Past Events
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Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - 6:30 PM | Lecture | Members' Room | open to the public | $15 per person | registration requiredIn this fresh, authoritative version―the first English translation of The Odyssey by a woman―this stirring tale of shipwrecks, monsters, and magic comes alive in an entirely new way. Written in iambic pentameter verse and a vivid, contemporary idiom, this engrossing translation matches the number of lines in the Greek original, thus striding at Homer’s sprightly pace and singing with a voice that echoes Homer’s music. An Oxford University graduate, Emily Wilson is a Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
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Tuesday, November 13, 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.
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Thursday, November 8, 2018 - 5:00 PM | Children | Members' Room | open to the public | kindergarten-grade 5 | $10 per person, payable at the door | registration requiredBring your heart and imagination with you to meet award-winning author and illustrator Peter Sís. He will describe his unique art techniques and share his newest book, Robinson.Event Recording
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Tuesday, November 6, 2018 - 6:00 PM | The Writing Life | Whitridge Room | for members only | $60 for the set of four sessions | registration requiredWhen the imagination is on fire and you’re writing up a storm, it’s great. When it becomes a slog, your efforts mired in resistance, what can you do? Stock your toolkit with 25 specific tools for writing with less struggle and more pleasure. C.S. Hanson is an award-winning playwright with Off-Broadway and regional credits.
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Thursday, November 1, 2018 - 6:30 PM | Lecture | Members' Room | open to the public | $15 per person | registration requiredA startling and eye-opening look into America’s First Family, and a National Book Award finalist, Never Caught is the powerful narrative of Ona Judge, George and Martha Washington’s runaway slave who risked everything to escape the nation’s capital and reach freedom.
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Tuesday, October 30, 2018 - 6:30 PM | Lecture | Members' Room | open to the public | $15 per person | registration requiredFrom the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning poet: an extraordinary memoir and blistering meditation on fatherhood, race, addiction, and ambition.
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Wednesday, October 24, 2018 - 5:00 PM | Children | Whitridge Room | for members and guests | grades 3-8 | $15 per person, payable at the door | registration requiredCartoonist Sara Varon leads a discussion and works with young writers and artists to explore the possibilities of cartooning.
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Tuesday, October 23, 2018 - 6:30 PM | Lecture | Members' Room | open to the public | $15 per person | registration requiredActor/director/composer Tina Chen recounts the fascinating story of three generations of her mother’s family and their roles in the history of China.
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Thursday, October 18, 2018 - 6:00 PM | The Writing Life | Members' Room | open to the public | $15 per person | registration requiredLibrary members read from their own short stories, novels, poetry, criticism, memoir, and plays. Refreshments and wine are served.
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Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - 6:30 PM | Lecture | Members' Room | open to the public | $15 per person | registration requiredJane Sherron de Hart brings us the first full life—private, public, legal, philosophical—of the 107th Supreme Court justice, one of the most profoundly transformative minds of our time; a book fifteen years in the making, written with the cooperation of Ruth Bader Ginsburg herself and based on many interviews with the justice, her husband, her children, her friends, and her associates.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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