http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?type=2 Upcoming Events at the Free Library of Philadelphia! en-us Copyright 2009 Free Library of Philadelphia 11/21/2009 http://libwww.freelibrary.org/images/rss/flplogo.gif http://libwww.freelibrary.org/rss/ 34 19 <p>An American filmmaker who revolutionized the documentary film genre, Ken Burns is the award-winning creator of the documentary series Baseball, Jazz, and Unforgivable Blackness. His landmark film, The Civil War, was the highest-rated series in public television history, boasting an audience of 40 million viewers when it first aired and going on to win more than 40 prizes, including two Emmy and two Grammy awards. Airing this fall on public television, Burns's new work, The National Parks: America's Best Idea, tells the story of the creation and evolution of the National Parks System using archival photographs, first-person accounts, and some of the most breathtaking new images of our national parks ever captured on film. In his review of the companion book to the series, historian Joseph J. Ellis writes, "the book permits the eye and mind to linger over the truly breathtaking pictures in a more meditative way that film does not allow. The result is almost elegiac, producing the same kind of goose bumps that Burns created in his early work on the Brooklyn Bridge and the Civil War."</p> 11/23/09, 12:00 PM - Central Library http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=23964 http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=23964 <p>Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Endowed Lecture<br /> Co-sponsored by the American Philosophical Society Museum</p> <p>Adam Gopnik's Angels and Ages is a study of the cultural impact of Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln. Time magazine calls the book "a succinct, convincing, and moving account of how two men ripped mankind out of its past unreason and thrust it into a more enlightened age." Gopnik appears at the Free Library to speak of these celebrated thinkers--who were born on the same day in 1809--on the 150th anniversary (to the day!) of the publication of On the Origin of Species. A contributor to the New Yorker for more than two decades, Gopnik is a three-time recipient of the National Magazine Award.</p> 11/24/09, 7:30 PM - Central Library http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=23355 http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=23355 <p>The host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, an award-winning independent news program airing on over 800 stations throughout the world, Amy Goodman has a passion for truth in journalism. She is a recipient of the first Right Livelihood Award, a preeminent commendation for personal courage and social transformation that is known as the "Alternative Nobel Prize." She is also the co-author of New York Times bestselling books Standing up to the Madness, Static, and The Exception to the Rulers. In her new book-a collection of investigative reports on topics scarcely covered by corporate media outlets-Goodman talks about the inordinate control these media giants exert over public opinion and the role that grassroots activists and independent media can play in the struggle for a better world. Cornel West proclaims, "Amy Goodman is a towering progressive freedom-fighter in the media and the world. Breaking the Sound Barrier is another expression of her vision and courage."</p> 12/01/09, 12:00 PM - Central Library http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=23997 http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=23997 <p>Carole Phillips Memorial Lecture</p> <p>Renowned chef and restaurateur Lidia Bastianich is co-owner of Felidia and Becco, two of Manhattan's finest restaurants. As host of her own PBS television show, Lidia's Italy, she travels her native country to visit the farmers, shepherds, foragers, and artisans who produce the local cheeses, meats, olive oils, and wines that define regional Italian cuisine. In her new cookbook, these wonderful, uncomplicated dishes--from Molise, Abruzzo, Calabria, and more--are translated for the home cook.</p> 12/01/09, 7:30 PM - Central Library http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=23356 http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=23356 <p>A beloved film star of MGM's Golden Era, Leslie Caron has appeared in such classic movies as An American in Paris, Gigi, Daddy Long Legs, and Lili. More recently she acted in the film Chocolat and won an Emmy Award for her performance in an episode of Law Order: Special Victims Unit. Offering an intimate view of the characters and settings of old Hollywood, Thank Heaven is a candid account of Caron's life from her discovery in Paris by Gene Kelly to her successes in Hollywood and her personal struggles with alcoholism and depression.<br /> <br /> <strong>Ms. Caron will be interviewed by Philadelphia Inquirer film critic Carrie Rickey.</strong></p> 12/02/09, 12:00 PM - Central Library http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=23357 http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=23357 <p>Published in 26 languages, Sue Grafton's bestselling Kinsey Millhone mysteries feature "a heroine with foibles you can laugh at and faults you can forgive," writes the New York Times Book Review. "As this master of suspense continues to demonstrate ... there are more ugly twists in the human heart than there are letters in the alphabet," praises Entertainment Weekly. Grafton has received the Ross Macdonald Literary Award and was named a co-Grand Master by the MysteryWriters of America. U is for Undertow is the latest Millhone mystery.<br /> <br /> Sue Grafton Supports Feeding Body Mind<br /> While food can keep one alive, it cannot, by itself, lift one from poverty; however, increased literacy skills can--thus the Feeding Body Mind program. Through Feeding Body Mind new and gently used books are collected and distributed to food banks across the country. <br /> <br /> Bring a new or or gently used book to Sue's event and drop it in box with the Feeding Body Mind logo. <br /> <br /> To learn more about the program visit <a href="http://www.feedingbodyandmind.com/">www.feedingbodyandmind.com</a></p> 12/02/09, 7:30 PM - Central Library http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=23359 http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=23359 <p>Meelya Gordon Memorial Lectures</p> <p>Poet and memoirist Mary Karr is the Peck Professor of English Literature at Syracuse University. She was a Guggenheim Fellow in poetry in 2005 and has won Pushcart Prizes for both her poetry and essays. Her bestselling memoir, The Liars' Club, won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award and was named best book of the year by many publications. Her follow-up memoir, Cherry, was also a bestseller. Filled with the dark humor that suffuses much of her work, Karr's new memoir Lit chronicles her descent into alcoholism and her conversion to Catholicism with an unlikely tribe of gurus and saviors.<br /> <br /> </p> 12/03/09, 7:30 PM - Central Library http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=23360 http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=23360 <p>Taije Silverman's poems have been published in Ploughshares, Poetry, Shenandoah, The Antioch Review, Five Points, Prairie Schooner, Massachusetts Review, Pleiades, and elsewhere. Her translations from the Italian of poems by Paolo Valesio are forthcoming in Pleiades, and her work has won two first place prizes from the Academy of American Poets, including the Anaiuml;s Nin Prize, judged by Stephen Dunn.</p> <p>Dan Featherston is the author of severalbooks of poetry, including The Radiant World, The Clock Maker's Memoir and United States. His poetry has appeared in such journals as Aufgabe, Kiosk, Mandorla, and New American Writing.</p> 12/07/09, 6:30 PM - Central Library http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=23553 http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=23553 <p>A graduate of the Philadelphia College of Art, Deborah Willis--a 2005 Guggenheim Fellow and a 2000 MacArthur Fellow--chairs the Photography Department at New York University. Dedicated to sharing visual representations of the African American experience, Willis authored the groundbreaking and highly praised book Reflections in Black, a collection of photographs of African American life from 1840 to the present, as well as The Black Female Body and VanDerZee: The Portraits of James VanDerZee. Her new book, Posing Beauty, was inspired by a realization she had as a student in the 1970s: that images of black beauty did not exist in the mainstream culture. This arresting new collection of photographs of African Americans, from Billie Holiday to Muhammad Ali to Michele Obama, redefines what it means to be "beautiful."</p> 12/08/09, 7:30 PM - Central Library http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=23361 http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=23361 <p>Philadelphia City Institute Author Series Presents Lise Funderburg<br /> Award-winning author Lise Funderburg will read from her latest work, Pig Candy: Taking My Father South, Taking My Father Home. Immediately following her reading, Ms. Funderburg will hold a short autograph session. Doors will open at 6:00 p.m.<br /> <br /> </p> 12/09/09, 6:30 PM - Philadelphia City Institute http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=23702 http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=23702