http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?type=2 Upcoming Events at the Free Library of Philadelphia! en-us Copyright 2013 Free Library of Philadelphia 05/21/2013 http://libwww.freelibrary.org/images/rss/flplogo.gif http://libwww.freelibrary.org/rss/ 34 19 <p>South Philly Book Party and Reading<br /> Philadelphia Poets Journal invites you to attend their South Philly Book Party and Reading to celebrate the publication of Philadelphia Poets 2013, Volume 19. Among our featured poets are four guests-writers from Canada and Pittsburgh, as well as local poets. Our Book Party is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be available. Come and toast our latest publication with us! For more information, contact the Librarian at 215-685-1758.<br /> Tuesday May 21 6:15 p.m.<br /> </p> 05/21/13, 6:15 PM - Fumo Family Branch http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=38750 http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=38750 <p>Jeremy Scahill is an award-winning investigative journalist and the author of the bestselling book Blackwater, about the world's fastest-growing private army and a powerful player in the War on Terror. A two-time recipient of the George Polk Award and a frequent contributor to the Nation, Scahill is a correspondent for Democracy Now! and a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute. From Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Somalia, into al Qaeda-held territory in Yemen and beyond, Dirty Wars documents the new paradigm of the American battlefield. Based on interviews with CIA agents, mercenaries, and elite Special Operations Forces operators, Scahill reveals the dark human consequences of the wars the United States struggles to keep hidden. </p> 05/21/13, 7:30 PM - Central Library http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=36778 http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=36778 <p>Mark Tercek is president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy, the global conservation organization. A former managing director for Goldman Sachs, where he spent 25 years, he champions natural capital. Tercek was appointed by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to serve on the 2100 Commission, created in the wake of Hurricane Sandy to improve the state's infrastructure for future storms. He serves on the boards of Resources for the Future, the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, and the Commission on Climate and Tropical Forests, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In Nature's Fortune: How Business and Society Thrive by Investing in Nature, he explores why nature is the foundation of human well-being and of utmost importance for economic progress. </p> 05/22/13, 12:00 PM - Central Library http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=38274 http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=38274 <p>Alice Walker's esteemed literary career spans over four decades and includes seven novels, four collections of short stories, four children's books, and volumes of essays and poetry. Her 1983 novel The Color Purple received the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and was adapted for Steven Spielberg's 1985 film and the Broadway stage. Her many honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Lennon/Ono Peace Grant, and a residency at Yaddo. In 2006, she was an inaugural inductee into the California Hall of Fame, and in 2007 her archives were opened at Emory University. Her new book The Cushion in the Road is a collection of meditations on topics ranging from racism to Africa to healthcare and the work of Aung San Suu Kyi. Ms. Walker will also read from her new book of poems The World Will Follow Joy: Turning Madness into Flowers.</p> 05/29/13, 8:15 PM - Central Library http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=38275 http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=38275 <p>As host of CBC's radio show WireTap, Jonathan Goldstein "brings self-deprecation to a whole other level" (The Montreal Gazette). Part monologue and part telephone conversation, the show reveals "the warp of Goldstein's imagination" (Toronto Star). Celebrated author David Sedaris calls him "one of the funniest and most original writers I can think of." Goldstein's writing has appeared in The Walrus, the New York Times, and GQ. He is a frequent contributor to This American Life and the author of the novels Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bible! and Lenny Bruce Is Dead. His new book, I'll Seize the Day Tomorrow begins the week of Goldstein's 39th birthday. As he approaches the big 4-0, he humorously contemplates what it means to be an adult in an infantilized world. </p> 05/30/13, 7:30 PM - Central Library http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=38276 http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=38276 <p>Walter Mosley is the bestselling author of more than 41 books, including Little Scarlet, Fear Itself, and Bad Boy Brawly Brown. His many honors include an O. Henry Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, a Grammy award, and the PEN American Center's Lifetime Achievement Award. Mosley burst on the literary scene in 1990 with Devil in a Blue Dress, the first Easy Rawlins mystery featuring a hard-boiled detective and World War II veteran living in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. The book was later adapted for a film starring Denzel Washington. In Little Green, Mosley's immortal private eye reappears on the 1960s Sunset Strip in search of a young man who has gone missing. </p> 06/03/13, 7:30 PM - Central Library http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=38277 http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=38277 <p>In The Philadelphia Chromosome, science journalist Jessica Wapner reconstructs the crucial breakthroughs in discovering the links between cancers and their genetic causes. The story unfolds over 50 years, from the first glimpse of a genetic mutation-dubbed the Philadelphia chromosome-in 1959 to determining its role in causing chronic myeloid leukemia and the development of a revolutionary drug that made this once-fatal cancer treatable with a single daily pill. Wapner's articles about healthcare and medicine appear in the New York Times, Scientific American, Slate, Science, and Psychology Today. Her writing on cancer research and treatment also appears in Oncology Business Review, Cure, and CR, and her blog, Work in Progress, focuses on the ethics and economics of drug development. </p> 06/04/13, 7:30 PM - Central Library http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=38278 http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=38278 <p>Distinguished historian Gordon Campbell is the author of numerous books on literature, art, history, and biography, including the bestseller Bible: The Story of the King James Bible. Professor of Renaissance Studies at the University of Leicester, he is a fellow of the British Academy and a former chair of the Society for Renaissance Studies. In 2012 he was awarded the Longman-History Today Trustees Award for a lifetime contribution to History. In The Hermit in the Garden, his interests in cultural history, architectural history, and designed landscapes converge in a study of the 18^th-century craze for ornamental hermits in the grand gardens of Georgian England. Campbell traces the story of garden hermits from their distant ancestors in imperial Rome to their humble descendant, the garden gnome.</p> 06/06/13, 7:30 PM - Central Library http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=38279 http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=38279 <p>Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and military historian Rick Atkinson is the bestselling author of An Army at Dawn, The Day of Battle, The Long Gray Line, In the Company of Soldiers, and Crusade. He served as a reporter, foreign correspondent, and senior editor for 25 years at the Washington Post. His many awards include the George Polk award, the Gerald R. Ford Award for Distinguished Reporting on National Defense, and the Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing. The Guns at Last Light: The War in Europe, 1944-1945 is the final volume in Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy, a sweeping narrative history of the U.S. military's role in the liberation of Europe in World War II. </p> 06/11/13, 7:30 PM - Central Library http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=38280 http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=38280 <p>The first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, Gene Robinson served as the ninth Bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire and is the world's leading religious spokesperson for gay marriage. He is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C., where he works to develop policy about faith and LGBT issues, and a longtime advocate for antiracism training in the diocese and wider church. He is the co-author of three AIDS education curricula for youth and adults, as well as the book In the Eye of the Storm: Swept to the Center by God. Knitting theology with secular arguments, his new book makes a clear case for the necessity of same-sex marriage.</p> 06/12/13, 12:00 PM - Central Library http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=38486 http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydate.cfm?ID=38486