John Sandford | Twisted Prey: A Lucas Davenport Novel

Mon, April 30, 2018 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

John Sanford is the nom de plume of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Camp, a respected Midwestern newspaperman with a decades-long career. He is the author of the  no. 1 New York Times -bestselling Prey series of books, featuring maverick Minnesota detective Lucas Davenport. His other…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Free Series Author Events Fiction

Curtis Sittenfeld | You Think It, I’ll Say It: Stories

Tue, May 1, 2018 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

In conversation with Jennifer Weiner , author of numerous bestselling books including her recent memoir  Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing and the Little Big Foot series of young adult novels. “Popular but intellectual, accessible but mysterious” (NPR), Curtis…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Free Series Author Events Fiction Literature Hearing Loop

Alan Stern and David Grinspoon | Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto

Wed, May 2, 2018 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

The principal investigator of the New Horizons mission to Pluto, a planetary scientist, and an aerospace executive and consultant, Dr. Alan Stern has participated in a mind-blowing 29 space missions and has served in the loftiest strata of contemporary American space exploration. The chair of…

Adult Young Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Free Series Author Events Environment & Nature Science Technology

Mark C. Serreze | Brave New Arctic: The Untold Story of the Melting North

Tue, May 8, 2018 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

A fellow of the American Meteorological Society and director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, geographer Mark C. Serreze is one of the world’s foremost experts on the planet’s cryosphere—Earth’s snow and ice cover—and its relatively recent changes. Spanning…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Free Series Author Events Science

Jesmyn Ward | Sing, Unburied, Sing

Wed, May 9, 2018 12:00 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

In Conversation with Kalela Williams, Director of Neighborhood Enrichment Programming A “hypnotic” novelist whose ease with vernacular puts her “in fellowship with such forebears as Zora Neale Hurston and William Faulkner” ( The New Yorker ), Jesmyn Ward won the 2011…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Free Series African American Author Events Free Library of Philadelphia Literature Poetry

Author Talk: Elizabeth LaBan

Wed, May 9, 2018 6:30 P.M.
Philadelphia City Institute

From Elizabeth LaBan, the author of the highly acclaimed debut novel, The Restaurant Critic’s Wife, comes NOT PERFECT (Lake Union Publishing; on-sale February 1, 2018; Hardcover + Trade Paperback), a witty and heartfelt look at the burden of perfection and redemptive power of…

Adult Discussion and Participation Author Events - Free Series Self-Help

Simon Winchester | The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World

Wed, May 9, 2018 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

Celebrated by critics and readers alike for “interweaving history, fascinating trivia and acute observation” ( New York Times Book Review ), Simon Winchester is the bestselling author of the nonfiction books  The Professor and the Madman, Krakatoa, The Men Who United the…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Free Series Author Events Free Library of Philadelphia History

Mary Morris | Gateway to the Moon with Nathaniel Popkin | Everything is Borrowed

Thu, May 10, 2018 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

“A marvelous storyteller” ( Chicago Tribune ), Mary Morris explores some of her favorite themes—away versus home, childhood memories, and the Midwest—in such works of fiction as A Mother’s Love, House Arrest , and The Jazz Palace . The winner of the Rome Prize and…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Free Series Author Events Fiction Literature Philadelphia Philadelphia History

Alex Wagner | Futureface: A Family Mystery, an Epic Quest, and the Secret to Belonging

Tue, May 15, 2018 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

Political commentator Alex Wagner is co-host of Showtime’s The Circus  and a contributor to CBS News and The Atlantic . She previously hosted MSNBC’s Emmy-nominated Now with Alex Wagner , among many other credits. From 2007 to 2009 she served as the executive director of Not On…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Free Series Author Events Biography & Autobiography New Americans

Kevin Powers | A Shout in the Ruins with Elise Juska | If We Had Known

Wed, May 16, 2018 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

Kevin Powers won the 2013 PEN/Hemingway Award  and the Guardian First Book Award for The Yellow Birds , “the first great Iraq War novel” ( Rolling Stone ), a work drawn from his experiences as a U.S. Army machine-gunner in Mosul and Tal Afar. After being honorably discharged, he…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Free Series Author Events Fiction Free Library of Philadelphia Literature Philadelphia Poetry

Nell Irvin Painter | Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over

Tue, May 22, 2018 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

Celebrated historian Nell Irvin Painter’s many books include Sojourner Truth, Creating Black Americans , and, most recently, The History of White People , a national bestseller examining the dangerous socially constructed notion of whiteness. The Edwards Professor of American History,…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Free Series African American Art Author Events Biography & Autobiography Literature

Author Natalie and Photographer Tricia Pompilio Discuss Their Book, Walking Philadelphia

Wed, May 30, 2018 6:15 P.M.
Independence Library

Author Natalie and photographer Tricia Pompilio will discuss their guide book, Walking Philadelphia:  30 Walking Tours Exploring Art, Architecture, History and Little-Known Gems.  Walking Philadelphia, is the only guide to the city that will make you feel like you’re…

Young Adult Discussion and Participation Author Events - Free Series Author Events

Steven Brill | Tailspin: The People and Forces Behind America's Fifty-Year Fall—and Those Fighting to Reverse It

Wed, May 30, 2018 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

Journalist and lawyer Steven Brill is the founder of Court TV, 10 regional newspapers, and The American Lawyer magazine. His 2013 Time magazine cover story “Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us” won the National Magazine Award for Public Service and became the basis for a…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Free Series Author Events Law Politics

Sarah McBride | Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality

Thu, June 7, 2018 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

In conversation with State Representative Brian K. Sims , former staff counsel for policy and planning at the Philadelphia Bar Association. Sims recently stepped down as both the president of the board of directors of Equality Pennsylvania and as chairman of Gay and Lesbian Lawyers of…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Free Series Author Events Biography & Autobiography LGBTQ Hearing Loop LGBTQ Social Justice Free Library of Pride

Ken Auletta | Frenemies: The Epic Disruption of the Ad Business (and Everything Else)

Mon, June 11, 2018 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

Ken Auletta has penned the “Annals of Communications” column for The New Yorker for more than 25 years. His 11 books include the bestsellers Three Blind Mice: How the TV Networks Lost Their Way , The Highwaymen: Warriors of the Information Superhighway , and Googled: The End of the…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Free Series Author Events Business & Economics Databases & Electronic Resources General Research Technology

Eliza Griswold | Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America

Tue, June 12, 2018 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

In the  New York Times  bestselling book  The Tenth Parallel , immersive journalist Eliza Griswold spent seven years traversing the geographic and ideological fronts in Africa and Asia where Christianity and Islam collide. In I Am the Beggar of the World , she traveled to…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Free Series Author Events Business & Economics Environment & Nature Health & Fitness Politics Science Technology

Katrina van Grouw | Unnatural Selection

Thu, June 14, 2018 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

The former curator of the ornithological collections at London’s Natural History Museum, Katrina van Grouw is the author of The Unfeathered Bird . A sumptuous labor of love, this hybrid of art, science, and history features 385 detailed drawings representing 200 bird species poetically…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Free Series Art Author Events Science Animals and Nature

Michael A. Smerconish | Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right: American Life in Columns

Tue, June 19, 2018 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

Michael A. Smerconish is the host of  The Michael Smerconish Program  on SiriusXM Channel 124, the host of CNN’s  Smerconish  on Saturday mornings, a Sunday  Philadelphia Inquirer  columnist, and a  New York Times  bestselling author. His books…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Free Series Author Events Newspapers, Magazines, & Journals Politics

Jamie Bernstein | Famous Father Girl: A Memoir of Growing Up Bernstein

Wed, June 20, 2018 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

Jamie Bernstein is the oldest daughter of Leonard Bernstein, one of the 20th century’s best known musicians. Chief conductor of the New York Philharmonic, composer of such scores as West Side Story, Candide, On the Waterfront , and On the Town , Renaissance artist in a variety of musical…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Free Series Author Events Music Performing Arts

Elin Hildebrand | The Perfect Couple

Thu, June 21, 2018 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

“The queen of the summer beach read” ( New York Post ), Elin Hildebrand has captured the flavor, scenery, and people of Nantucket in more than 20 New York Times bestselling novels, including The Beach Club, The Matchmaker , and The Identicals .  A Pennsylvania native, a graduate…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Free Series Author Events Fiction Literature