Our Events

Building a readership online can seem daunting. In this special event, fiction and nonfiction authors come together with two publishing marketers to help demystify this challenge. This panel of seasoned experts share their failures and successes, how they’ve gone about developing a loyal reader base by engaging inventively using the various social media platforms, and what they’ve learned from readers that has informed their work. They will address Who to target - from readers to librarians to bookstores and more - What to do to stand out in a crowded marketplace - Where to participate, helping identify appropriate platforms and maximize the experience there - and When to engage, from pre-book launch to back list visibility. The panelists are Mateo Askaripour, Jessica Lahey, Claire McKinney, Hannah Orenstein, and Miral Sattar, with moderator Jane Murphy and Authors Guild Ambassador Diana Altman.

Join us for a tour and treasure hunt at the Upper East Side studio where Mr. Quackenbush made his art and taught generations of aspiring young artists.

The Library is pleased to partner with the National Willa Cather Center to commemorate Willa Cather’s 150th birthday. The celebration will include short readings from Cather’s fiction and letters and will also include a reading of Truman Capote’s unfinished reminiscence of his chance meeting with Willa Cather at the New York Society Library in 1942. Light refreshments will be served.

“Never say you know the last word about any human heart.” That’s one of the great sentences of this great writer, Henry James (1843-1916). In this seminar – which welcomes both experienced readers of James and novices – we discover many more.

Two of America’s master essayists, Roger Rosenblatt and Lance Morrow, discuss the art of the essay and the state of American journalism, then and now, with Jim Kelly, former managing editor of TIME.

Robert Rubin, former secretary of the Treasury and co-chairman of Goldman Sachs, shares thoughts on decision-making developed over more than six decades in markets, business, government, and politics, and offers readers an astute and original guide for navigating uncertain times.

Drop by to see our cheery family-friendly exhibition and chat with the expert. You can catch Margery Quackenbush on three select Saturdays answering your questions about Robert Quackenbush and his art in the gallery.

Magda Szabó (1917-2007) is the most famous and most translated Hungarian novelist. This seminar discusses three of her best-known novels spanning 1963 to 1987.

A tender biography of one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century and an elegant exploration of artistic endurance, as told by a lifelong lover of Willa Cather’s work.