events @ the Library: Authors @ the Library Archives

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Lisa Wexler

Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Noon
McManus Room

Connecticut radio talk show host and attorney Lisa Wexler discusses her book Secrets of a Jewish Mother, co-written with her mother Gloria Kamen and sister Jill Zarin, a star of The Real Housewives of New York City.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Diane Meier

Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Noon
McManus Room

Author Diane Meier's debut novel, Season of Second Chances illustrates how coming-of-age can happen at any age. A world of possibilities opens up for Joy Harkness when she sets out on a journey that’s going to show her the importance of friendship, love, and what makes a house a home. Meier is the author of The New American Wedding and president of Meier, a New York City–based marketing firm. Her career spans from writing and design to public speaking. This is her first novel. Meier lives in New York City and Litchfield, Connecticut.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

Murder 203: Connecticut's Mystery Festival

Saturday and Sunday, April 17 and 18, 2010
Westport and Easton Libraries

Connecticut now has its own major event for the mystery-minded! Murder 203 is a two day festival organized by the Easton and Westport Libraries for readers and writers. Attendees enjoy author talks, panel discussions, book signings, writing tips from the professionals, and a unique opportunity to mingle with authors and fellow crime fiction enthusiasts at the Cocktails and Crime reception on Saturday evening.

The event is $65 if you register before March 1st. After March 1st, registration is $75. Meet-the-Authors continental breakfast Saturday and Sunday morning is included in the registration fee as well as lunch on Saturday and admission to Cocktails and Crime.

For information and registration, visit murder203.com.

Questions? Phone Jane Murphy at 203-291-4836.

Murder 203: Connecticut's Mystery Festival

Saturday and Sunday, April 17 and 18, 2010
Westport and Easton Libraries

Connecticut now has its own major event for the mystery-minded! Murder 203 is a two day festival organized by the Easton and Westport Libraries for readers and writers. Attendees enjoy author talks, panel discussions, book signings, writing tips from the professionals, and a unique opportunity to mingle with authors and fellow crime fiction enthusiasts at the Cocktails and Crime reception on Saturday evening.

The event is $65 if you register before March 1st. After March 1st, registration is $75. Meet-the-Authors continental breakfast Saturday and Sunday morning is included in the registration fee as well as lunch on Saturday and admission to Cocktails and Crime.

For information and registration, visit murder203.com.

Questions? Phone Jane Murphy at 203-291-4836.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Jeff Shesol

Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Noon
McManus Room

Jeff Shesol, a former speechwriter to President Bill Clinton and the author of Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy and the Feud That Defined a Decade, will discuss his new book Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the Supreme Court. “Once in a generation a groundbreaking book comes along to provide a major reinterpretation of a familiar historical event. Sheshol tells the story of FDR's court packing plan as it has never been told before. This is a stunning work of history.” — Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of Team of Rivals.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Irene Levine

Monday, March 8, 2010
7:30 pm
McManus Room

New York University School of Medicine psychologist, professor, and award-winning freelance writer, Irene Levine, discusses her self-help guide for women recovering from a break-up with their best friend in Best Friends Forever: Surviving a Breakup with Your Best Friend. "Whether your friendship sputtered because of physical distance or your best friend slept with your boyfriend, Levine deftly assures us that although the pain can be strong, the sorrow will pass."—Publisher's Weekly

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Jerome Charyn

Tuesday March 2, 2010
Noon
McManus Room

In his new novel, The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson, author Jerome Charyn removes Emily Dickinson's own mysterious mask, revealing the passions and heartbreak of America's greatest poet. Charyn was born in the Bronx in 1937 and has written 37 books, including three memoirs about his childhood in the Bronx, two of which were named New York Times Book Of the Year .

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Items on Emily Dickinson in the Library catalog.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Cathleen Schine

Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Noon
McManus Room

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.

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.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Rafael Yglesias

Thursday, February 11, 2010
Noon
McManus Room

In The Happy Marriage , Rafael Yglesias tells the story of Enrique Sabas and his wife Margaret, alternating between the romantic misadventures of the first weeks of their courtship and the final months of Margaret's life as she says good-bye to her family, friends, and children — and to Enrique. Spanning thirty years, the story is about what it means for two people to spend a lifetime together, capturing the maturing of feelings, the issues around sex, and the frustrations of parenthood — and what makes a happy marriage. "Maybe marriage is the oldest story in the world, but in Mr. Yglesias's tender, funny, rueful telling, the lifelong relationship is the story of life itself.”— Wall Street Journal, The Summer Book List.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

Author to Speak on Smart Kids with Learning Disabilities

Wednesday, February 10, 2010
10:00 am
McManus Room

Anne Ford will speak about her book A Special Mother: Getting through the Early Days of a Child's Diagnosis of Learning Disabilities and Related Disorder, co-authored with John-Richard Thompson, who will also be present. Ford is the author of the memoir Laughing Allegra about raising her severely learning disabled daughter, and On Their Own: Creating an Independent Future for Your Adult Child with Learning Disabilities and ADHD. 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. The great-granddaughter of Henry Ford, she lives in New York City. Thompson is an award-winning playwright and novelist, who has collaborated with Anne Ford at NCLD and on her two previous books. He lives in New York City.

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

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Susan Abulhawa

Monday, February 8, 2010
Noon
McManus Room

Susan Abulhawa discusses her debut novel, Mornings in Jenin, which is richly told and full of humanity, forcing a fresh look at one of the defining political conflicts of our lifetime. LIbrary Journal says, "'Every now and then a literary work changes the way people think. Abulhawa, herself Palestinian, has crafted an intensely beautiful fictionalized history that should be read by both politicians and those interested in contemporary politics."

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Parnell Hall

Thursday, February 4, 2010
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Author Parnell Hall discusses his newest entertaining and fun-filled mystery The Puzzle Lady vs. the Sudoku Lady. It’s the battle of the century when Minami, the Sudoku Lady, shows up in Bakerhaven, Connecticut, to meet Cora Felton, the Puzzle Lady, whose sudoku books have just edged Minami’s off of the Japanese bestseller list. Before the rivals have a chance to square off, a killer strikes, and a sudoku puzzle is found at the scene of the murder. Now it’s a fight to the finish to see who can unmask the killer. As well as several satisfying crossword and sudoku puzzles, the Puzzle Lady’s latest adventure makes for a good read.

Nominated for the Edgar, Shamus, and Lefty awards, Parnell Hall is the author of several popular mystery series, including the Puzzle Lady crossword puzzle mysteries, the Stanley Hastings private eye novels, and the Steve Winslow courtroom dramas. An actor, screenwriter, and former private investigator, Parnell lives in New York City.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Amy Bloom

Tuesday, February 2, 2010
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Author Amy Bloom returns to the Library to discuss her new book, a collection of short stories, Where the God of Love Hangs Out. Love, in its many forms and complexities, weaves through this collection by this New York Times bestselling author of Away. Bloom's new work of interconnected stories illuminates the mysteries of passion, family, and friendship.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Katharine Weber

Monday, February 1, 2010
Noon
McManus Room

From the critically acclaimed author of The Music Lesson and Triangle, Katharine Weber, comes True Confections, the ingenious, witty, and affecting fictional story of Zip's Candies, a family-run candy factory trying to stay alive after 85 years in the business. "Alice (the narrator) is an immediately lovable narrator, and her narration eventually bears hints about its possible lack of credibility, giving readers even more of a reason to keep turning pages. This story of love, life and sweets is a genuine treat." — Publisher's Weekly.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, PhD

Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Meeting of WYWL at 7:00 pm; Author talks at 7:30 pm
McManus Room

Women are extraordinarily hard on themselves. They scrutinize their flaws; they get preoccupied with ways they do not measure up, twisting themselves into knots to fix problems no one else can see. The Power of Women: Harness Your Unique Strengths at Home, at Work, and in Your Community, the latest book from award-winning and bestselling psychologist Dr. Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, shows women how to break this cycle—by discovering and utilizing their unique psychological strengths. Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema, the author of the bestselling Women Who Think Too Much and Eating, Drinking, Overthinking is a professor of psychology at Yale University where she has conducted award-winning research on women’s mental health for twenty-five years. She and her research have been profiled on the Today show and in The New York Times.

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

Co-sponsored by the Westport Young Woman’s League.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Nancy Goldstone

Monday December 7
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Westport author Nancy Goldstone portrays the riveting history of a beautiful queen, a shocking murder, a papal trial—and a reign as triumphant as any in the Middle Ages in her new book, The Lady Queen: The Notorious Reign of Joanna I, Queen of Naples, Jerusalem, and Sicily. Publishers Weekly says, "On Goldstone's rich, beautifully woven tapestry, medieval Europe springs to vivid life. This is a fresh, eminently enjoyable history that gives women their due as movers and shakers in tumultuous times."

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: John Ortved

Thursday, November 19
7:30 pm
McManus Room

John Ortved, a contributing editorial associate at Vanity Fair, takes you into the inner sanctum of The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History. Hear how the show (celebrating its 20th year) grew from a controversial cult favorite to a mainstream powerhouse thanks to a group of intense, thoughtful, and creative people who came together to make something unique in the history of American culture. Animators, writers, actors, directors, producers, executives and celebrity guest stars—as much a dysfunctional but loving family as the show’s stars themselves—are all here. It’s an intriguing yet hilarious tale full of betrayal, ambition, and love.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Gail Rentsch

Wednesday, November 18, 2009
7:00 pm
McManus Room

Smart Women Don't Retire—They Break Free is The Transition Network's first book, written by Gail Rentsch, who traveled the country interviewing TTN women. It is filled with information, personal stories, and valuable resources to help prepare for a wide range of future transitions. This book shows how to create new and exciting work and volunteer opportunities and how to discover new outlets for creativity and passion.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Co-sponsored with The Transition Network, Connecticut Chapter.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: William Grimes

Wednesday, November 18
Noon
McManus Room

In Appetite City: A Culinary History of New York , former New York Times restaurant critic William Grimes offers a grand tour of the history of the city’s restaurants, exploring the ways in which sex and class determined where and how a person would eat, and how the city’s restaurant scene mirrored the larger social and political forces shaping New York. With dozens of irresistible characters and anecdotes, and a treasure trove of photographs, Grimes evokes both the belle epoque of Edith Wharton and the surging multicultural city of today.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: David Pogue

Saturday, November 14, 2009
11:00 am
McManus Room

New York Times personal-technology columnist David Pogue admits to having been a real skeptic at first about the social networking service Twitter. But he quickly became a Twitterphile after seeing a colleague get obscure, needed information almost instantly by questioning his followers on Twitter. Pretty soon Pogue was a complete convert, and, not surprisingly given the lengthy roster of books he has already penned, a new title, The World According to Twitter, was in the works. Pogue will talk about Twitter itself and his new book, which, in fact, isn’t really about Twitter at all. Rather it’s a fascinating collection of some 2,500 clever and often hilarious tweets in reply to questions he posed to his “followers,” ranging from the earnest (When do you know the honeymoon’s over?) to the curious (Tell us the story of your tatoo) to the creative (Make up a phony Chinese proverb).

In addition to Pogue’s weekly print column in The New York Times, he contributes an NYT online column and video and a popular daily blog, “Pogue’s Posts.” He is also an Emmy award-winning tech correspondent for CBS News and a best-selling author, with more than 3 million books in print. He wrote or co-wrote seven books in the Dummies series, and, in 1999, launched his own series of computer books called the Missing Manual series, which now totals more than 100 titles. He lives in Westport.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Joanna Greenfield

Thursday, November 5
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Joanna Greenfield dreamed of traveling to East Africa to study one of the last known populations of wild chimpanzees. In The Lion's Eye: Seeing in the Wild, she describes the story of her mission to connect with animals--an adventure story and against-the-odds quest for a wilderness few of us have ever glimpsed.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Harriet Reisen

Wednesday, November 4
Noon
McManus Room

In Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women, Harriet Reisen gives a fresh, modern take on this remarkable and prolific writer, who secretly authored pulp fiction, harbored radical abolitionist views, and completed heroic service as a Civil War nurse. Louisa May Alcott is also the story of how the all-time beloved American classic Little Women came to be, presenting the popular author as she was and has never been seen before. It will soon to be a PBS American Masters episode.

Books about Louisa May Alcott in the Library catalog.
Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Katherine Hall Page

Monday, November 2
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Award-winning mystery author Katherine Hall Page will discuss her new book The Body in the Sleigh. Murder mars the family’s Maine holiday getaway in this eighteenth title of the widely read Faith Fairchild mystery series.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

SPECIAL EVENT: Joseph Califano, Jr.

Monday, October 26
7:30 pm
Bedford Middle School auditorium

Joseph A. Califano, Jr., founder and chairman of The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University and former U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, will discuss his book How to Raise a Drug-Free Kid: The Straight Dope for Parents, a guide to help parents get their kids through the pre-teen, teen and college years drug free. Through its nine facets of parental engagement, learn proven, practical ways to constructively engage in the lives of their children and to use their "Parent Power" in order to be their child's strongest positive influence.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Books by Joseph Califano in the Library catalog.
Directions to Bedford Middle School.
Co-sponsored with Positive Youth Development.

Men of Mystery

Sunday, October 25
2:00 pm
McManus Room

Action, adventure, and crime solving -- What more could you ask for? Two accomplished mystery writers join in a discussion with Joe Meyers of the Connecticut Post. Peter Lovesey is the award-winning author of over thirty-five crime novels, including the Peter Diamond series and the Sergeant Cribb mysteries. James R. Benn, a master blender of fact and fiction, writes the Billy Boyle mysteries, which are set during World War II.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Janis Abrahms Spring

Wednesday, October 21
Noon
McManus Room

Westport author and clinical psychologist Janis Abrahms Spring presents her honest portrayal of the daunting yet fulfilling task of caring for her aging father through his final years of life, chronicled in Life with Pop: Lessons on Caring for an Aging Parent.

"Life with Pop is a remarkable book—wise, beautifully honest, humane, and resonantly uplifting. It transcends its subject because its compassionate view of life and death applies to any caring relationship, and also transcends its genre, since Janis Spring does not prescribe cookie-cutter rules but instead offers advice from the heart. This poignant and humorous blend of professional acuity combined with personal insight is universal in its appeal and its important message.”

-- Sybil Steinberg, former senior editor, Publisher’s Weekly

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Louis Masur

Monday, October 19
7:30 pm
McManus Room

To millions of listeners, Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run is much more than a rock-and-roll album—it’s a poetic explosion of freedom and frustration. Louis P. Masur, author of Runaway Dream: Born to Run and Bruce Springsteen's American Vision, chronicles the making of the album that launched Springsteen and his E Street Band into the firmament of American art, deftly sketching the ambition, history, and personalities that combined to create the enduring Born to Run.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Kevin Pilkington

Thursday, October 8
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Poet Kevin Pilkington, a member of the writing faculty at Sarah Lawrence College and of the graduate department at Manhattanville College, will read selections from his poetry, including his just-released book In the Eyes of a Dog. He is the author of six collections including Ready to Eat the Sky, which was a finalist for the Independent Publishers Books Award. His collection Spare Change was the La Jolla Poets Press National Book Award winner and his chapbook won the Ledge Poetry Prize. A new collection entitled In the Eyes of a Dog is forthcoming. Over the years, he has been nominated for four Pushcarts and has appeared in Verse Daily. His poetry has also appeared in many anthologies including Birthday Poems: A Celebration, Western Wind, and Contemporary Poetry of New England.

Ready to Eat the Sky in the Library catalog.
Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Wendy Walker

Wednesday, October 7
Noon
McManus Room

In Social Lives, local author Wendy Walker reveals how the world of money and privilege affects the women who inhabit it, bringing to light the family dynamics it corrupts, the glittering cages it creates, and most poignantly, the lengths some will go to keep it in their grasps. This gripping tale of domestic intrigue and social aspirations in the super-wealthy suburbs of Connecticut will scandalize and enthrall you.

Trailer.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Suzanne Braun Levine

Wednesday, September 30
7:00 pm
McManus Room

Author Suzanne Braun Levine will discuss her latest book, Fifty is the New Fifty—10 Lessons for Women in Second Adulthood, which has fresh insights, research, and practical advice on the challenges and unexpected rewards for women in their fifties and beyond.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Co-sponsored with The Transition Network, Connecticut Chapter, a national organization of women over 50 who are embracing change in their lifestyles, careers, and more.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Kate Walbert

Wednesday, September 30
Noon
McManus Room

Kate Walbert, 2004 National Book Award finalist for Our Kind, will lead a discussion of her new book, A Short History of Women, which offers a profoundly moving portrayal of the complicated legacies of mothers and daughters. Covering historical events from the social upheaval of pre-WWI Britain to VJ day in New York City, a feminist conscious-raising in the '70s and the Internet age, the lives of these women are intricately and grippingly revealed. Kirkus reviews call it, “Daring and devastating—20th century history made personal.”

Books by Kate Walbert in the Library catalog.
Library blog about the book.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Photo credit Marion Ettlinger.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Marina Marchese

Tuesday, September 29
Noon
McManus Room

Marina Marchese, author of Honeybee: From Hive to Home, Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper, will talk about how she acquired her own bees, built her own hives, harvested honey, earned a certificate in apitherapy, studied wine tasting in order to transfer those skills to honey tasting, and eventually opened her own business. Honeybee is a warm and inspiring story of one woman's experience with honeybees and also has a wealth of information about all aspects of bees, beekeeping, and honey.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
September is National Honey Month.
Books in the Library catalog on honeybees.

TEEN AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Stacia Morris

Wednesday, September 23
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Author Stacia Morris will lead a workshop for teens on financial responsibility, as well as discuss her book, Teen Money 101.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Laura Shapiro

Wednesday, September 23
Noon
McManus Room

From the award-winning culinarian historian, Laura Shapiro, (Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century and Something from the Oven:Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America) comes a refreshing look at one of the most beloved icons of American culture. Julia Child's life fascinates as her approach to cooking and recipes nourish and inspire.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Margot Berwin and Matthew Dicks

Monday, September 21, 2009
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Join two first-time published authors as they discuss their books and their writing and publishing experiences.

Margot Berwin's sultry debut novel, Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire: A Novel, explores plant magic, spiritual discovery, and romantic fever in the jungles of Mexico—an adventure that finds its roots at a green market in lower Manhattan and in one very special Laundromat. Publisher's Weekly starred review says, "It's a fun page-turner—escapist and wonderfully entertaining."

Matthew Dicks presents his debut novel, Something Missing, about an obsessive-compulsive thief who only steals things you would never miss, like toilet paper or an egg from the fridge, as a way of getting to know his "clients." The New York Times continues by saying, "Despite his obsessive-compulsive work ethic, Martin manages to get himself in trouble over a toothbrush — but not before we’ve decided to let him in next time he calls."

Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire: A Novel in the Library catalog.
Something Missing in the Library catalog.
Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Lev Grossman

Wednesday, September 16
Noon
McManus Room

Lev Grossman, senior writer and the book critic for Time magazine and the author of the bestselling novel Codex, will speak about his new book The Magicians: A Novel, a thrilling and original coming-of-age novel about a young man practicing magic in the real world.

NYT Sunday, September 13 Book Review.
Brief New Yorker review.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Sarma Melngailis

Wednesday, August 12
Noon
McManus Room

Author, chef and restaurant owner Sarma Melngailis will discuss her new book Living Raw Food: Get the Glow with More Recipes from Pure Food and Wine. With more than a hundred recipes using raw and organic ingredients, she shows how to create tasty, healthy food.

Items in the Library catalog on raw food diets.

Jane Austen and the Craft of Mystery

Monday, July 27
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Jane Austen’s Emma has been described as a traditional mystery with no murder. The term traditional is code in the world of mysteries. It informs and reassures readers about what to expect of this sub-genre—it implies certain qualities relating to the structure, characters, pacing, plot, and resolution.

Mystery authors, Jane K. Cleland and Margaret J. Ehrhart, will discuss the components of a “traditional” mystery, Jane Austen’s mastery of clues, red herrings, and suspense techniques, and how and why the mystery in Emma succeeds.

Items in the Library catalog on Jane Austen.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: David Grann

Monday, July 13
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Westport native, New Yorker staff writer and debut author David Grann will discuss his book The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, soon to be a major motion picture starring Brad Pitt. Grann brings to life the remarkable story of British explorer Percy Fawcett and his fateful 1925 quest for the Lost City of Z, the famed El Dorado, in the impenetrable jungle canopy of the Amazon.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

Library catalog.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Tracy Sugarman

Wednesday, June 17
Noon
McManus Room

In We Had Sneakers, They Had Guns: The Kids Who Fought for Civil Rights in Mississippi, Westporter and illustrator Tracy Sugarman chronicles the sacrifices, tragedies, and triumphs of the 1964 Freedom Summer. As an illustrator and journalist, Sugarman covered the nearly one thousand student volunteers who traveled to the Mississippi Delta to assist black citizens to register to vote. Blending oral history with memoir and image, the reader is drawn into the lives of Sugarman's subjects, showing the passion and naiveté of the volunteers, the bravery of the civil rights leaders, and the candid, sometimes troubling reactions of the black and white Delta residents.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Richard Wiese

Sunday, June 14
2:00 pm
McManus Room

Meet explorer, award-winning journalist and field scientist Richard Wiese when he discusses his book Born to Explore: How to Be a Backyard Adventurer. Learn everything a young explorer should know from fun with science and nature, to feats of endurance and lessons in civic responsibility. Richard will share his experiences of not only traveling around the world but also about living an outdoor life right here in Westport.

Wiese was the youngest president in The Explorers Club’s hundred-year history. He has hosted many nationally seen television shows, most recently "Exploration with Richard Wiese." He just completed filming a special series with the BBC and Discovery called "Hell on Earth." As an explorer and respected field scientist , Richard has traveled to all seven continents. He has tagged jaguars in the Yucatan jungles, expedition leader to the Northern Territory of Australia to look for basis of the Aboriginal myth of the Rainbow Serpent, team member of the largest medical expedition ever conducted on Mt. Everest, achieved the first ascent of an unclimbed mountain in Alaska and discovered 29 new life forms on Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa and cross country skied to the North Pole. Most recently Richard traveled to the hottest place on earth in Ethiopia to attempt to extract fragments of DNA from molten lava to look for evidence of microbial life in conditions never thought able to support life.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Gina Barreca

Tuesday, June 2
Noon
McManus Room

University of Connecticut professor Gina Barreca will discuss her new book It's Not That I'm Bitter...: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying about Visible Panty Lines and Conquered the World, a hilarious antidote for the toxic "musts." In essays that mull everything from the horror of chin hairs to why the “glass ceiling” is better described as a thick layer of men, she tells women to stop believing the lies and conquer the world---and she does it with a sharp wit, good shoes and remarkably little eye cream.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Jessica Bram

Wednesday, May 20
Noon
McManus Room

Happily Ever After Divorce: Notes of a Joyful Journey gives a seldom touched-on view of divorce – a positive view of life on the other side. Author Jessica Bram, an award-winning radio commentator and essayist, will discuss how she maintained a sense of self and humor during a most difficult time, and emerged triumphant.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Eric Burns

Monday, May 18
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Westport author and media analyst Eric Burns follows up his book Infamous Scribblers and puts the media under the microscope again, from Ben Franklin and Sam Adams through Mark Twain, William Randolph Hearst, H. L. Mencken, and Walter Duranty (arguably the most unethical journalist to win a Pulitzer) to the modern day in All the News Unfit to Print: How Things Were... and How They Were Reported.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

TECHNOLOGY TALK: Transforming Society Through Social Media—How Blogs, Facebook and Twitter are Just the Beginning

Thursday, May 14
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Publishing and technology industry analyst John Blossom, President of Shore Communications and author of Content Nation: Surviving and Thriving as Social Media Changes Our Work, Our Lives, and Our Future, will lead a discussion on how citizen publishers, using tools such as weblogs, Facebook, Twitter and wikis influence and transform the way content is provided and received. How does social media change the way businesses market products and services, influence how people interact with the government and dictate personal communication?

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Simon Winchester

Friday, May 8
Noon
McManus Room

In Simon Winchester’s newest historical biography, the New York Times bestselling author and master storyteller presents yet another eccentric and fascinating subject. In The Man Who Loved China, he focuses on Joseph Needham, brilliant intellectual and free-thinker who spent his life attempting to verify that China was responsible for hundreds of mankind’s most important inventions.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

BUSINESS AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Richard Goldberg

Monday, May 4
7:30 pm
McManus Room

The Battle for Wall Street follows the struggle for power between two giants: the sellers, traditional commercial and investments banks; and the buyers, upstart hedge funds, private equity firms and the like. Author and twenty-five-year Wall Street veteran Richard Goldberg will explain how, for over 100 years, the sellers held all the power.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Funded by Jerry A. Tishman.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Laurie King

Saturday, May 2
2:00 pm
McManus Room

American feminist and theology scholar Mary Russell must help reverse the greatest failure of her legendary husband's (detective Sherlock Holmes) storied past. New York Times bestselling author Laurie King will discuss the latest in her popular mystery series, The Language of Bees.

Photo credit Red Bat Photography
Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Sheryl Kayne

Thursday, April 30
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Local author Sheryl Kayne will discuss her book Immersion Travel USA: The Best and Most Meaningful Volunteering, Living, and Learning Excursions, a guide to a variety of travel experiences that includes volunteer opportunities, short, long term and seasonal jobs, educational opportunities, and ways to enhance previously planned trips.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Hendrie Weisinger

Wednesday, April 29
McManus Room
7:30 pm

Westporter and NYT bestselling author Dr. Hendrie Weisinger will discuss his new book The Genius of Instinct: Reclaim Mother Nature's Tools for Enhancing Your Health, Happiness, Family, and Work, on how to use the most powerful human instincts to become happier, healthier, and more fulfilled.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Kristin Delfau

Wednesday, April 29
10:00 am
McManus Room

Kristin Delfau, an Enrolled Agent and owner of a tax and financial planning firm, will discuss her book Turbo-Momʼs Guide to Saving Money Without Wasting Time. This is a concise resource with straightforward guidance with the “big stuff” like insurance, taxes and investments, as well as quick and easy ways to save on everyday decisions.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Robert Sullivan

Tuesday, April 28
Noon
McManus Room

Bestselling author Robert Sullivan will discuss his new book The Thoreau You Don't Know: What the Prophet of Environmentalism Really Meant. This Thoreau is an interesting and complex fellow. He could be odd, but he was not a loafer. Sullivan spotlights Thoreau's work ethic, his business sense, his willingness to help others, his abolitionist sympathies, his belief that nature was all-encompassing and his insistence that change begins within, then ripples outward.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Dr. Jennifer Wider

Monday, April 27
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Dr. Jennifer Wider will discuss her book The Doctor's Complete College Girls' Health Guide: From Sex to Drugs to the Freshman 15, a head-to-toe guide for physical, mental, and emotional health.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Lynne Griffin

Monday, April 27
Noon
McManus Room

Author Lynne Griffin will discuss her fiction debut, Life Without Summer, a tale of loss and redemption. The two heroines' stories intersect in unexpected ways and their personal journey reverberates with universal themes about the connections between love, family, truth, forgiveness and hope, even when surrounded by grief.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Seth Davis

Wednesday, April 22
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Local author Seth Davis, on-air analyst for CBS, College Sports Television, and staff writer at Sports Illustrated, discusses the dramatic story, told in his book When March Went Mad: The Game That Transformed Basketball, of how two legendary players, Earvin "Magic" Johnson and Larry Bird, burst on the scene in an NCAA championship that gave birth to modern basketball.

National Public Radio, Morning Edition interview from March 17, 2009.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

BUSINESS AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY:
David Vinjamuri and Michelle Briody

Monday, April 6
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Staples graduate David Vinjamuri, author of Accidental Branding: How Ordinary People Build Extraordinary Brands and Ridgefield resident Michelle Briody, author of 16 weeks to your Dream Business: A Weekly Planner for Entrepreneurial Women, will speak about their books. Vinjamuri will discuss the phenomenal success of some very real people, how they built some of the biggest and best-known consumer brands in the world without any experience in marketing or branding. Briody will talk about starting up a business, whether it's selling products, or creating a service people need, with step-by-step directions to make business aspirations a reality.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Funded by Jerry A. Tishman.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Jimmy Breslin

Tuesday, March 31
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Pulitzer Prize-winning American columnist and author of The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, Jimmy Breslin will discuss his new book The Good Rat: A True Story. This collection of stories and anecdotes about the mob revisits a familiar wise-guy milieu as tales of mistaken identity, crooked cops, snitches and murder are told.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Dalton Conley

Sunday, March 29
2:00 pm
McManus Room

Author and sociologist Dalton Conley will discuss his book Elsewhere, U.S.A.: How We Got from the Company Man, Family Dinners, and the Affluent Society to the Home Office, BlackBerry Moms, and Economic Anxiety, an X-ray view of the new social reality. Conley connects daily experience with occasionally overlooked sociological changes to offer an essential understanding of how the technological, social, and economic changes that have reshaped the world are also reshaping individual lives.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Mar Jennings

Wednesday, March 25
10:00 am
McManus Room

Westporter Mar Jennings will discuss his book Life on Mar's: A Four Season Garden, a photographic essay documenting the four seasons of his Connecticut garden. This book provides beautiful garden design, detail and implementation ideas that are easy enough for novices and interesting enough for seasoned gardeners.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Riki Ott, Ph.D

Wednesday, March 25
7:00 pm
McManus Room

Called by one reviewer the Erin Brockovich of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Riki Ott, Ph.D. meticulously recounts the events and aftermath of the catastrophic 1989 oil spill in Alaska’s Prince William Sound in her new book, Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. Actor James Naughton will introduce Ott who will also show clips from her documentary on the spill. A former commercial salmon fisherman with a PhD in marine toxicology and a specialist in oil pollution, Ott experienced the disaster firsthand as a resident of Cordova, Alaska.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Alice Schroeder

Sunday, March 22
2:00 pm
McManus Room

Alice Schroeder, former managing director at Morgan Stanley, hand picked by Warren Buffett to be his biographer, will discuss her NYT bestseller Snowball. The biography strips away the mystery that has cloaked Buffet, the world's richest man.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Franz Wisner

Thursday, March 19
7:30 pm
McManus Room

New York Times bestselling author of Honeymoon with my Brother, soon to be a movie, Franz Wisner, discusses his sequel, How the World Makes Love: And What It Taught a Jilted Groom, on one average man's search for happiness--a search that turns into an improbable love story in the author's own backyard.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: S. J. Rozan

Thursday, March 12
7:30 pm
McManus Room

S.J. Rozan, winner of the Edgar, Shamus, Anthony, Nero, and Macavity awards for Best Novel, returns to her critically acclaimed and much-loved characters Lydia Chin and Bill Smith in her latest book, The Shanghai Moon. Jewelry stolen from a Jewish refugee is found during an excavation in Shanghai and Lydia and Bill must unravel its past disappearance to stop the killings and uncover the truth of what is going on today.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Penny Pearlman

Wednesday, March 11
Noon
McManus Room

Westporter Penny Pearlman will discuss her book Pretty Smart: Lessons From Our Miss Americas. Pearlman interviewed twenty-two former Miss Americas and shows how the women who become Miss America shatter the myth that the pageant is “only a beauty contest” through their thoughtful intelligence and eloquent poise. Learn why Miss America is still America's royalty and relevant in today's world.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

BUSINESS AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Eric Tyson

Let's-Get-Real-about-Money.jpg Tuesday, March 10
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Eric Tyson is a financial counselor, syndicated columnist, and author of the best-selling books Personal Finance for Dummies and Let's Get Real About Money. He will discuss personal finance, investing and mutual funds providing suggestions to breaking counterproductive money habits, adopting a healthy approach to personal finance, and becoming an investment expert– even in a down market.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Adam Gopnik

This speaking engagement has been cancelled due to scheduling conflicts. There will not be a re-scheduled date.

On a memorable day in human history, February 12, 1809, two babies were born an ocean apart: Abraham Lincoln in a one-room Kentucky log cabin; Charles Darwin on an English country estate. Searching for the men behind the icons of emancipation and evolution, New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik will discuss his book Angels and Ages: A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life. Hear about their captivating lives, Lincoln and Darwin as they really were: family men and social climbers; ambitious manipulators and courageous adventurers; the living husband, father, son, and student behind each myth.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Fred Strebeigh

Friday, February 27
Noon
McManus Room

Fred Strebeigh, who teaches nonfiction writing at Yale and contributes articles to numerous publications, will discuss his new book, Equal: Women Reshape American Law. Tracing the dramatic advance toward legal recognition of sex discrimination, Equal reveals the stories of the women who battled the blatant inequities in America's legal system.

Book will be available for purchase and signing.

Teen Authors@ the Library

Wednesday, February 25
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Hear popular young-adult authors Maureen Johnson, Libba Bray, Cassie Clare, and Robin Wasserman discuss their books and their writing process. With genres ranging from sci-fi to fantasy to “chick-lit,” there is sure to be something to pique everybody’s interest.

Books available for purchase and signing.

Contact Jaina Lewis at 291-4809 or jlewis@westportlibrary.org for more information.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Joseph Weisberg

Tuesday, February 24
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Joseph Weisberg will discuss his new novel, An Ordinary Spy, which spotlights the confusing but strangely bureaucratic world of the CIA. It is the thrilling story of two CIA Case Officers whose lives are permanently changed by the agents they recruit and run.
NYT Sunday Book Review.
Author's website.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Harold Holzer

Sunday, February 22
2:00 pm
McManus Room

Harold Holzer, one of the leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln and the culture of the civil war era will discuss his latest books, The Lincoln Anthology: 85 Writers on His Life and Legacy from 1860 Until Now and Lincoln President-Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter 1860-1861. Winner of the 2005 Lincoln Prize, Holzer is co-chairman of the U.S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, has written or edited more than 30 books on Lincoln and the Civil War, and currently serves as Senior Vice President for External Affairs at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Val McDermid

Monday, February 9
Noon
McManus Room

A Darker Domain, the new psychological thriller from bestselling author Val McDermid, mixes fiction with one of the most symbolic and exceptional moments in recent history - the national miners' strike in the UK. The multiple award-winning McDermid, who adapted one of her books into the successful television series Wire in the Blood, will discuss this newest of her crime fiction novels, which explores the violent intersection of desire and greed.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Nicholas Fox Weber

Wednesday, February 4
7:30 pm
McManus Room

In his newest book, Le Corbusier: A Life, author Nicholas Fox Weber delves into the life of one of the most influential, admired, and maligned architects of the 20th century. He will discuss his revelation of this single-minded, elusive genius, his extraordinary achivements and the age in which he lived. Le Corbusier, designer of the United Nations headquarters, was a leader of the controversial modernist movement that sought to create a better society through innovative urban planning and designer of some of the most iconic buildings of our time.

NYT Book review.
Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Co-sponsored with the Westport Arts Center.

BUSINESS AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Geoff Colvin

Tuesday, February 3
7:30 pm
McManus Room

In Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else, Fairfield author and journalist Geoff Colvin, Fortune’s senior editor-at-large and former co-anchor of "Wall Street Week" on PBS, shares secrets of extraordinary performance and how to apply these principles to life and work. He will explain cutting-edge research and eye-opening facts that debunk the myth of innate talent.

Book will be available for purchase and signing.
Article by Geoff Colvin.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY:
Kathy Farrell-Kingsley

Wednesday, January 21
Noon
McManus Room

Cookbook author Kathy Farrell-Kingsley will discuss her new book The Home Creamery which gives simple, step-by-step instructions for making a variety of fresh milk products, as well as includes recipes that use them.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
About the book.

Special Event:
Celebrate with Marlo Thomas

Saturday, January 17
3:00 pm
McManus Room

Meet Marlo Thomas. She will discuss her celebrated book Free to Be...You and Me and its 35th anniversary.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Julie Mughal

Wednesday, January 14
Noon
McManus Room

Author Julie Mughal will discuss her book, Land without Hats, a stirring and inspiring book which explores the difficulties faced by widows in the developing world and their courage in the face of adversity.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Author's website.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Emma Gilbey Keller

Tuesday, January 13
Meeting of WYWL at 7:00 pm; Author talks at 7:30 pm
McManus Room

Emma Gilbey Keller will discuss her inspiring new book The Comeback: Seven Stories of Women Who Went from Career to Family and Back Again. Instead of a debate about work versus home, Keller proves, through telling the detailed stories of these seven women, that it is possible to go from work to home and back to work again, and that your first step back doesn’t have to be the definitive one. Even your second career can have many incarnations.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Author's website.
Co-sponsored by the Westport Young Woman’s League.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Julia Glass

Wednesday, January 7
Noon
McManus Room

Winner of the National Book Award for her first novel, Three Junes, bestselling author Julia Glass will discuss her new book, I See You Everywhere, a tale of two sisters, together and apart, told in their alternating voices over twenty-five years. Alive with all the sensual detail and riveting characterization that mark Glass’s previous work, I See You Everywhere is a candid story of life and death, companionship and sorrow, and the nature of sisterhood itself.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
About the book.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Logan Ward

Wednesday, December 3
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Logan Ward and his wife, Heather, had traveled the world—Kenya, France, Peru. But nothing compared to their next adventure: a trip back in time, living the life of dirt farmers in rural Virginia circa 1900. See You in a Hundred Years: Four Seasons in Forgotten America is a chronicle of the Wards’ four seasons in the farming community of Swoope, an honest and compelling account of one family’s struggle to reclaim their lives from our fast-paced, materialistic society.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Book reviews.
Author's website.

Part of the Library's 100th celebration.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Naomi Wolf

Tuesday, December 2
7:30 pm
McManus Room

In Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries, author Naomi Wolf , who also wrote the NYT bestsellerThe End of America and The Beauty Myth, investigates the roots of a growing national malaise that has bred “fake democracy” in the United States over the last three decades, a condition marked by equally fake patriotism and a modern notion that we Americans are “the Elect.” She will discuss the breathtaking changes that can take place when ordinary citizens engage in the democratic system the way the founders intended and tells how to use that system, right now, to change your life, your community, and ultimately, the nation.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Tim Manners

Monday, November 24
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Westporter and longtime marketing veteran Tim Manners will discuss his book, Relevance: Making Stuff That Matters, which outlines six principles that relevant brands live by. He recommends marketers give up the flashy practices of the last 50 years and instead focus on being more relevant, by showing customers how they can help solve their problems and improve customers' lives.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Author's website.
More about the book.

Women of Mystery

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: David Isay

Thursday, November 20
Noon
McManus Room

Hear from award-winning radio documentary producer and StoryCorps creator David Isay as the Westport Library and WSHU Public Radio present the latest event in WSHU's “Join the Conversation” series. Dave will discuss his book Listening is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project. Reserve your seats at wshu.org. Books will be available for purchase and signing.

Register for this event through WSHU, "Join the Conversation".
Story Corps website.
Co-sponsored with WSHU "Join the Conversation."

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Peter Godwin

Thursday, November 13 Note new date!
7:30 pm
McManus Room

In When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa, journalist Peter Godwin relates stirring memoir of the disintegration of a family set against the collapse of a country, Zimbabwe. It is also a vivid portrait of the profound strength of the human spirit and the enduring power of love.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
September 2008 Vanity Fair article.
NYT Book Review.
More book reviews.
National Geographic article on Zimbabwe by Peter Godwin.

John and Hank Green: Great American Tour de Nerdfighting 2008

Wednesday, November 12
7:00 pm
Bedford Middle School Auditorium

The original nerdfighters are coming to town!
John Green (right) is the award winning author of Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, and the recently published Paper Towns.
Hank Green (right) is a web-designer, writer, founder of ecogeek and frequent star on Planet Green’s show "The G Word."
Together, they created the videoblog Brotherhood 2.0, one of the most popular channels in the history of youtube. Their videos have a fanbase of 20,000 viewers and have been featured on BBC radio and the Wallstreet Journal. They're coming to talk about books, sing about Harry Potter, and discuss all things awesome.

Books and CDs will be available for purchase and signing.
Link to their youtube video series.
More about nerdfighters.
Hank Green's ecogeek website.
Directions to Bedford Middle School.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Charles Morris

Wednesday, November 5
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Charles Morris, author of The Tycoons, will discuss his book The Surgeons: Life and Death in a Top Heart Center, an over-the-shoulder look at a major heart surgery center, along with gripping accounts of how doctors think and judge each other, what they believe is really driving up health care costs, and the future of health care policy in America.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
NYT book review.
More book information.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Jack Cavanaugh

Thursday, October 30
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Local author Jack Cavanaugh, author of the Pulitzer prize nominated Tunney, will talk about his new book. Filled with historical and cultural insight and vivid portraits of larger-than-life characters and indispensable everymen, Giants Among Men: How Robustelli, Huff, Gifford, and the Giants Made New York a Football Town and Changed the NFL transcends nostalgia and sports trivia to faithfully depict a watershed era for both football and the American nation.

Books available for purchase and signing.
More about the book.

AUTHORS@ THE LIBRARY: Linda Appleman Shapiro

Wednesday, October 29
Noon
McManus Room

In Four Rooms, Upstairs: A Psychotherapist's Journey Into and Beyond Her Mother's Mental Illness, Linda Appleman Shapiro, wife of Recorded Book narrator George Guidall, offers a compelling family history, addressing issues of love, loss and loyalty as she takes the reader back to her childhood and to her life with a mother suffering from mental illness. With the insight of a seasoned psychotherapist and as a witness to the human capacity for pain and survival, she helps us understand the healing power of forgiving without forgetting in this book, a finalist for the 2008 Next Generation Indie Book Award.

Books available for purchase and signing.
About the book.
Author's blog.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Archer Mayor

Monday, October 27
7:30 pm
McManus Room

In the nineteenth book of Archer Mayor's popular Joe Gunther mystery series, The Catch, the Vermont cop investigates the killing of a sheriff which leads to a dangerous rendezvous with a Maine drug running operation run by the disaffected son of a lobsterman.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Author's website.

AUTHORS@ THE LIBRARY: Lee Woodruff

Monday, October 27
Meeting at 11:30 am
Author at Noon
McManus Room

In an Instant is the frank and compelling account of how Bob and Lee Woodruff’s lives came together, were blown apart, and then were miraculously put together again—and how they persevered, with grit but also with humor, through intense trauma and fear. More than a dual memoir of love and courage, it is an important, wise, and inspiring guide to coping with tragedy—and an extraordinary drama of marriage, family, war, and nation.

About the book.
Bob Woodruff Family Fund for Traumatic Brain Injury.
Co-sponsored with the Y’s Women.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

AUTHORS@ THE LIBRARY: Barry H. Landau

Wednesday, October 15
Noon
McManus Room

Author and presidential historian Barry H. Landau speak about his spellbinding, lavishly-illustrated narrative, The President's Table: Two Hundred Years of Dining and Diplomacy. A foremost collector of Presidential memoribilia, he has worked with many administrations planning historic events and will be heading for the Presidential debate at Hofstra University right after his Library talk!

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
About the book.
Author's website.

AUTHORS@ THE LIBRARY: Deborah Carr

Wednesday, October 8
Noon
McManus Room

Deborah Carr, a sociology professor at Rutgers University and co-author
of Making Up with Mom: Why Mothers and Daughters Disagree about Kids,
Careers, and Casseroles (and What to Do about It), will discuss her book
which explores the unique tensions between women and their mothers and how to reclaim their loving relationships. Difficult topics such as mothers not understanding their daughter's choices in marrying an underemployed husband, breastfeeding babies until they're toddlers, or raising kids who have haute couture wardrobes and schedules more packed than presidential candidates are addressed.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
About the book.
Authors' website.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Kathryn Harrison

Sunday, September 28
2:00 pm
McManus Room

In the middle of an April night in 1984, 18-year-old Billy Frank Gilley, Jr., killed his sleeping parents and then turned on his younger sister, who surprised him in the act. The murders ended years of mental and physical abuse that Billy and his other sister, Jody, had suffered at the hand of their parents. With an artistry that recalls Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song, and her own The Kiss, best-selling author Kathryn Harrison reveals the antecedents of the murders—of a crime of such violence that it had the power to sever past from present in her new book, While They Slept: An Inquiry into the Murder of a Family. Harrison will talk about the book and the impact of violence on the children in a deeply troubled family.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Author's website.
NYT Sunday Book Review.

Feel The Rhythm

Saturday, September 20
11:00 am
McManus Room

A special Saturday event! In association with the Downtown Merchants Association's Blues, Views and BBQ Festival, jazz historian Todd Bryant Weeks will present an enlightening lecture on the great unsung Kansas City trumpeter and blues singer Oran ‘Hot Lips’ Page. Weeks, author of Luck's In My Corner: The Life and Music of Hot Lips Page, will show rare photos, play musical excerpts, and discuss Kansas City Jazz and Page’s vital role in the development of this swinging and highly accessible musical form. Books will be available for purchase and signing.

About his book.
Blues, Views & BBQ Festival.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Judith Marks-White

Wednesday, September 17
Noon
McManus Room

Acclaimed humor columnist and Westporter Judith Marks-White certainly knows how to set a scene. With Bachelor Degree, set in Manhattan’s posh art world, she brings to life the super-sophisticated New York dating scene as successful Samantha looks for love—with the help of her uproariously well-intentioned, misguided and meddlesome mother.

Books will be available and purchase and signing.

Author's website.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Ron Janson

Tuesday, September 16
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Ridgefield author Ron Janson will talk about his new thriller Red Money. Set in Florida in the 1970s, Red Money tracks an especially ruthless faction of the Russian mob that has infiltrated Miami’s high society and taken over the drug business. When the police and even the FBI seem helpless to stop the mob terrorizing the city, an unlikely “hit squad” of a Romanian widow and a determined Irish woman head underground and discover that the only one who can stop the mob is…the mob.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
About the book.
Author's website.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Diane Ackerman

CANCELLED DUE TO AUTHOR'S ILLNESS
AT THIS TIME, THERE IS NO RE-SCHEDULE DATE.
WE REGRET ANY INCONVENIENCE.
Monday, September 15
7:30 pm
McManus Room

When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, bombers devastated Warsaw—and the city’s zoo. With most of their animals dead, zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski began smuggling more than 300 Jews into the bombed-out cages to hide them from the Nazis. Author Diane Ackerman will talk about her account of this extraordinary, true tale in her book The Zookeeper’s Wife, 2008 winner of the Orion Book Award. An acclaimed naturalist and poet, Ackerman is the author of numerous books, including the bestselling A Natural History of the Senses.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

Book Review.
Author's website.

Co-sponsored with the Westport-Weston Interfaith council.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Kevin Conley

Tuesday, September 9
7:30 pm
McManus Room

In The Full Burn, acclaimed journalist Kevin Conley takes readers inside one of the most fascinating and dangerous jobs in the world. Conley gives a passenger’s-seat view of the stuntman’s life: the history, the culture, and the tricks of the trade, showing how—and why—stuntmen do what they do. Funny, gripping, and packed with amazing stories, this is an irresistible book for anyone who loves the movies.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

Book Review.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Burton Bernstein

Monday, September 8
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Burton Bernstein, former New Yorker staff writer and author of Leonard Bernstein: American Original, How a Modern Renaissance Man Transformed Music and the World During his New York Philharmonic Years, 1943–1976 will discuss his new book, co-authored with the historian and archivist of the NY Philharmonic Orchestra Barbara Haws, which examines Bernstein’s landmark achievements and activities, placing them in the broader cultural context of New York City from 1943 to 1976.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
About the book.
Fall 2008 Bernstein Festival.

Community Conversations:
Patient-Doctor Partnerships

Thursday, September 4
7:30 pm
McManus Room

The doctor-patient partnership is key when fighting a major medical crisis. Westporters Catherine Ann Stone, author of Down to the Marrow, an account of her battles with cancer, and Dr. Richard Zelkowitz, well-known oncologist from The Whittingham Cancer Center, will lead a Community Conversation on this crucial partnership. The importance of understanding the treatment options and acknowledging the patient's intuition, as well as the role of humor in the healing process will be discussed.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Author's website.
More information about the Whittingham Cancer Center and the Smilow Family Breast Health Center.

Sponsored by The Smilow Family.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Michel Nischan

Monday, August 4
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Local chef, Michel Nischan, author of Taste: Pure and Simple: Irresistible Recipes for Good Food and Good Health and Homegrown Pure & Simple: Great Healthy Food from Garden to Table shares his ideas on sustainable farming, local and regional food systems, and heritage recipes.

Both of his books will be available for purchase and signing.
Taste: Pure and Simple: Irresistible Recipes for Good Food and Good Health
Homegrown Pure and Simple: Great Healthy Food from Garden to Table
Author's website.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Sherwin B. Nuland

Sunday, August 3
2:00 pm
McManus Room

Award-winning author Sherwin B. Nuland will discuss his new book, The Uncertain Art: Thoughts on a Life in Medicine, a collection of essays on the many varied aspects that comprise a doctor’s practice and life.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Book review.
Furthur author information.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Andre Dubus III

Monday, July 28
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Author Andre Dubus III will discuss his new novel The Garden of Last Days, set in the seamy underside of American life at the moment before the world changed September 2001. It juxtaposes lust for domination with hunger for connection, sexual violence with family love with the same psychological tension, depth and realism that characterized his #1 NYT bestseller, House of Sand and Fog.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
June 22, NYT Sunday Book Review.
Book review.
Promotional video for The Garden of Last Days.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Lawrence Block

Tuesday, July 15
Note date
7:30 pm
McManus Room

The fourth in the John Keller series, Hit and Run will be discussed by author Lawrence Block. Fingered for a murder he didn't commit, a hit man goes on the run to save his life in this stunning new work from the New York Times bestselling master of mystery.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Author's website.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Winston Allen

Thursday, July 10
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Westport author Winston E. Allen will discuss Don’t Get Mad, Get Rich—Become Financially Independent. Using a no-nonsense approach, this upbeat and inspirational book shows how to achieve greater financial success by anticipating and navigating the cyclical economic downturns and developing a wealth building mentality.

Books will be available and purchase and signing.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Linda Merlino

Tuesday, July 8
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Linda Merlino has written a riveting story in The Belly of the Whale, which covers twenty-four hours in the life of Hudson Catalina. During that day she gives up hope in her fight against breast cancer only to be taken hostage by a murderer more deadly than her disease.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

Author's website.
Book Review.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Todd Bryant Weeks

Wednesday, July 2
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Just days before what would have been, based on Armstrong’s account of being born on July 4th, Louis Armstrong’s 108th birthday, Staples high school graduate Todd Bryant Weeks, will talk about the jazz great. Weeks worked as a lecturer, archivist, and tour guide at the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Corona, Queens. He is the author of the recently published biography Luck's In My Corner: The Life and Music of Hot Lips Page.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
More about his book.
The Louis Armstrong House.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Karl Meyer and Shareen Brysac

Wednesday, June 25
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Kingmakers: The Invention of the Modern Middle East is a brilliant narrative history tracing today's troubles back to grandiose imperial overreach of Great Britain and the United States. Authors Karl Meyer and Shareen Brysac tell this character-driven story of how the modern Middle East came to be through the colorful lives of the Britons and Americans who shaped it.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Book review.

AUTHORS@ THE LIBRARY: Sebastian Barry

Wednesday, June 25
Noon
McManus Room

In The Secret Scripture, psychology, religion, family and politics permeate this literary puzzle and epic story of corrupted power and its lingering effects. Two narratives compete: the secret one of the 100-year-old woman long incarcerated in a Mental Hospital and the unfolding one discovered by her doctor, who is evaluating her condition. Love, betrayal and the role of the Catholic Church inform the conflicts that emerge. Sebastian Barry is a playwright and novelist: his novel A Long Long Way was a 2005 Man Booker Prize finalist.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

Monday, June 23, NYT Books of the Times review.
NPR Summer Books 2008, excerpt from The Secret Scripture
About the book.
Interview with Sebastian Barry by The Guardian.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Mark Engler

Monday, June 16
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Mark Engler, journalist, activist, and policy expert, will discuss his book, How To Rule the World: The Coming Battle Over the Global Economy, an essential handbook, not for the few who do rule the world, but for the many who should.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Article by author.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Max Wilk

Wednesday, June 11
Noon
McManus Room

Westporter and American songbook expert Max Wilk will discuss the new edition of his book They're Playing Our Song: Conversations With America's Classic Songwriters, originally issued in 1973 and recently revised for a paperback edition. Included are 26 oral histories of legendary composers and lyricists with interviews that give readers an up-close-and-personal look at the individuals and inspirations behind some of the words and melodies that made musical history. Singer Susan Terry and pianist Mark Cherry will provide a musical backdrop to Wilk’s talk.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

NYT article from 1997 about the book
Furthur book information.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Pamela Weintraub

Tuesday, June 10
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Cure Unknown: Inside the Lyme Disease Epidemic is a groundbreaking and controversial narrative investigation into the science, history, medical politics, and patient experience of Lyme disease by science journalist Pamela Weintraub, whose entire family contracted the disease. This is the most comprehensive book ever written about the past, present and future of Lyme disease and exposes the ticking clock of a raging epidemic.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Book Review.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Pete Fornatale

Monday, June 9
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Writing from on-hand experience and exclusive interviews with Simon and Garfunkel, author Pete Fornatale reveals never-before-disclosed details of the love-hate relationship between the two musicians and offers a unique perspective on each of them. Simon and Garfunkel's Bookends captures the duo at the peak of their personal, professional, and artistic partnership in the '60s. The dark clouds and troubled waters that broke them up were still a year and a half away.

Books available for purchase and signing.
Book review.
About Pete Fornatale's radio program.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Janis Abrahms Spring

Thursday, June 5
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Janis Abrahms Spring, Westport author of How Can I Forgive You? The Courage to Forgive, The Freedom Not To, will discuss a radical approach and an empowering model to healing intimate wounds and forgiveness. Her third book, an inspirational memoir on caring for an aging parent, will be published in late spring 2009.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Book review.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: A. E. Hotchner

the good life according to hemingway.jpg

Wednesday, June 4
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Westport author A. E. Hotchner traveled with Ernest Hemingway for 14 years and collected a lifetime's worth of Hemingway's experiences, anecdotes, and observations about everything imaginable, from war to women, hunting to Hollywood, life to death. His new book, The Good Life According to Hemingway, which includes over 150 rare black and white photos from Hotchner’s personal collection, is an exuberant, fully illustrated celebration of Hemingway’s remarkable genius and the wild adventures of his life.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
More information about A.E. Hotchner.
Book review.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Frances Kiernan

Wednesday, May 21
Noon
McManus Room

In this biography, The Last Mrs. Astor: A New York Story, which is based on firsthand knowledge and interviews with Brooke Astor's friends and the heads of New York's great cultural institutions, author Frances Kiernan gives us back the woman so loved and admired, whose hands-on approach would inspire future philanthropists.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Book review.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Nicholas Mancini

Wednesday, May 14
Noon
McManus Room

With a mix of sex, violence, and humor, longtime Westport resident and
hairdresser Nicholas Mancini takes a look behind the scenes of this little-explored industry in his novel, A Hairdresser’s Revenge.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Author's website.
Book Review.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Stewart Reifler

Tuesday, May 13
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Westporter Stewart Reifler, an executive compensation attorney in New York City and co-author of the Compensation Committee Handbook will talk about the controversial subject of CEO pay and provide insight into what really goes on (both past and present) in the boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies and the backrooms of private-equity firms.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Synopses and reviews.

AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY: Pamela Paul

Wednesday, May 7
7:30 pm
McManus Room

Pamela Paul discusses her book, Parenting, Inc.: How We Are Sold on $800 Strollers, Fetal Education, Baby Sign Language, Sleeping Coaches, Toddler Couture, and Diaper Wipe Warmers—and What It Means for Our Children, an investigative look at how today’s parents are faced with an endless parade of gadgets, educational opportunities, toys, gear, and expert services deemed necessities to raising a happy, healthy, well-adjusted baby.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Book Review.

events @ the Library

Authors @ the Library - Archives

September 22, 2010

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Lisa Wexler

April 21, 2010

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Diane Meier

April 18, 2010

Murder 203: Connecticut's Mystery Festival

April 17, 2010

Murder 203: Connecticut's Mystery Festival

March 24, 2010

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Jeff Shesol

March 8, 2010

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Irene Levine

March 2, 2010

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Jerome Charyn

February 24, 2010

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Cathleen Schine

February 11, 2010

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Rafael Yglesias

February 10, 2010

Author to Speak on Smart Kids with Learning Disabilities

February 8, 2010

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Susan Abulhawa

February 4, 2010

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Parnell Hall

February 2, 2010

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Amy Bloom

February 1, 2010

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Katharine Weber

January 12, 2010

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, PhD

December 7, 2009

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Nancy Goldstone

November 19, 2009

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: John Ortved

November 18, 2009

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Gail Rentsch

November 18, 2009

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: William Grimes

November 14, 2009

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: David Pogue

November 5, 2009

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Joanna Greenfield

November 4, 2009

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Harriet Reisen

November 2, 2009

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Katherine Hall Page

October 26, 2009

SPECIAL EVENT: Joseph Califano, Jr.

October 25, 2009

Men of Mystery

October 21, 2009

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Janis Abrahms Spring

October 19, 2009

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Louis Masur

October 8, 2009

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Kevin Pilkington

October 7, 2009

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Wendy Walker

September 30, 2009

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Suzanne Braun Levine

September 30, 2009

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Kate Walbert

September 29, 2009

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Marina Marchese

September 23, 2009

TEEN AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Stacia Morris

September 23, 2009

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Laura Shapiro

September 21, 2009

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Margot Berwin and Matthew Dicks

September 16, 2009

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Lev Grossman

August 12, 2009

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: Sarma Melngailis

July 27, 2009

Jane Austen and the Craft of Mystery

July 13, 2009

AUTHORS @THE LIBRARY: David Grann

BUSINESS AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY:
David Vinjamuri and Michelle Briody