, varied, and multicultural panorama of one of the most beloved and inpiring literatures in the world.

Lance Donaldson-Evans is Professor of Romance Languages at the University of Pennsylvania, where he has taught courses on all periods of French literature and culture for some forty years. In 2008, the French government awarded him the rank of Chevalier in the Ordre des Palmes Academiques for his services in helping spread French literature and culture.

 Ethical Society of Philadelphia
1906 S. Rittenhouse Square
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19103 

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

For more information, call 215.735.5283, or click here