Tagged Literature
George Orwell in Context
Talking animals, pigs rising to power, a full-fledged government on a farm, and a revolution against an alcoholic farmer serve as the backdrop of George Orwell’s 1945 novel Animal Farm . Confused? Trust me, there’s…
ReJoyce! Bloomsday Returns to The Rosenbach
The Rosenbach 's annual Bloomsday festivities will be held on Sunday, June 16, falling on Father’s Day this year! What is Bloomsday? Bloomsday is an annual event where the world celebrates Leopold Bloom’s…
We Celebrate Him: Walt Whitman at 200
I celebrate myself — When lilacs last — I contain multitudes — O Captain! my Captain! What other U.S. poet’s work can be recognized by so few words—and by so many people—as that of the self-proclaimed…
The Mystery of Missing Persons
Many things go missing – overdue books, keys, socks in the dryer – but none of those can compare with the gravity of when a person simply disappears. Approximately 90,000 people are missing at this very moment in the United…
Book Donation to Recognize and Celebrate Polish Literature
The Free Library was fortunate to recently receive a donation of books by Polish authors that were translated into English, along with books in Polish for both adults and children. The books were donated by the Polish Book Institute , a…
Immersive Multimedia Experience Breathes New Life into the Frankenstein Mythos
Even if you’ve never read Mary Shelley ’s groundbreaking novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus , you’ve certainly heard of the stiched-together monster the teenage mother invented during a drizzly 1816 summer…
Break Out Your Garlic Necklaces and Wooden Stakes for Bram Stoker's Bday!
by Michelle Sheffer Today marks Irish writer Bram Stoker ’s 171st birthday. Author of Dracula —the inspiration for many a nightmare and pop-culture meme over the past two centuries—Stoker compiled and wrote his iconic…
Shakespeare In the World Lecture Series
The Fool in King Lear advised "Speak less than thou knowest" – but it's good the speakers at this year’s Shakespeare in the World lecture series aren’t following his advice. If you’re …
Join The Rosenbach for a Marathon Reading of Moby-Dick!
If you’ve ever joined our friends at The Rosenbach for Bloomsday , you know how fun (and slightly surreal) it can be to hear a book read aloud over an extended period of time. Well, the next Bloomsday may be several months off…
An American Author in Paris
"For two centuries," writes The New Yorker essayist Adam Gopnik in the preface of his 2004 collection Americans in Paris: A Literary Anthology , "Paris has been attached for Americans to an idea of happiness, of good…
Chestnut Hill Library Contemporary Book Group
This group meets on selected Wednesdays. For more information and to reserve a copy of the month's selection, please contact the library at 215-685-9290. Upcoming book selections are: June 19: Mad, Bad Dangerous to…
Charles Dickens: Part of the Hands-on History Series at The Free Library, Parkway Central
Charles Dickens: Part of the Hands-on History at The Free Library, Parkway Central Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was one of the most successful writers of the nineteenth century, achieving international fame during his own lifetime. The…
Chestnut Hill Classics Book Group
Join us the first Thursday of the month at 10:30 a.m. Today we'll be talking about Persuasion by Jane Austen.
First Monday Writer's Group
Are you a writer who needs some motivation and encouragement? We can provide this, as well as technical skills and information that can direct you towards completing tasks for publication and discovery. A great…
Chestnut Hill Library Contemporary Book Group
This group meets on selected Wednesdays. For more information and to reserve a copy of the month's selection, please contact the library at 215-685-9290. Upcoming book selections are: June 19: Mad, Bad Dangerous to…
Chestnut Hill Classics Book Group
Join us the first Thursday of the month at 10:30 a.m. Today we'll be talking about Pnim by Vladimir Nabokov. Upcoming selection: December 5th - Persuasion by Jane Austen
First Monday Writers Group
Are you a writer who needs some motivation and encouragement? We can provide this, as well as technical skills and information that can direct you towards completing tasks for publication and discovery. A great…
Chestnut Hill Library Contemporary Book Group
This group meets on selected Wednesdays. For more information and to reserve a copy of the month's selection, please contact the library at 215-685-9290. Upcoming book selections are: June 19: Mad, Bad Dangerous to…
First Monday Writers Group
Are you a writer who needs some motivation and encouragement? We can provide this, as well as technical skills and information that can direct you towards completing tasks for publication and discovery. A great…
Chestnut Hill Classics Book Group
Join us the first Thursday of the month at 10:30 a.m. Today we'll be talking about Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh. Upcoming selections include: November 7th - Pnim by Vladimir Nabokov December 5th - Persuasion by Jane Austen…
TRIPOD: Conversations with Place
The Writers Room 's second annual Canon TRIPOD photo exhibition is on view throughout Pepper Hall, home of the Art & Literature Department . Head up to Art & Literature on the 2nd floor…
Ta-Nehisi Coates | The Water Dancer
Tickets on sale September 9, 2019 at 10:00 a.m. Venue: Irvine Auditorium | 3401 Spruce St. In conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer David Blight , author of Frederick Douglas: Prophet of Freedom In his boldly imagined…
Chestnut Hill Library Contemporary Book Group
This group meets on selected Wednesdays. For more information and to reserve a copy of the month's selection, please contact the library at 215-685-9290. Upcoming book selections are: June 19: Mad, Bad Dangerous to…
Chestnut Hill Classics Book Group
Join us the first Thursday of the month at 10:30 a.m. Today we'll be talking about Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Upcoming selections include: October 3rd - Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh November 7th - Pnim by…
Chestnut Hill Library Contemporary Book Group
This group meets on selected Wednesdays. For more information and to reserve a copy of the month's selection, please contact the library at 215-685-9290. Upcoming book selections are: June 19: Mad, Bad Dangerous to…
Baby & Toddler Storytime
Books, songs, rhymes and bounces for children (birth to 23 months) and their caregivers!
"Wonder"-ful Discoveries: Fun in the Sun!
Margaret S. Halloran Literacy Seiries Discover science, literature, art, poetry, and more through hands-on activities at your library! The last Thursday of each month will be a special "fun in the Sun" outdoor session of…
Baby & Toddler Storytime
Books, songs, rhymes and bounces for children (birth to 23 months) and their caregivers!
Hands-On Tour: Book Arts
Do you prefer to judge a book by its cover, or does the inside matter more? In this tour of book arts, we’ll take a look at various rare books in The Rosenbach collection, their aesthetics, their functions, how the processes in…
"Wonder"-ful Discoveries
Margaret S. Halloran Literacy Seiries Discover science, literature, art, poetry, and more through hands-on activities at your library! The last Thursday of each month will be a special "fun in the Sun" outdoor session of…
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.
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…
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,…
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…
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,…
Books & Authors *
Discover fiction and non-fiction books that match your interests! Books and Authors (powered by Gale's popular What Do I Read Next? series) is for readers from every level of reading proficiency and enables users to explore the endless…
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…
Jennifer Weiner | Mrs. Everything
“One of the biggest names in popular fiction” ( USA Today ), Jennifer Weiner is the beloved number-one New York Times bestselling author of more than a dozen novels—including Good in Bed , All Fall Down , and In Her Shoes , which was…
Esi Edugyan | Washington Black
Esi Edugyan’s novel Half-Blood Blues , the story of a World War II–era mixed-race jazz band’s abducted star trumpeter, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, among other honors. She is also the author of another novel, The Second…
Nicole Dennis-Benn | Patsy with Rebecca Makkai | The Great Believers
Here Comes the Sun , Nicole Dennis-Benn ’s debut novel about a young Jamaican struggling to protect her sister and village as she experiences feelings for another woman, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the…
James Ellroy | This Storm
In his bestselling L.A. Quartet mysteries and the Underworld USA trilogy, James Ellroy “has vigorously redefined the well-shadowed turf of contemporary crime fiction” ( Atlanta Journal Constitution ). He is also the author of the Lloyd…
Rick Atkinson | The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775–1777
Rick Atkinson won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for An Army at Dawn , the first volume in his Liberation trilogy, a “densely researched but supremely readable” ( New York Times Book Review ) history of the Allied victory in World War II. His…
Eve Ensler | The Apology
One of Newsweek ’s “150 Women Who Shake the World” and the Guardian ’s “Top 100 Women,” Tony Award–winning playwright Eve Ensler is a performer, activist, and author. Her phenomenon The Vagina Monologues has been published in nearly…
Tommy Orange | There There: A Novel with Rachel Kushner | The Mars Room
“Masterful. . . . A devastating debut novel” ( The Washington Post ), Tommy Orange ’s There There has been lauded as a new American treasure by some of the country’s greatest writers and esteemed publications. A New York Times…
Lorene Cary | Ladysitting: My Year with Nana at the End of Her Century
“A powerful storyteller, frankly sensual [and] mortally funny" ( New York Times ), Lorene Cary is the author of the novels Pride , The Price of a Child , If Sons, Then Heirs , and the memoir Black Ice . A senior lecturer in creative…
Susan Choi | Trust Exercise: A Novel with Myla Goldberg | Feast Your Eyes
Excavating the hidden corners of the human heart and acclaimed for their “nuance, psychological acuity, and pitch-perfect writing” ( Los Angeles Times ), Susan Choi ’s novels include the Asian American Literary Award-winning The Foreign…
Julia Alvarez | In the Time of the Butterflies: 25th Anniversary Edition
In conversation with Concepción de León , the digital staff writer for the Books desk at The New York Times . She also writes "El Espace," a news and culture column for Latino . A “one-woman cultural collision” ( Los Angeles Times Book…
Richard Blanco | How to Love a Country: Poems
Richard Blanco made history four times at Barack Obama’s second presidential inauguration: He was the first immigrant, the first Latino, the youngest person, and the first openly gay person to be the U.S. inaugural poet. Exploring…
Robert A. Caro | Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing
In conversation with Dick Polman , "Writer in Residence" at the University of Pennsylvania, national political columnist at WHYY News and contributor to The Atlantic Standing at “the summit of American historical writing” ( Washington…
Barry Lopez | Horizon
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…
Nathan Englander | Kaddish.com with Thomas Mallon | Landfall
Nathan Englander is the author of the story collections For the Relief of Unbearable Urges and What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank , a Pulitzer Prize finalist and winner of the Frank O’Connor International Short Story…
Darius James | Negrophobia: An Urban Parable
In conversation with Gene Seymour, contributor to The Nation and former film critic and jazz columnist for Newsday . He has written for Bookforum , CNN.com, and The Washington Post . Author and spoken-word artist Darius James’s 1992…
Don Winslow | The Border
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…
Sigrid Nunez | The Friend: A Novel with Keith Gessen | A Terrible Country: A Novel
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,…
Victor LaValle with Justina Ireland, Sam J. Miller, and Alice Sola Kim | A People's Future of the United States: Twenty-five Visionary Stories
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…
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
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…
Jane Brox | Silence: A Social History of One of the Least Understood Elements of Our Lives
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…
Bestsellers
Find out about the latest bestsellers from many well known resources.