A look at how members use the Library's print collection.
Past Events
-
Sunday, October 14, 2018 - 2:30 PM | Reading Group | Whitridge Room | for members only | by donation; registration requiredEducator Blanche Siegal leads informal discussions of the beloved Victorian author Anthony Trollope and other master writers of the same century. This popular group is now in its eighth season.
-
Thursday, October 11, 2018 - 6:00 PM | The Writing Life | Members' Room | open to the public | $20 per person | registration required
Uptown at Night returns to the Members’ Room with a vibrant new lineup of humorous storytellers and comedians: Meghan Daum, C.S. Hanson, Micah Stratton, Henry Alford, Karen Chee, and Martin Dockery.
Event Recording -
Wednesday, October 10, 2018 - 11:00 AM | Reading Group | Whitridge Room | for members only | $50 for the set of three sessionsRobertson Davies’s Deptford Trilogy is one of the great achievements of Canadian fiction and one of the crucial works that made Canada visible worldwide in literary terms. Popular seminar leader Nicholas Birns guides reading and discussion through this beloved work.
-
Tuesday, October 9, 2018 - 10:00 AM | The Writing Life | Whitridge Room | for members only | free of charge | registration required for each session separatelyJoin certified genealogists and repository personnel for three sessions of insights into methods to navigate the vast, complex, and exciting path to your family history. This workshop takes place over three Tuesdays: October 9, November 13, and December 11. Attend any or all sessions.
-
Tuesday, October 2, 2018 - 6:30 PM | Special Event | Members' Room | open to the public | $15 per person | registration requiredMemoirists Susan Buckley, Dawn Drzal, and Giulia Melucci discuss food as personal history, consolation, metaphor, and organizing principle, based on their recent books.
Event Recording -
Saturday, September 29, 2018 - 2:00 PM | Special Event | Whitridge Room | open to the public | free of charge | registration requiredThe Primary Stages Off-Broadway Oral History Project has been digitally recording the stories of off-Broadway through the eyes of the people who pioneered it. Casey Childs, Founder of Primary Stages, and Sally Plass, the project’s director, discuss it and the great artists and works of Off-Broadway.
-
Friday, September 28, 2018 - 6:30 PM | Special Event | Members' Room | open to the public | free of charge | registration requiredA lighthearted evening of music and more from the era that brought us the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, celebrating (Head of Events) Sara Holliday's new novel A Thousand Dances.
Event Recording -
Wednesday, September 26, 2018 - 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM | Reading Group | Whitridge Room | for members only | free of charge | no registration requiredAttend a lecture, read the book, then join other event-going members for informal discussion, book-club style.
-
Tuesday, September 25, 2018 - 6:30 PM | Special Event | Members' Room | open to the public | $15 per person | registration requiredIn this new occasional series, writers and patrons interested in the publishing world are invited to an insightful discussion with one of its stars. Jonathan Galassi has served as publisher at Farrar, Straus & Giroux since 1986 and president since 2002.
Event Recording -
Thursday, September 20, 2018 - 5:30 PM | Special Event | Members' Room/Peluso Family Exhibition Gallery | for members and guests | no registration requiredJoin us for a festive gathering with wine, light refreshments, and a first look at our new short-term exhibition On the Town: Favorite New York City Books.
-
Thursday, September 20, 2018 - 11:30 AM | Reading Group | Whitridge Room | for members only | $60 for the set of four sessionsFrom his lifetime until ours, Euripides caused controversy. He does not give his audience, in his own time or ours, the expected, and the result can shock. This representative set of four plays echoes the structure (three tragedies and a comedy) of an Athenian competition. This session covers Euripides’ The Bacchae.
-
Saturday, September 15, 2018 - 2:00 PM | Special Event | Whitridge Room | open to the public | free of charge | registration requiredAddress issues affecting you within your community, in the nation, or across the globe in this 2½-hour poster-making workshop with author/activist Donna Kaz of Guerrilla Girls/Guerrilla Girls On Tour.
-
Thursday, September 13, 2018 - 12:00 PM | Reading Group | Whitridge Room | for members only | $75 for the set of five sessions | registration requiredThe quintessential French philosophe cultivated an English literary circle including John Gay, Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. This seminar will attempt to give readers a sense of the work of these five writers and an understanding of the way their thoughts and their words reflect—or dissent from—the contemporary culture of France and of England.
-
Wednesday, September 12, 2018 - 6:30 PM | Lecture | Members' Room | open to the public | $15 per person | registration requiredIn the first edition of this visionary book, Maggie Jackson sounded a prescient warning of a looming crisis: the fragmentation of attention that is eroding our abilities to problem-solve, innovate, and care for one another. Now she offers both a renewed wake-up call and a path forward as we reckon with one of the most pressing problems of our time.
Event Recording -
Tuesday, July 10, 2018 - 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM | Special Event | Whitridge Room | for members only | free of charge | no registration required
If you’d like to join a book club, meet like-minded readers at this informal open house. The Library provides wine and suggestions, and you and your new group do the rest.
-
Wednesday, June 13, 2018 - 6:30 PM | Lecture | Open to the Public | Members' Room | $15 per person | Advance registration requiredThe revered New York Times bestselling author traces the development of technology from the Industrial Age to the Digital Age to explore the single component crucial to advancement—precision—in a superb history that is both an homage and a warning for our future.
Event Recording -
Thursday, June 7, 2018 - 2:00 PM | Special Event | Open to the public | Whitridge Room | free of charge | advance registration requiredAfter a recent visit, Library staff members Harriet Shapiro and Cathy McGowan present a talk with images and music about Red Cloud, Nebraska, the prairie town where Willa Cather grew up.
-
Sunday, June 3, 2018 - 3:00 PM | Performance | Open to the public | Members' Room | $25 per person | advance registration requiredEven if you’re not aware of it, you know Johnny Mercer. His more than 1,400 songs for radio, records, motion pictures and Broadway include “Laura,” “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “Accentuate the Positive,” and “Moon River.” He was both a top radio personality and recording artist himself and was the co-founder and President of Capitol Records. Johnny Mercer’s poetic genius continues to reflect the romantic yearnings, the wit, the energy, and the personality that is our America dream. Return to a golden age of American songwriting with host Michael Lasser and musicians Cindy Miller (vocals) and Alan Jones (piano and vocals).
-
Thursday, May 31, 2018 - 6:00 PM | Special Event | Open to the public | Members' Room | Free of charge; advance registration requiredIn our occasional series, experts on a current-events topic bring their knowledge to an informal presentation and discussion with readers who want to get beyond the headlines. Join us for a special live recording of the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research’s Podcast for Social Research, as three experts on Middle Eastern culture, history, and politics consider the relationship between religion and mass politics in the modern age.
Event Recording -
Wednesday, May 30, 2018 - 6:30 PM | Lecture | Open to the public | Members' Room | $15 per person | advance registration requiredThe Yale professor and author of The Protestant Ethic Revisited gives us an authoritative account of the long battle between exclusionary and inclusive versions of the American story.
-
Wednesday, May 23, 2018 - 6:30 PM | Lecture | Open to the Public | Members' Room | $15 per person | Advance registration requiredFrom the author of the acclaimed Queen of Fashion – a brilliant look at the glittering world of turn-of-the-century Paris through the first in-depth study of the three women Proust used to create his supreme fictional character, the Duchesse de Guermantes.
-
Monday, May 21, 2018 - 6:00 PM | Special Event | For members and guests | Members' Room | free of charge | advance registration requiredThe Young Writers Awards honor excellent writing by young Library members. Award winners and participants are honored at a ceremony and reception, with writing advice and inspiration from the author judges.
-
Thursday, May 17, 2018 - 6:30 PM | Lecture | Open to the public | Members' Room | $15 per person | Advance registration requiredThe story of how one woman's long love affair with New York's Central Park led her to organize its rescue from a state of serious decline, returning it to the beautiful place of recreational opportunity and spiritual sustenance that it is today.
Event Recording -
Wednesday, May 9, 2018 - 6:30 PM | Special Event | Open to the public | Members' Room | free of charge | advance registration requiredClimate change is already happening. Authors Amitav Ghosh and Helen Phillips talk with photographer and filmmaker Nathan Kensinger about the role novelists and artists play in helping others to better imagine its effects.
Event Recording -
Tuesday, May 1, 2018 - 6:00 PM | Reception | For members and guests | Members' Room | reception at 6:00 PM, presentation at 6:30 PM | free of charge | advance registration requiredThe New York City Book Awards, founded in 1996, honor each year’s best books about the city. This annual ceremony honors the winning authors and publishers.
Event Recording
