Tagged Literature
Virtual Monday Poets - Now in its 28th season!
Monday Poets is one of the longest continuously running programs at the Free Library, currently in its 28th season. Join us for a very special virtual event on Monday, December 19 at 6:30 p.m. with Philadelphia Poet Laureate Airea D.…
Explore Creative Careers with Field Teen Center!
Throughout the month of July, Field Teen Center recorded interviews with a voice actor, four game designers, and a comic book writer. If you’re interested in creative jobs or if you just want to learn more about how your favorite…
Bloomsday is back!
The Rosenbach's annual Bloomsday festival is BACK on Delancey Place after a two-year hiatus. Join the celebration on Thursday, June 16 anytime between 11:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. What is Bloomsday? Bloomsday is the day…
Dracula at 125
Written by Edward P. On May 26, 1897, visitors to bookshops in London found a new book, for just six shillings, published by Constable and Co., bound in a lurid yellow cloth cover with blood red letters announcing its strange…
Rosemary for Shakespeare
Written by Isabel S. April 23 marks the day that we traditionally celebrate William Shakespeare’s birth and deathday, though neither of those occasions are confirmed to have actually been on the 23rd. Shakespeare was baptized on…
The lyrical speaker: Finding your own voice through poetry!
“La poesía es un espacio de libertad/ Poetry is a space of freedom”. Carlos José Pérez Sámano, Mexican poet and writer Poetry explores the language and its limitations. It’s a way to get…
Newspapers: A Guide Into the Past
Many of us may get our news from online sources these days—social media feeds provide a constant source of information about everything from policy proposals, the weather, celebrity news, and more, as the events unfold in…
A Continued Discussion on the Topics of Surrealism and Gender
Written by Lewis Shaw, who conducted extensive research in the Art Department as part of a Friends Select School Senior Internship Project. The following is a continuation of a previous blog post on the topics of Surrealism and Gender.…
Celebrating Jacqueline Woodson
Born in Columbus, Ohio, Jacqueline Woodson grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, and Brooklyn, New York, graduating from college with a B.A. in English. She is the author of dozens of award-winning books for young adults, middle…
Surrealism and Gender
Written by Lewis Shaw, who conducted extensive research in the Art Department as part of a Friends Select School Senior Internship Project. During the extended fever dream which we all refer to as COVID quarantine, I picked up a love of…
Create Something New During National Sewing Month
September is National Sewing Month and a great opportunity to create something new this year for everyone on your D.I.Y gift-giving list. Both the Art and Literature and Science and Wellness departments at Parkway Central Library have…
¡Celebremos la Fiesta del Libro en Español!
The love for the Spanish language and culture can transcend frontiers! The stories, poems and illustrations of the books can reflect personal narratives that touch our collective unconsciousness. A team of talented community…
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Uncovering the Real James Bond in the Rare Book Department
From Sean Connery to Daniel Craig, the intrepid agent of the British Secret Intelligence Service—James Bond, designated Agent 007—has epitomized masculine cool. Everyone knows how he likes his vodka martinis. Everyone knows…
Celebrating Pakistan's Independence Day with Music, Film, and Literature!
Jashn-e-Azadi Mubarak! Happy Independence Day! This past Saturday, August 14, was Pakistan’s Independence Day. Formed in 1947, Pakistan celebrated 74 years of its independence and freedom from British colonialism and the formation…
Summer Reading with Dena!
Yes, it’s that time of the year again, to head to the beach (or a heavily air conditioned reading nook) and dive into some fun reading! Here are some new and newish books that are perfect for giving yourself a mental vacation:…
Central Senior Services Joins Moore College of Art to Fight Social Isolation During Pandemic
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has studied the impact of loneliness and social isolation on American seniors and the results are deeply disturbing. Extensive studies of the subject reveal that social isolation of…
10 Great Reads from the Holmesburg Library Book Club
Since 2019, the Holmesburg Library's Book Club has met biweekly to discuss great modern literature, nineteenth-century classics, and historical nonfiction, to name just a few genres. Not even the pandemic could stop the book club…
Creative Writing: Discovering Your Inner Voice
I always wanted to explore creative writing! It’s fascinating to understand what tools and mechanisms writers use to craft a story or a poem. Creating with words is an amazing and fun experience! The pandemic gave me the…
Making Her Mark Spotlight: Poetry and Movement Building
by Suzanna Urminska and Sam Perduta Our words carry power—whether as balm or as burnish, our words have the power to come together to form poetry that recalls and reconnects a range of human experiences both personal and…
Story Search from Special Collections: An Interview by Hannah Cho
Hannah Cho is a University of Pennsylvania Work-Study student from Davis, CA. During the Fall semester, she studied, recorded, and edited the Story Search podcasts remotely from South Korea. I’ve always been more of a talker…
Bryan Collier Author Visit
Join us for a special visit with author and illustrator, Bryan Collier. Bryan Collier is a beloved illustrator known for his unique style combining watercolor and detailed collage. He is a four-time Caldecott Honor recipient…
Judge a Book By Its Cover
The Literature department's new display, Judge a Book by Its Cover, explores how the outside of a book conveys what is inside through artwork and design. Learn about marbled papers and other adornments on older books and book…
Monday Poets with Alina Pleskova and Sadie Dupuis
Join us as we kick off one the longest continously running programs at FLP! Monday Poets 29th season and this year we are back onsite and in the Literature Department on the 2nd floor. We are super excited about this since…
Dickens: A Christmas Carol
Dickens: A Christmas Carol- Monday December 18 @ 5:30 P.M. A one woman show portraying the classic tale to put you in the holiday Spirit!!!
Tasha Tudor's Christmas Mice
Please note that this event, originally scheduled for November 4th, has to be postponed due to factors beyond our control. The webinar will be held on December 16th at 1pm. The Children's Literature Research Collection…
Treasures from the Literature Vault
Do you love old books? Then join us for Treasures from the Vault– a casual, hands-on book club program spotlighting items from the Literature vault! The vault, home to our closed reference collections, is a treasure trove of…
Dannagal Goldthwaite Young | Wrong: How Media, Politics, and Identity Drive Our Appetite for Misinformation
REGISTER Co-sponsored by Committee of Seventy In conversation with Cherri Gregg, host/news anchor for WHYY radio Dannagal Goldthwaite Young is the author of Irony and Outrage: The Polarized Landscape of Rage, Fear, and Laughter in…
Poetry in Translation
Take pleasure in reading poets from other languages and cultures.
Poetry - Novels in Verse
Poetry with special appeal for tweens and teens.
Poetry - Great Contemporary Poetry
Selections from the Literature Department.
PressReader including the Economist Magazine
Access more than 6,300+ newspapers from the US and around the world in 60 languages from 120 countries in image view including the Guardian, Daily Mail, Der Tagesspiegel, Libération, China Daily, and La Razon. List to the articles in…
NewsBank Hot Topics
Trending news and hot topics for your next assignment! Hot topics covers Current Events, Business & Economics, Civics, Government, & Politics, Social Issues, Science, Technology & Health, Sports, Arts & Literature, and People in the News.
LitFinder
Discover literature content from more than 150,000 full-text poems, 840,000 poem citations and excerpts, 7,100 full-text short stories and novels, 3,800 full-text essays published in the 16th-20th centuries, 2,400 full-text speeches, and…
Literature Criticism Online
This extensive compilation of literary commentary represents a range of modern and historical views on authors and their works across regions, eras, and genres. Covers Children’s, Classical, Contemporary, Drama, Poetry, Shakespearean,…
Gale OneFile | High School Edition (formerly InfoTrac Student Edition) *
High school students will have access to age-appropriate content from magazines, journals, newspapers, reference books, and engaging multi-media covering a wide range of subjects, from science, history, and literature to political…
Gale Literary Sources (formerly Artemis)
Cross-search all of Gale’s literature databases from a single digital space to find biographies, primary sources, contextual reference, and criticism. Includes Dictionary of Literary Biography, Something About the Author, LitFinder,…
Gale in Context | Middle School (formerly Research in Context) *
Discover reliable and trusted information on a variety of topics to support middle school student research for government, U.S and world history, geography, literature, sciences, and social issues. Research In Context offers…
Gale in Context | Elementary (formerly Kids InfoBits) *
Elementary students in kindergarten through grade five will find age-appropriate content covering a broad range of educational topics such as animals, arts, geography, health, literature, people, social studies, technology, etc. Kids…
America's Historical Imprints
Explore the nation’s past in unprecedented ways. Includes books, pamphlets, broadsides and other scarce printed material, centuries of American history, literature, culture, and daily life, and extensive indexing and full bibliographic…
Academic OneFile
More than 18,000 peer-reviewed journals and more than 9,200 in full text Full text of The Economist ranging from 1988 to the present, with no embargo Full text of The New York Times from 1985 to present, updated daily Full text of The…
Sigrid Nunez | The Vulnerables: A Novel with Henry Hoke | Open Throat: A Novel
Sigrid Nunez won the 2018 National Book Award for The Friend , a “beautiful” novel “crammed with a world of insight into death, grief, art, and love” ( The Wall Street Journal ) in which a woman is forced to adopt her deceased best…
Alice McDermott | Absolution
In conversation with Nomi Eve “Filled with so much universal experience, such haunting imagery, such urgent matters of life and death” ( The New York Times ), Alice McDermott’ s bestselling novels include Someone ; Charming Billy ,…
Cristina García | Vanishing Maps: A Novel
In conversation with Rebeca L. Hey-Colón, Professor of Latinx Studies, Temple University Cristina García is the author of eight “languid and sensual, curt and surprising” ( The New York Times Book Review ) novels, including The Lady…
Melissa Broder | Death Valley: A Novel with Hilary Leichter | Terrace Story: A Novel
Melissa Broder is the author of Milk Fed , the “sensuous and delightfully delirious tale” ( O, The Oprah Magazine ) of a calorie-obsessed lapsed Jewish woman who falls under the spell of a zaftig Orthodox frozen yogurt store employee.…
Tim O'Brien | America Fantastica: A Novel
In conversation with Andy Kahan Meelya Gordon Memorial Lecture “As good as any piece of literature can get” ( Chicago Sun Times ), Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics…
Ayana Mathis | The Unsettled: A Novel
In conversation with Asali Solomon Ayana Mathis is the author of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie , “a remarkable page-turner of a novel” ( Chicago Tribune ) that follows the harrowing fortunes of a 15-year-old from Georgia to Philadelphia…
Safiya Sinclair | How to Say Babylon: A Memoir
In conversation with Philadelphia Poet Laureate Airea D Matthews Hailed by Tara Westover as “Dazzling. Potent Vital. A light shining on the path of self-deliverance,” Safiya Sinclair ’s memoir How to Say Babylon recounts her struggle…
Emily Wilson | The Iliad
In conversation with Sheila Murnaghan, chair of the classics department at the University of Pennsylvania “A cultural landmark” ( The Guardian ), Emily Wilson ’s 2017 translation of The Odyssey was hailed for its fresh and unpretentious…
Jennifer Weiner | The Breakaway
Jennifer Weiner is the no. 1 New York Times bestselling author of more than a dozen “funny, fanciful, extremely poignant” ( The Boston Globe ) novels, including That Summer , Mrs. Everything , Who Do You Love , All Fall Down , …
James McBride | The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
James McBride is the author of the National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird , “a brilliant romp of a novel” ( The New York Times Book Review ) in which a young boy born into slavery joins abolitionist John Brown’s doomed…
One Book One Philadelphia Finale: Author Conversation with Charles Yu
Join us at the Community College of Philadelphia for a celebration to conclude the One Book, One Philadelphia 2023 season. This event will feature an in-person conversation between Charles Yu and Dr. Michelle Myers, associate professor…
Geraldine Brooks | Horse
Geraldine Brooks won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for her novel March , an “honorable, elegant, and true” ( The Wall Street Journal ) retelling of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women from the point of view of the titular family’s absent…
Kwame Alexander | Why Fathers Cry at Night: A Memoir in Love Poems, Recipes, Letters, and Remembrances
In conversation with Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts Kwame Alexander is the author of The Crossover , a “beautifully measured novel” ( The New York Times Book Review ) that follows twin brother basketball stars coming to terms with…
Airea D. Matthews | Bread and Circus
In conversation with poet Phillip B. Williams Airea D. Matthews is the 2022–23 Philadelphia Poet Laureate and directs the poetry program at Bryn Mawr College. Her collection Simulacra won the 2016 Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize and…
Hernan Diaz | Trust
Hernan Diaz ’s bestselling and Pulitzer Prize winning novel Trust , "a genre-bending, time-skipping story about New York City’s elite in the roaring ’20s and Great Depression” ( Vanity Fair ), presents a literary puzzle about the…
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah | Chain Gang All-Stars with Daniel Torday | The 12th Commandment
With characters situated in surreal, Twilight Zone -esque, yet all-too-familiar positions of oppression within our most venerable institutions, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah ’s 2018 debut fiction collection, Friday Black , was praised as…
Sarah Bakewell | Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope
In conversation with Eric Banks Acclaimed for “wonderfully readable” fusions of “biography, philosophy, history, cultural analysis and personal reflection” ( The Independent ), Sarah Bakewell is the author of At the Existentialist Café…
Eileen Myles | a “Working Life”
“Unflinching but also irrepressibly humorous” ( The New York Times Book Review ), Eileen Myles is the celebrated author of nearly two dozen books of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, plays, and performance pieces, including Pathetic…
One Book One Philadelphia Kickoff: Community Fair and Author Conversation
Charles Yu is the author of four books, including Interior Chinatown (the winner of the 2020 National Book Award for fiction), and the novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (a New York Times Notable Book and a Time…
Vanessa Hua | Forbidden City
In conversation with Pia Sarkar A former longtime columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle , Vanessa Hua has written about Asia and the diaspora from countries such as China, Burma, and South Korea, and has contributed articles to The…