events @ the Library

Photo credit Phyllis Groner
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Opening reception: Friday, February 5, from 6:00 to 7:00 pm.
Light refreshments served. Enter through the main level Library entrance.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

This program is free and open to the public. Contact Jaina Lewis at 291-4809 or jlewis@westportlibrary.org for more information.

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Books will be available for purchase and signing.

Learn about the excellent Library resources that will make you an informed jobseeker.

Nominated for the Edgar, Shamus, and Lefty awards, Parnell Hall is the author of several popular mystery series. An actor, screenwriter, and former private investigator, Parnell lives in New York City.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

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Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, discusses this richly textured story of the hidden costs of scientific progress. In illuminating the life and contribution of Henrietta Lacks, one of the many vulnerable subjects used for scientific advancement, it reveals the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences. Publisher's Weekly says, "Skloot tells a rich, resonant tale of modern science, the wonders it can perform and how easily it can exploit society’s most vulnerable people."

Skloot is an award-winning writer, and a contributing editor at Popular Science magazine. She has worked as a correspondent for NPR’s RadioLab and PBS’s Nova ScienceNOW, and her writing appears in The New York Times Magazine, O: The Oprah Magazine, Discover, Columbia Journalism Review, Prevention, and many others.

ABC news stories on "How One Woman's Cells Changed Medicine" and Excerpt: 'The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.'
New York Times article

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

Light refreshments served.
Enter through the main level Library entrance.

Bennett Harris is an expert traditional blues guitar fingerpicker, specializing in Piedmont ragtime and Mississippi Delta-sliding styles from the pre-World War II era. He plays slide on a 1930s vintage National steel Duolian and plays a neck-rack harmonica simultaneously. Kenny Kosek is one of the most recorded fiddlers in America today. His fluid, imaginative playing draws on an extensive stylistic vocabulary which allows him to move freely between numerous musical genres. Gary Brooks has occupied the bass chair with Bennett for many years. His steady, soulful, R&B influenced “groove” style anchors the trio’s sound. Gary also plays sax and keys, and over several decades has performed as a soloist and section player with many bands throughout the northeast.

Supported by the Grace K. Salmon Foundation.

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Susan Abulhawa was born to refugees of the 1967 war when Israel captured what remained of Palestine, including Jerusalem. Her essays and political commentaries have appeared in print and international news media and she is a contributing author to two anthologies, Shattered Illusions (Amal Press, 2002) and Searching Jenin (Cune Press, 2003). Mornings in Jenin is her first novel.

Anne Ford speaks about her book A Special Mother: Getting through the Early Days of a Child's Diagnosis of Learning Disabilities and Related Disorders, co-authored with John-Richard Thompson, who will also be present. Ford is the author of the memoir Laughing Allegra, on raising her severely learning disabled daughter, and On Their Own: Creating an Independent Future for Your Adult Child with Learning Disabilities and ADHD. The great-granddaughter of Henry Ford, she served as Chairman of the National Center for Learning Disabilities from 1989 to 2001, and remains a committed advocate and frequent speaker on LD issues. Thompson is an award-winning playwright and novelist, who has collaborated with Anne Ford at NCLD.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Items in the Library catalog on learning disabilities.
Co-sponsored with Smart Kids with LD.

Community Conversations are sponsored by The Smilow Family.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

Photo credit Phyllis Groner.
Community Conversations are sponsored by The Smilow Family.
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For copies of the book, phone 291-4821 or email Sue Madeo at smadeo@westportlibrary.org.
New participants always welcome.

For copies of the book, phone 291-4821. New participants always welcome.

Anthropologist Alessandro Monsutti, a professor at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland, currently doing research at Yale University, will speak on the social and political history of Afghanistan, including the significance of Afghanistan's ethnic groups and tribalism.

Monsutti has done field work in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran, and in Western countries among Afghan refugees and migrants. He has also worked as consultant for humanitarian and development organizations, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Berne.

Community Conversations are sponsored by The Smilow Family.

Photo credit Larry Untermeyer.
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In The Three Weissmanns of Westport, author Cathleen Schine presents a modern-day take on Sense and Sensibility when two sisters return home to live with their recently divorced mother in a small, run-down Westport, Connecticut, beach cottage. As the sisters mingle with the suburban aristocracy, love starts to blossom for both of them, and they find themselves struggling with the dueling demands of reason and romance. New York Times Sunday Book Review

A former Westporter, Cathleen Schine is the author of the internationally best-selling novels The Love Letter (1995), which was made into a movie starring Kate Capshaw, and Rameau’s Niece (1993), which was also made into a movie (The Misadventures of Margaret), starring Parker Posey.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Books by Cathleen Schine in the Library catalog.

Note: Free tickets available in the Children’s Library beginning at 9:00 am on the day of the performance-space is limited.

In The Fountainhead, starring Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, and Raymond Massey, Ayn Rand’s monumental best-selling book is turned into a bizarre screen triumph as an uncompromising visionary architect struggles to maintain his integrity despite pressures to conform. (1949, 114 minutes)

Library catalog.
Co-sponsored with the Westport Historical Society.