Recorded events September-December 2021 are now available on our website and YouTube channel! Fiction, history, New York City, memoir, comedy, and more. Find our whole collection of event recordings (over a decade's worth!) on our Event Recordings page.

Hilma Wolitzer, Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket: Stories, in conversation with with Meg Wolitzer
September 9
The Boston Globe has called Hilma Wolitzer an "American literary treasure." Here she discusses her new volume of uncannily relevant, deliciously clear-eyed collected stories with beloved novelist Meg Wolitzer.

Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray, The Personal Librarian: A Novel
September 23
A remarkable novel about J. P. Morgan’s personal librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, the Black American woman who was forced to hide her true identity and pass as white in order to leave a lasting legacy that enriched our nation, from New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict and acclaimed author Victoria Christopher Murray. 

Dantiel W. Moniz, Milk Blood Heat, and Deesha Philyaw, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
September 28
A one-of-a-kind conversation between rising star fiction writers Deesha Philyaw (2020 Pen/Faulkner Award winner) and Dantiel W. Moniz (“a gorgeous debut” - Lauren Groff).

Farah Jasmine Griffin, Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature
September 30
The brilliant scholar who served as guest curator for the Library's Black Literature Matters exhibition imparts the lessons bequeathed by the Black community and its remarkable artists and thinkers.

Thomas Dyja, New York, New York, New York: Four Decades of Success, Excess, and Transformation
October 7
New York’s terrifying, if liberating, state of nature in 1978 also made it the capital of American culture. Over the next thirty-plus years, though, it became a different place. Thomas Dyja’s critically acclaimed account shows how this metamorphosis was, in large part, the story of New Yorkers from the poorest outsiders to the Masters of the Universe.

Joseph J. Ellis, The Cause: The American Revolution and its Discontents, 1773-1783
October 18
A culminating work on the American Founding by one of its leading historians, The Cause rethinks the American Revolution as we have known it.

Cynthia Saltzman, Plunder: Napoleon's Theft of Veronese's Feast, with Xavier F. Salomon
October 25
A captivating study of Napoleon’s plundering of Europe’s art for the Louvre, told through the story of a Renaissance masterpiece seized from Venice. Author Cynthia Saltzman talks about the history and the art with Xavier F. Salomon, The Frick Collection Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator. A noted Veronese scholar, Salomon curated the 2014 exhibition on the artist at London's National Gallery.

Uptown at Night: An Evening of Comedy and Humorous Storytelling
November 4
Uptown at Night returns to the Members’ Room with a vibrant lineup of humorous storytellers and comedians including Joan Juliet Buck, Sloane Crosley, Patty Kiernan, Tom Perrotta, and James Harvey on keyboard. Sydney LeBlanc hosts.

Anne E. Fernald and Roxana Robinson, The World of Virginia Woolf
November 9
In this one-of-a-kind event, two scholars passionate about Woolf discuss her life and her place in literature.

Susan Nagel, Patriotism and Profit: Washington, Hamilton, Schuyler & the Rivalry for America's Capital City
November 18
The untold story of how America’s beloved first president, George Washington, borrowed, leveraged, and coerced his way into masterminding the key land purchase of the American era, which led to the creation of the nation’s capital city.

Barbara Ascher, Ghosting: A Widow's Voyage Out and Peter Duchin, Face the Music: A Memoir, moderated by Linda Donn
December 1
In this unique event, author and journalist Barbara Ascher and celebrated bandleader Peter Duchin share memoirs reflecting on love, family, grief, and what comes after the life one expected.

Ronald Koury and special guests, Places Lost and Found: Travel Essays from the Hudson Review
December 9
Ronald Koury and writers from The Hudson Review celebrate a treasury of unique and wide-ranging contributions, all establishing a sense of place, its history and significance.