Tue, April 24, 2018 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: $15.00
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“Intensely personal … funny and poignant” ( New York Times) , Gregory Pardlo’s poetry collection Digest won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize. An out-of-nowhere coup for the relatively unknown Columbia University MFA student and teacher, it was also nominated for an NAACP Image…

Thu, April 26, 2018 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: $15.00
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Jen Sincero is the no. 1 New York Times bestselling author of You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life , a sass-filled self-help book for people who want better lives but don’t want to get caught reading a self-help book. She is a success coach…

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…

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…

Wed, May 2, 2018 6:30 P.M.
Philadelphia City Institute

Cost: FREE

Author David Goodwin will discuss his book LEFT BANK OF THE HUDSON: Jersey City and the Artists of 111 1st Street. A former tobacco-company warehouse turned artist colony in Jersey City, N.J., serves as a microcosm of American urban development in the age of globalization. . . This close study…

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…

Thu, May 3, 2018 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: $15.00
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Auditorium sold out. A limited number of simulcast tickets are available. Jake Tapper is anchor and Chief Washington Correspondent for CNN, where he hosts the weekday program The Lead with Jake Tapper and the Sunday morning show State of the Union . He is the former White House correspondent for…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Sat, May 12, 2018 1:00 P.M.
Joseph E. Coleman Northwest Regional Library

Cost: FREE

Local author Yani, whose new book is Hoop Dreams Deflated, will discuss self-publishing and brand building.  Following the talk we will have a chance to ask questions.  This program will run from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m.

Sat, May 12, 2018 1:00 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

Get ready for Ramadan with The Free Library!  Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow will introduce her new picture book, about a little Muslim American girl who plays dress-up with her mother's head scarves.  Saturday, May 12, 1 p.m., in the Story Hour Room.  Free. Parkway Central Library…

Mon, May 14, 2018 6:30 P.M.
Philadelphia City Institute

Cost: FREE

Baseball historian Rich Westcott will present and autograph his new book Biz Mackey, a Giant Behind the Plate, the first biography of arguably the greatest catcher in the Negro Leagues. Mackey, who spent a third of his career in Philadelphia, also mentored famed catcher Roy Campanella and had an…

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…

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…

Thu, May 17, 2018 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: $15.00
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Tickets on sale April 20 at 10:00 a.m. In conversation with Tamala Edwards, anchor, 6ABC Action News morning edition A scion of America’s most fabled political dynasty, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is a clinical professor and supervising attorney at the Environmental Litigation Clinic at Pace…

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,…

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…

Wed, June 6, 2018 7:30 P.M.
Irvine Auditorium | University of Pennsylvania | 3401 Spruce St. | Philadelphia, PA 19104

Cost: $50 Orchestra, $40 Mezzanine, $35 Balcony
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Tickets on sale April 20th at 10:00 a.m. Please join President Bill Clinton and the world’s bestselling author James Patterson as they discuss their forthcoming novel, The President Is Missing , offering candid insights into their unique collaboration and research, as well as the timely…