Our Events

Event Recordings

  • Wednesday, November 8, 2023 - 6:00 PM | Lecture | Members' Room | open to the public | $15 per person | registration required
    A memoir of an extraordinary life—from a poet, international human rights activist, founding member of Amnesty International USA, journalist, hostess, famous beauty, foreign policy advisor; friend to politicians, movie stars, the legendary; discoverer of Philip Roth, longtime wife of Bill Styron and half of America’s literary golden couple at home and abroad. “[Rose Styron] has lived a life in interesting times, among legendary characters, a life well worth telling—and reading about.” —The Washington Post
    Embedded thumbnail for Rose Styron, Beyond This Harbor: Adventurous Tales of the Heart, with Jenny Allen
  • Thursday, October 26, 2023 - 6:00 PM | Lecture | Members' Room | open to the public | $15 per person | registration required
    Two of America’s master essayists, Roger Rosenblatt and Lance Morrow, discuss the art of the essay and the state of American journalism, then and now, with Jim Kelly, former managing editor of TIME.
    Embedded thumbnail for Lance Morrow, The Noise of Typewriters: Remembering Journalism and Roger Rosenblatt, Cataract Blues: Running the Keyboard
  • Friday, October 20, 2023 - 12:00 PM | Lecture | Livestream | open to the public | free of charge | registration required
    For the past four years, an international team of researchers led by the University of Liverpool in the UK has been exploring the history of libraries and reading habits in the eighteenth century, shedding dramatic new light on the contribution made by books to social, cultural and political change in this vital period in the formation of the modern world. This talk will feature two of the leading researchers on the project talking through some of their key findings, while also giving audience members a behind-the-scenes look at the project’s database before it is launched to the public later this year.
    Embedded thumbnail for Libraries of the Enlightenment: An Introduction to the Eighteenth-Century Libraries Online Database
  • Monday, October 16, 2023 - 6:15 PM | Special Event | Livestream | open to the public | free of charge | registration required
    The Hudson Review celebrates its 75th anniversary this year with an original in-depth essay by A.E. Stallings, "Frieze Frame: How Poets, Painters (and Actors and Architects) Framed the Ongoing Debate Around Elgin and the Marbles of the Athenian Acropolis." At this special event, Ms. Stallings will give an illustrated talk about the history of the Elgin Marbles, discussing the 19th century’s many attitudes toward them through the present-day debate about their future.
    Embedded thumbnail for A.E. Stallings, “Frieze Frame”: Artists and the Debate Around the Elgin Marbles, with The Hudson Review
  • Monday, October 2, 2023 - 6:00 PM | Lecture | Members' Room | open to the public | $15 per person | registration required
    The bestselling author of The Happiness Project discovers a surprising path to a life of more energy, creativity, luck, and love: by tuning in to the five senses. In this special event, Gretchen Rubin converses with Alexandra Horowitz, author of On Looking: A Walker's Guide to the Art of Observation and other books.
    Embedded thumbnail for Gretchen Rubin, Life in Five Senses: How Exploring the Senses Got Me Out of My Head and Into the World, with Alexandra Horowitz
  • Thursday, September 28, 2023 - 6:00 PM | Lecture | Livestream | open to the public | $10 per person | registration required
    Award-winning historian Blair LM Kelley illuminates the adversities and joys of the Black working class in America through a stunning narrative centered on her forebears, in conversation with Eloquent Rage author Brittney C. Cooper.
    Embedded thumbnail for Blair LM Kelley, Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class, with Brittney C. Cooper
  • Wednesday, September 13, 2023 - 6:00 PM | Special Event | Members' Room | open to the public | free of charge | registration required
    Two Black sisters growing up in small-town New England fight to protect their home, their bodies, and their dreams as the Civil Rights Movement sweeps the nation in Promise, a “magical, magnificent novel” (Marlon James). The Library joins the Harlem Arts Salon in presenting this special event with National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson. Light refreshments will be served.
    Embedded thumbnail for Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Promise: A Novel, with Jacqueline Woodson
  • Sunday, September 10, 2023 - 2:00 PM | Lecture | Livestream | open to the public | $10 per person | registration required
    A startling new portrait of George Eliot, the beloved novelist and a rare philosophical mind who explored the complexities of marriage. Clare Carlisle, professor of philosophy and author of books on Spinoza and Kierkegaard, discusses her new biography with novelist and editor Christine Smallwood.
    Embedded thumbnail for Clare Carlisle, The Marriage Question: George Eliot's Double Life, with Christine Smallwood
  • Wednesday, June 14, 2023 - 6:00 PM | Lecture | Members' Room and Livestream | open to the public | free of charge | registration required
    Two scholars of the early Christian movements find new perspectives in the texts that were excluded from the canonical New Testament.
    Embedded thumbnail for Natalie R. Perkins and Hal Taussig, In Trembling Boldness: Wisdom for Today from Ancient Jesus People
  • Thursday, June 8, 2023 - 6:00 PM | Lecture | Whitridge Room & Livestream | open to the public | free of charge | registration required
    An unconventional history of the world’s largest cellular workhorse, from chickens to penguins, from art to crime, and more. Lizzie Stark chats with Kirstin Chen, author of the bestselling novel Counterfeit.
    Embedded thumbnail for Lizzie Stark, Egg: A Dozen Ovatures, with Kirstin Chen
  • Wednesday, May 31, 2023 - 6:00 PM | Lecture | Members' Room & Livestream | open to the public | $15 per person | registration required
    A kaleidoscopic portrait of an enduring metropolis by the New York Times' architecture critic, The Intimate City reveals why New York, despite COVID and a long history of other calamities, continues to inspire and to mean so much to those who call it home and to countless others.
    Embedded thumbnail for Michael Kimmelman, The Intimate City: Walking New York
  • Saturday, May 20, 2023 - 2:00 PM | Special Event | Livestream | open to the public | free of charge | registration required
    The Library is pleased to offer a new and unique panel in partnership with the New York City Regional Chapter of the Authors Guild. Join us for an exploration of what happens when a writer's imagination moves into worlds and identities that lie beyond expected parameters. Participants will consider the significance of extra-experiential writing for the writer's own creativity as well as its impact on the larger literary community. The panelists are Roberto Carlos Garcia, Maité Iracheta, SJ Rozan, and Jennifer Shyue, with moderator Catherine Martinez Torigian.
    Embedded thumbnail for Livestream: Panel: The Writer with a Thousand Faces: Creative Imagination, Cultural Responsibility, and Inhabiting Different Worlds
  • Monday, May 15, 2023 - 6:00 PM | Lecture | Members' Room & Livestream | open to the public | $15 per person | registration required
    A riveting, immersive account of the agonizing decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan—a crucial turning point in World War II and geopolitical history—with you-are-there immediacy by the New York Times bestselling author of Ike's Bluff and Sea of Thunder.
    Embedded thumbnail for Evan Thomas, Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II
  • Saturday, May 13, 2023 - 2:00 PM | Special Event | open to the public | free of charge | registration required
    The Harlem Writers Guild and the New York Society Library are proud to present a conversation between two African-American cultural icons, talking about their experiences in theatre, concert, and event production with moderator Michael Dinwiddie.
    Embedded thumbnail for Black Theatre Revisited: A Conversation with Woodie King Jr. and Voza Rivers - The Geniuses Behind The Scenes
  • Wednesday, May 10, 2023 - 6:30 PM | Special Event | Members' Room & Livestream | open to the public | free of charge | registration required
    The Library honors this year's New York City Book Awards winners at a reception and presentation. Light refreshments are offered at 6:00 PM, with the presentation of awards beginning at 6:30 PM.
    Embedded thumbnail for The 2022-2023 New York City Book Awards Ceremony
  • Thursday, April 27, 2023 - 6:00 PM | Lecture | Members' Room | open to the public | free of charge | registration required
    ​In Whistling in the Dark, Lucienne S. Bloch shares her beautifully written personal essays exploring her New York City world from the 1950s to the present. Readers will be swept up in the graceful prose that distinguishes her award-winning work, with universal themes of memory, belonging, family, identity, survival, and aging. In this one-of-a-kind event, Ms. Bloch converses with author and journalist Barbara Ascher.
    Embedded thumbnail for Lucienne S. Bloch, Whistling in the Dark: Personal Essays, with Barbara Ascher
  • Monday, April 24, 2023 - 6:00 PM | Lecture | Members' Room & Livestream | open to the public | $15 per person | registration required
    Less than a century ago, the Second World War took the lives of more than fifty million people; more than six million of them systematically exterminated. Yet amid such darkness, there were glimmers of light—courageous individuals who risked everything to save those hunted by the Nazis. In the Garden of the Righteous chronicles extraordinary acts at a time when the moral choices were stark, the threat immense, and the passive apathy of millions predominated.
    Embedded thumbnail for Richard Hurowitz, In the Garden of the Righteous: The Heroes Who Risked Their Lives to Save Jews During the Holocaust
  • Thursday, April 20, 2023 - 6:00 PM | Special Event | Members' Room & Livestream | open to the public | free of charge | registration required
    In honor of Earth Day 2023 (April 22), an all-star slate of poets illuminate through poetry the real impact of climate change, global warming, and the effects of environmental injustice on our world. The poems come from John Curl, Stephanie JT Russell, Megha Sood, and Joanie HF Zosike, with a joint presentation by Margaret Porter Troupe and Quincy Troupe.
    Embedded thumbnail for Earth Day Poetry Salon
  • Tuesday, April 4, 2023 - 6:00 PM | Special Event | Members' Room | open to the public | $15 per person | registration required
    In these diaries the great American poet illuminates not only her literary genius, but her life as a devoted daughter, sister, wife, and public heroine; and finally as a solitary, tragic figure. In this special event, her biographer Daniel Mark Epstein illuminates passages from Millay's writings, with dramatic readings.
    Embedded thumbnail for Daniel Mark Epstein, Rapture and Melancholy: The Diaries of Edna St. Vincent Millay, with dramatic readings
  • Wednesday, March 22, 2023 - 6:00 PM | Lecture | Whitridge Room | open to the public | $15 per person | registration required
    In 1971, a white, Jewish, former ballerina chose to have a child with the famous Black jazz musician Roy Ayers, fully expecting and agreeing that he would not be involved in the child’s life. In this highly original memoir, their son, Nabil Ayers, recounts his journey to re-draw the lines that define family and race. In this special event, he converses with award-winning civil rights journalist, podcaster, legal analyst, and author Jami Floyd.
    Embedded thumbnail for Nabil Ayers with Jami Floyd, My Life in the Sunshine: Searching for My Father and Discovering My Family
  • Tuesday, March 7, 2023 - 6:00 PM | Lecture | Livestream | open to the public | $10 per person | registration required
    The definitive history of World War II from the African American perspective, written by civil rights expert and Dartmouth history professor Matthew Delmont.
    Embedded thumbnail for Matthew F. Delmont, Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad
  • Monday, February 27, 2023 - 6:00 PM | Lecture | Members' Room and livestream | open to the public
    This powerful portrait of schizophrenia, the most malignant and mysterious mental illness, by renowned psychiatrist Jeffrey Lieberman, interweaves cultural and scientific history with dramatic patient profiles and clinical experiences to impart a revolutionary message of hope. In this special event, Dr. Lieberman converses with Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon and Far from the Tree.
    Embedded thumbnail for Jeffrey A. Lieberman, M.D., Malady of the Mind: Schizophrenia and the Path to Prevention, with Andrew Solomon
  • Thursday, February 23, 2023 - 6:00 PM | Lecture | Members' Room | open to the public
    An extraordinary, untold story of the Second World War in the vein of Unbroken and The Boys in the Boat, from the author of Friday Night Lights and Three Nights in August.
    Embedded thumbnail for Buzz Bissinger, The Mosquito Bowl: A Game of Life and Death in World War II
  • Thursday, February 16, 2023 - 6:00 PM | Lecture | Members' Room & Livestream | open to the public | $15 per person | registration required
    An exquisitely rendered portrait of a unique father-daughter relationship and a moving memoir of family and identity.
    Embedded thumbnail for Priscilla Gilman, The Critic's Daughter: A Memoir
  • Tuesday, January 31, 2023 - 6:00 PM | Lecture | Livestream | open to the public | $10 per person | registration required
    A groundbreaking and enthralling biography of two pioneering geniuses in historical fiction - the most famous sister novelists before the Brontës, Jane and Anna Maria Porter.
    Embedded thumbnail for Devoney Looser, Sister Novelists: The Trailblazing Porter Sisters, Who Paved the Way for Austen and the Brontës

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