Dani Shapiro | Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love

Tue, January 22, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

In conversation with Beth Kephart , the award-winning author of nineteen books, including Going Over , Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir , and Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River . Delivering “an eviscerating, raw honesty” ( New York Times…

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Bridgett M. Davis | The World According to Fannie Davis: My Mother's Life in the Detroit Numbers

Tue, January 29, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

Bridgett M. Davis is the author of Into the Go-Slow , the acclaimed story of a young woman traveling from Detroit to Nigeria as she mourns the death of her sister, and Shifting Through Neutral , a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. She is a professor of journalism and the writing…

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Jane Brox | Silence: A Social History of One of the Least Understood Elements of Our Lives

Thu, January 31, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

Penning “nonfiction literature of a high and lasting order” ( Chicago Tribune ), Jane Brox is the author of, among other books, Five Thousand Days Like This One , a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light , named one of…

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Feminista Jones | Reclaiming Our Space: How Black Feminists Are Changing the World from the Tweets to the Streets with DaMaris B. Hill | A Bound Woman is a Dangerous Thing

Tue, February 5, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

Social worker, public speaker, community activist, and blogger Feminista Jones is the author of the novel Push the Button and the poetry collection The Secret of Sugar Water . She was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in Philadelphia ( Philadelphia Magazine )  and one of The Root…

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Chris Wilson | The Master Plan: My Journey from Life in Prison to a Life of Purpose

Thu, February 7, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

Convicted of murder at 18 and sentenced to life in prison with no hope of release, Chris Wilson began to improve himself through study, physical fitness, and even started a business. For the next several years he followed the tenets of his “master plan,” and in his mid-thirties he…

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Victor LaValle with Justina Ireland, Sam J. Miller, and Alice Sola Kim | A People's Future of the United States: Twenty-five Visionary Stories

Tue, February 12, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

Amidst a climate of division, tumult, and fear, what will the United States look like tomorrow? In A People’s Future of the United States , 25 diverse writers synthesize hopeful, cynical, prescient visions of a country shaped by struggle and strife. Coeditor Victor LaValle ’s …

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Steve Luxenberg | Separate: The Story of Plessy v. Ferguson, and America’s Journey from Slavery to Segregation

Thu, February 21, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

A 30-year writer and senior editor at The Washington Post , Steve Luxenberg has overseen reportage that has won a host of awards, including two Pulitzer Prizes for explanatory journalism. He is the author of Annie’s Ghosts: A Journey in a Family Secret , the tale of his eponymous aunt who…

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Philly Loves Romance | Terri Brisbin and Rayna Vause

Sun, February 24, 2019 2:00 P.M.
Philbrick Hall at Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

Fourth Floor - Room 405 Award-winning, USA Today best-selling author Terri Brisbin has sold more than 3 million copies of her historical and paranormal romance novels and novellas in more than 25 countries and 20 languages around the world. Terri’s previous, current or…

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Sigrid Nunez | The Friend: A Novel with Keith Gessen | A Terrible Country: A Novel

Tue, February 26, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

Sigrid Nunez won the 2018 National Book Award for The Friend , “a penetrating, moving meditation on loss, comfort, memory” (NPR) in which a woman is forced to adopt her deceased best friend’s Great Dane. The recipient of a Berlin Prize, the Rome Prize in Literature, and a…

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Don Winslow | The Border

Thu, February 28, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

The author of numerous international bestselling crime novels, Don Winslow is the recipient of dozens of awards and spots on myriad best-books-of-the-year lists. These books include The Winter of Frankie Machine , The Force , and Savages , for which he wrote the screenplay for the Oliver…

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Brittney Cooper | Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower with Rebecca Traister | Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger

Tue, March 5, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

In converation with Rebecca Traister , author of Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger Examining the intersections of race, gender, and politics in a popular monthly Cosmo column, Brittney Cooper is also a professor of women’s and gender studies and Africana studies…

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David Treuer | The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present

Thu, March 7, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

An Ojibwe from the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota and an unromantic chronicler of Native American culture and literature, David Treuer is the author of the novels Prudence , Little , The Hiawatha , and The Translation of Dr. Appeles . He is a professor of literature and creative…

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Darius James | Negrophobia: An Urban Parable

Tue, March 12, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

Author and spoken-word artist Darius James’s 1992 masterpiece, the William S. Burroughs meets Thomas Pynchon meets Ishmael Reed fever-dream Negrophobia , is a raunchy, raucous, headlong dive into the many faces of American racism. With other works including That's Blaxploitation: Roots…

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Adam Rutherford | Humanimal: How Homo sapiens Became Nature’s Most Paradoxical Creature A New Evolutionary History

Thu, March 21, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

“A heady amalgam of science, history, a little bit of anthropology and plenty of nuanced, captivating storytelling” ( The New York Times Book Review ), Adam Rutherford’s A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived delves into the ages-spanning story of our species through the…

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Amy Hempel | Sing to It: New Stories

Mon, April 1, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

“Among the strongest voices in American fiction” ( Los Angeles Times ), writer’s writer Amy Hempel is the author of the acclaimed short story collections Reasons to Live , At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom , Tumble Home , and The Dog of the Marriage . Her articles, essays, and…

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Barry Lopez | Horizon

Tue, April 2, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

Barry Lopez won the National Book Award for Arctic Dreams , a “rich, abundant, vigorously composed” ( Boston Globe ) meditation on his travels in the barren but beautiful far North. His other work includes Of Wolves and Men , Crow and Weasel , and Resistance . Texas Tech…

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Michael Dobbs | The Unwanted: America, Auschwitz, and a Village Caught In Between

Thu, April 4, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

A longtime foreign correspondent for The Washington Post , Michael Dobbs reported on some of the most important events of our time. His many books include Down with Big Brother: The Fall of the Soviet Empire , Saboteurs: The Nazi Raid on America , and One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev,…

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Kwame Onwuachi | Notes from a Young Black Chef: A Memoir

Wed, April 10, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

A former Top Chef star, the executive chef at Washington D.C.’s popular Kith and Kin, and a Forbes and Zagat’s 30 Under 30 honoree, Kwame Onwuachi  is one of America’s most acclaimed young culinary personalities. Raised in the Bronx and Nigeria, he started a catering…

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Emily Bazelon | Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration

Thu, April 18, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

Emily Bazelon is the author of Sticks and Stones , “a humane and closely reported exploration” ( Wall Street Journal ) of school bullying and the empathetic steps students, parents, and teachers can take to mitigate this cruel phenomenon. A staff writer at The New York Times Magazine…

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Janny Scott | The Beneficiary: Fortune, Misfortune, and the Story of My Father

Mon, April 22, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

Janny Scott, a 15-year reporter for The New York Times , was part of a team that won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. She is also the author of the “meticulous” ( Washington Post ) biography A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother . She is the…

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