Past Events
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Thursday, September 27, 2012 - 6:30 PM | Lecture | Members' Room
An automaton, a man and a woman who can never meet, two stories of love—all are brought to incandescent life in this hauntingly moving novel from one of the finest writers of our time.
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Thursday, September 27, 2012 - 11:00 AM | Reading Group | Whitridge Room
This seminar presents a fresh side-by-side look at stories of passion told by classical Greek dramatists, Jean Racine, and William Shakespeare.
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Thursday, September 20, 2012 - 5:30 PM | Reading Group | Whitridge Room
The Library's Special Collections Librarian traces the printed book through the handpress period with a focus on printing technology, materials, and craftsmanship.
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Tuesday, September 18, 2012 - 6:30 PM | Lecture | Members' Room
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the first woman playwright to win a Tony Award, Wendy Wasserstein was a Broadway luminary, but a personal mystery.
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Tuesday, September 18, 2012 - 10:00 AM | The Writing Life | Whitridge RoomGet the creative juices flowing in these fun and instructive sessions. Participants will receive a prompt and will have 20 minutes to write freely, after which they are encouraged to share their writing with the group.
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Friday, September 7, 2012 - 6:30 PM | Lecture | Members' Room
As part of the first international conference about National Book Award winner and Library trustee Shirley Hazzard, a distinguished panel discusses her life and works, including Transit of Venus and The Great Fire.
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Thursday, June 21, 2012 - 6:00 PM | Lecture | Members' Room
Award-winning author Elizabeth Winthrop, the daughter and niece of Stewart Alsop and Joseph Alsop, discusses the portrayal of her uncle and father and their era in David Auburn's Broadway hit The Columnist.
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Thursday, June 7, 2012 - 6:30 PM | Lecture | Members' Room
Uncle Tom's Cabin is likely the most influential novel ever written by an American. In a fitting tribute to the two hundredth anniversary of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s birth, Bancroft Prize-winning historian David S.
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Thursday, May 31, 2012 - 6:30 PM | Lecture | Members' Room
In Chasing Venus, New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Andrea Wulf tells the extraordinary story of the first global scientific collaboration - set amid warring armies, savage weather, and bitter rivalries - motiva
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Tuesday, May 22, 2012 - 6:30 PM | Lecture | Members' Room | Open to the Public
Sweet Judy Blue Eyes is the deeply personal, honest, and revealing memoir of folk legend and relentlessly creative spirit Judy Collins.
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Thursday, May 10, 2012 - 6:30 PM | Lecture | Members' Room
Acclaimed novelist Louis Begley continues the poignant, darkly funny, emotionally nuanced series that began with About Schmidt, adapted into the film directed by Alexander Payne.
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Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - 6:30 PM | Lecture | Members' Room
Kurt Vonnegut influenced the visual and film arts, critical and political discourse, and, of course, generations of writers.
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Friday, April 20, 2012 - 6:00 PM | Reception | Members' Room
The Library celebrates National Poetry Month with contrasting readings by three acclaimed contemporary poets. This event is generously supported by the Ethelyn Chase Poetry Fund.
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Monday, April 16, 2012 - 6:00 PM | Lecture | Members' Room
Later America's most popular and controversial playwright, whose works included The Glass Menagerie and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Tennessee Williams concentrated his youthful talent just as intently on poetry as on plays.
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Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - 6:30 PM | Lecture | Members' Room
Journalists Meyer and Brysac explore places around the world, including the Indian state of Kerala and the borough of Queens, where people of many different ethnicities live together in peace.
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Tuesday, April 3, 2012 - 6:30 PM | Lecture | Members' Room
Two of the city's leading critical thinkers discuss the legacy of Lionel Trilling and the impact of his era of thought on today's world of higher education.
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Tuesday, March 27, 2012 - 6:30 PM | Lecture | Temple Israel
Hermione Lee won international acclaim and awards for her biographies of Virginia Woolf and Willa Cather, and her Edith Wharton (2007) is considered the definitive modern biography of one of America's most famous women of letters.
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Thursday, March 22, 2012 - 6:30 PM | Lecture | Members' Room
In this magisterial new biography, New York Times bestselling author Sally Bedell Smith brings to life one of the world's most fascinating and enigmatic women, Queen Elizabeth II.
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Thursday, March 15, 2012 - 4:00 PM | Children | Members' Room
A child finally falls asleep with the rest of the world in this new picture book from Kate and Jules Feiffer. In this event the Feiffers talk about how they worked together to create the book and engage attendees in creating their own story.
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Tuesday, March 13, 2012 - 10:00 AM | The Writing Life | Whitridge Room
In this session we'll take the first chapter of Daniel Woodrell's novel Winter's Bone, read it aloud one sentence or paragraph at a time, and hold each part up to the light. Close reading is a slow, surprisingly exciting process.
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Tuesday, February 28, 2012 - 6:30 PM | Lecture | Members' Room
In Reading My Father, William Styron's youngest child explores the life of a fascinating and difficult man whose own memoir, Darkness Visible, so searingly chronicled his battle with major depression.
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Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - 6:30 PM | Lecture | Members' Room
The 2011 film The Conspirator tells the saga of Confederate widow Mary Surratt, tried for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth and others to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. Although the Lincoln murder is widely taught, few know the full story.
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Thursday, February 16, 2012 - 6:30 PM | Performance | Members' Room
Yasmina Reza's Art premiered in Paris in 1995 and won the Molière Award for Best Author. Since then it has had productions worldwide in over thirty languages.
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Tuesday, February 14, 2012 - 10:00 AM | The Writing Life | Whitridge Room
Sarah Pinneo is the author of the popular blog Blurb is a Verb!, in which she shares true (and sometimes terrible) stories of book publicity gone right (and wrong).
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Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - 6:30 PM | Lecture | Members' Room
In this event, acclaimed novelist Ellen Feldman and celebrated historian Richard Snow discuss the struggles and rewards of writing about World War II.