Monday Evening Movies: "It was 50 years ago today..."

Mon, August 26, 2019 6:00 P.M.
Oak Lane Library

Adults and teens can view a movie about a Summer of '69 event from a different perspective.  Stop in and see what we'll be showing this evening.  Of course we'll have popcorn

Adult Young Adult Senior Film Screening Movies & Television History

Northeast Philadelphia History

Sat, September 7, 2019 2:00 P.M.
Northeast Regional Library

Learn about Northeast Philadelphia historical landmarks from the 18th and 19th Centuries.   Presented by Fred Moore Local Historian   Free. No registration required.

Adult Young Adult Senior Speakers and Lectures Other Great Programs Philadelphia History History

Home on Our Back: A Laureate’s Reading on the Poetics of Diaspora

Sat, September 14, 2019 7:00 P.M.
Literature Department at Parkway Central Library

Join us for a bi-city poetry collaboration between Boston Poet Laureate Porsha Olayiwola and Philadelphia Poet Laureate Raquel Salas Rivera , which explores how migrations have shaped both East Coast cities. From North to South, from enslavement to freedom, across borders, from colony to the…

Adult Young Adult Senior Live Performances New Americans Philadelphia Poet Laureate African American Citizenship LGBTQ Literature Performing Arts Philadelphia History Humanities Bilingual Programs

Speaker Event: William Penn's Philadelphia

Wed, September 18, 2019 6:30 P.M.
Falls of Schuylkill Library

The East Falls Historical Society have invited Jim Murphy, a certified tour guide and author of over fifty articles on historical sites, to speak with us.  Mr. Murphy will be discussing William Penn's success in how he turned a "howling wilderness" into America's fast…

Adult Young Adult Senior Speakers and Lectures Other Great Programs Philadelphia History History

Author Talk: Elaine Terranova and Thomas Devaney: A Conversation in Poetry

Wed, September 18, 2019 6:30 P.M.
Philadelphia City Institute

A Conversation in Poetry with Elaine Terranova and Thomas Devaney. Elaine Terranova has published seven collections of poetry, most recently, Perdido (2018).  Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, and other magazines, and in such anthologies as…

Adult Speakers and Lectures Poetry History

Ta-Nehisi Coates | The Water Dancer

Wed, September 25, 2019 8:00 P.M.
Irvine Auditorium | 3401 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104

Cost: $30 - $60 book included with ticket

Tickets on sale September 9, 2019 at 10:00 a.m. In conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer David Blight, author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom Ta-Nehisi Coates won the 2015 National Book Award for  Between the World and Me , a “searing meditation on what it…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Ticketed Series African American Author Events Fiction Literature History

Bridges on the River Kwai Lecture

Sat, September 28, 2019 2:00 P.M.
Northeast Regional Library

One of 600 bridges built along the 258 mile “death railway” constructed using more than 61,000 Allied prisoners of war and approximately 250,000 Asian forced laborers. This presentation will cover the real stories of their capture and explore the horrendous experiences, deaths and…

Adult Young Adult Senior Discussion and Participation Other Great Programs Speakers and Lectures History

Battle of the Bulge Lecture

Sat, October 12, 2019 2:00 P.M.
Northeast Regional Library

Historian Bobby Edoo will talk about the strategies, tactics, order of battle, timeline and weapons of the Allies and Germans. Free. No registration required.

Adult Young Adult Senior Discussion and Participation Other Great Programs Speakers and Lectures History

William Penn's 375th Birthday

Tue, October 15, 2019 6:30 P.M.
Andorra Library

Come and enjoy an inspiring and interactive slide presentation on William Penn's life, contributions and legacy.   William Penn, a non-violent Quaker revolutionary, founded Pennsylvania in 1682 without firing a single shot and without building a single fort!  He did it with…

Adult Young Adult Senior Speakers and Lectures Other Great Programs Philadelphia History History

Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras, and Ella Morton | Atlas Obscura | 2nd Edition: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders

Thu, October 24, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: $15.00; $38.00 with book

Tickets on sale September 9, 2019 at 10:00 a.m. The bestselling Atlas Obscura garnered popular acclaim in 2016 as a joyous plunge into some of Earth’s weirdest and most mysterious places. Replete with rigorous research, lavish charts and illustrations, and brisk writing, a revised and…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Ticketed Series Author Events Environment & Nature History

Mob Scene at The Palmetto Flag, A Secessionist Newspaper Philadelphia, April 1861

Sat, October 26, 2019 2:00 P.M.
Northeast Regional Library

In 1861 there were many in Philadelphia who wanted to secede from the Union and The Palmetto Flag was a local newspaper that supported that view. When opinions changed and became more pro-union and militant, a protest at The Palmetto Flag became a riot. Free. No registration required.  

Adult Young Adult Senior Discussion and Participation Other Great Programs Speakers and Lectures History

Paul Hendrickson | Plagued by Fire: The Dreams and Furies of Frank Lloyd Wright

Mon, November 4, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

Paul Hendrickson’s books include Hemingway’s Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934–1961 , a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist; Sons of Mississippi , winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award; and The Living and the Dead:  Robert McNamara and…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Free Series Author Events Biography & Autobiography Government Information General Research History architecture

Erica Armstrong Dunbar | She Came to Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman

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

Cost: FREE

In conversation with Lorene Cary , author of Black Ice , The Price of a Child , Ladysitting and the forthcoming Arden Theatre production of My General Tubman Erica Armstrong Dunbar is the author of the National Book Award finalist Never Caught, the story of Ona Judge, a young enslaved person who…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Free Series African American Author Events Biography & Autobiography General Research History

Michael Beschloss | Presidents of War

Wed, November 6, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: $15.00

Tickets on sale September 9, 2019 at 10:00 a.m. A “deft researcher and a first-rate storyteller” ( Washington Post ), Michael Beschloss is the author of nine books on the American presidency, including two volumes on Lyndon Johnson, the bestsellers Presidential Courage and The…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Ticketed Series Author Events History American Presidency

Saeed Jones | How We Fight for Our Lives with Clifford Thompson | What It Is: Race, Family, and One Thinking Black Man’s Blues

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

Cost: FREE

Saeed Jones is the author of the “hard and glaring and brilliant” ( NPR Book Review ) poetry collection Prelude to Bruise , winner of the 2015 Stonewall Book Award/Barbara Gittings Literature Award. He is also the co-host of BuzzFeed’s morning show AM to DM and was the…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Free Series African American Author Events Biography & Autobiography History Social Justice

Susan Orlean | The Library Book

Thu, November 14, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: $15.00

Tickets on sale September 9, 2019 at 10:00 a.m. A staff writer for the New Yorker  since 1992, Susan Orlean won wide acclaim for the 1998  New York Times bestseller The Orchid Thief , the story of a renegade Florida swamp plant poacher that was adapted into an Academy…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Ticketed Series Author Events History Library Science

Jeanine Basinger | The Movie Musical!

Tue, November 19, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: $15.00

Tickets on sale September 9, 2019 at 10:00 a.m. In conversation with Carrie Rickey, former film critic for the Inquirer Mentor to some of contemporary cinema’s top directors (Joss Whedon and Michael Bay) and founder of the department of film studies at Wesleyan University, Jeanine Basinger…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Ticketed Series Author Events Movies & Television History

Deirdre Bair | Parisian Lives: Samuel Beckett, Simone de Beauvoir, and Me

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

Cost: $15.00

Tickets on sale September 9, 2019 at 10:00 a.m. Deirdre Bair won the National Book Award for her “blockbuster biography” of Samuel Beckett, “the best introduction to an enigmatic giant of 20th-century literature” ( Christian Science Monitor ). Her other acclaimed…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Ticketed Series Author Events Biography & Autobiography Literature History

Rashid Khalidi | The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917 – 2017

Mon, November 25, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

The Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University and editor of the  Journal of Palestine Studies , Rashid Khalidi is one of the world’s leading historians of the Middle East. Among his many books are Palestinian Identity ,  Brokers of Deceit…

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

Elaine Sciolino | The Seine: The River That Made Paris

Thu, December 12, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: $15.00

Tickets on sale September 9, 2019 at 10:00 a.m. A former Paris bureau chief and contributing writer for the New York Times , Elaine Sciolino is acclaimed for her “deliciously detailed and smart” ( Vogue ) chronicles of French culture and history. Her books include the bestsellers The…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Ticketed Series Author Events History