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PAST EVENTS
Author Talk with Adelle Waldman at 7 pm
on September 19,2024 in the Yeager Room.
Adelle Waldman, in conversation with Journalist and FOBPL member Monica Malpass, discussed Help Wanted. The novel is set in a big box Costco-like store in the Catskills. It’s a group portrait of the psychological trauma endured by working class people as they struggle for the American Dream. Waldman herself worked in such a store for six months, both for research and income between novels. The setting is a town that has seen economic hardships… from shuttered malls & corporate office parks to jobs eliminated by e-commerce.
An intriguing evening where Adelle Waldman walked us through the gut-wrenching, soul crushing environment too many Americans face every day in their low-paying jobs.
Bronxville Poets at the Library
Sunday, September 17th
3:00-4:30 p.m.
Yeager Room, Bronxville Public Library
Poets John Barr, Marjorie Mir, and Chris Goff read from their works.
John Barr was the inaugural president of the Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry Magazine, and the recipient of a major financial gift from Ruth Lilly. He has published ten collections of poems, including his most recent book, The Boxer of Quirinal (Red Hen Press, June 2023).
Chris Goff is the former General Counsel for HarperCollins Publishers. His poetry has been published in Quarterday Review and other journals, and has won recognition in poetry contests. He has served on the Board of the Friends of the Bronxville Public Library and currently serves on the Board of the Bronxville Historical Conservancy.
Marjorie Mir is a retired librarian. Her poetry has appeared in Commonweal, Atlanta Review, Eclectica, Innis Reef Poetry Journal, and Ireland of the Welcomes, as well as several anthologies. She has given readings at the Reformed Church, Bronxville Public Library, and other Westchester venues. Penny Barr will be reading selections from Marjorie’s poetry.
Author Talk with New York Times best-selling author Fiona Davis. The conversation led by journalist and FOBPL member Monica Malpass at the Atrium at The Bronxville School on Wednesday, September 6th.
New York Times best-selling author Fiona Davis came to Bronxville to discuss her new historical novel, The Spectacular. It’s a thrilling behind-the-scenes look at the life of a Radio City Music Hall Rockette from Bronxville, set against the backdrop of a volatile real-life
Author Talk with Ann Hood, in conversation with Monica Malpass, on Tuesday, May 23rd in the Library's Yeager Room.
Hood's career spanned eight years as a TWA flight attendant, crisscrossing the globe from Columbus to Cairo. She went from carving chateaubriand and scooping sundaes for First Class passengers to marching the picket line during the TWA labor strike. Her flight time is full of fascinating tales of what’s known as The Golden Age of Flying.
FOBPL member and Journalist Monica Malpass led the conversation. Monica Malpass is an award-winning journalist with 35 years experience as an anchorwoman at the Nasdaq and the powerhouse ABC-owned TV station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, WPVI. She has interviewed 7 U.S. Presidents, plus hundreds of CEOs, Heads of State, politicians and celebrities. She is a Bronxville resident and a proud mother of 3 sons.
Thank you for supporting the 2023 Prohibition Fundraiser
The Friends of the Bronxville Library would like to
WELCOME YOU TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD & YOUR LIBRARY!
Saturday, October 29th from 11:00 am - 4:00 pm
Village of Bronxville Residents, please join us in the Children’s library for a special library card registration day!
Events include: Spooky Storytime 11:30 am, Simple Crafts for all ages
New Library Card sign-up welcome packets, Library Tours
Snacks & Refreshments
2022 Annual BENEFIT PARTY- CASINO ROYALE
BRONXVILLE PUBLIC LIBRARY, APRIL 22,2022
The Friends of the Bronxville Public Library (FOBPL) THANKS YOU for making the CASINO ROYALE benefit a smashing success! Many Thanks to our Guests, Sponsors & Host Committee for supporting this event! With your support, the FOBPL underwrites all the adult and children's programs, e-books, digital resources and more.
Lan Samantha Chang, author of The Family Chao, in conversation with author Rebecca Makkai
April 21, 7:00-8:00 P.M Zoom Event
THE FAMILY CHAO is an electrifying and devastating portrait of a Chinese American family grappling with trauma, grief, race, love, and longing. Brimming with comedy, suspense, and heartbreak, Lan Samantha Chang’s masterpiece is one of the most ambitious novels about America in recent years.
Lan Samantha Chang is the award-winning author of a collection of short fiction, Hunger, and novels The Family Chao, Inheritance and All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost. A recent Berlin Prize Fellow, she also has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. Chang is the first Asian American and the first female director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She lives in Iowa City.
Moderator Rebecca Makkai is the Chicago-based author of the novels The Great Believers, The Hundred-Year House, and The Borrower, as well as the short story collection Music for Wartime. The Great Believers was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and received the ALA Carnegie Medal and the LA Times Book Prize, among other honors. Makkai is on the MFA faculties of Sierra Nevada College and Northwestern University, and she is Artistic Director of StoryStudio Chicago.
FIONA DAVIS, AUTHOR OF THE MAGNOLIA PALACE, IN CONVERSATION WITH MONICA MALPASS
BRONXVILLE SCHOOL AUDITORIUM, MARCH 9, 7:00-8:00 P.M
THE MAGNOLIA PALACE is a tantalizing historical novel about secrets, betrayal, and murder within the Frick, one of New York City’s most impressive Gilded Age mansions. Davis pulls readers into a captivating dual narrative exploring the Frick both as a private family residence and the museum it would become. The novel unwinds through the alternating perspectives of two women, both models, whose experiences at the Frick are separated by nearly 50 years and are linked across the decades by the imperious daughter of Henry Clay Frick, Helen Frick.
Fiona Davis is the New York Times bestselling author of six historical fiction novels set in iconic New York City buildings, including The Dollhouse, The Address, and The Lions of Fifth Avenue, which was a Good Morning America book club pick. Her novels have been chosen as “One Book, One Community” reads and her articles have appeared in publications like The Wall Street Journal and O the Oprah magazine. She first came to New York as an actress, but fell in love with writing after getting a master’s degree at Columbia Journalism School. Her books have been translated into over a dozen languages and she’s based in New York City.
The author talk will be moderated by Monica Malpass, business anchor at Nasdaq and formerly the longtime anchor for WPVI-TV's award-winning evening news.
J.MCLAUGHLIN STORE SHOPPING EVENT- DEC 2, 2021
Why the Innnocent Plead Guilty and tHE Guilty go Free,Oct 2021
Jed Rakoff
Sarah Normand
The Honorable Jed Rakoff, Senior U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York, will discuss his book “Why the Innocent Plead Guilty and the Guilty Go Free, and Other Paradoxes of Our Broken Legal System” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Feb. 16, 2021).
Judge Rakoff, a leading authority on white-collar crime, will discuss why innocent people plead guilty, why high-level executives aren’t prosecuted, why you won’t get your day in court, and why the judiciary is curtailing its own constitutionally mandated power. “An elegant broadside . . . The precision with which Rakoff presents his arguments belies his outrage at a system that has gone wrong at multiple turns,” wrote Michael O’Donnell in The New York Times Book Review.
The Moderator of this event, Sarah Normand, is a past president of the Library Trustees and a longtime supporter of this beloved institution. Sarah Normand joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York in 1999 and is currently Deputy Chief of the SDNY’s Civil Division. Prior to joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Normand clerked for the Honorable Sonia Sotomayor on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and worked as an associate in the environmental group at Dewey Ballantine. Normand is a graduate of Georgetown University and its Law School.
Judge Rakoff has served since March 1996 as U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York. He is an adjunct professor at both Columbia Law School and NYU Law School, and also teaches at Berkeley Law School and the University of Virginia Law School. He has written over 1800 judicial opinions and co-authored five books. A graduate of Swarthmore College, Oxford University and Harvard Law School, he clerked for Hon. Abraham L. Freedman, U.S. Court of Appeals, 3d Circuit. From 1973-80, he served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, the last two years as Chief of Business Fraud Prosecutions. From 1980-95, he was a litigation partner at two large law firms in New York. In 2014, Judge Rakoff was listed by Fortune Magazine as one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders.
The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura DAve, June 8th, 2021
Laura Dave is the national and international bestselling author of several critically acclaimed novels including Eight Hundred Grapes and The First Husband. The Last Thing He Told Me (Available May 4; Simon and Schuster) is that rare read that (truly) tugs on your heartstrings while never taking its foot off the gas. It’s a novel about mothers and daughters, about the family you create, and how we all have secrets we bury. The Last Thing He Told Me is soon to be a limited TV series for Apple, starring Julia Roberts. Laura and her husband (Oscar-winner Josh Singer) are collaborating on the adaptation.
Laura Dave’s previous novels established her as “a wry observer of modern love (USA TODAY)” and family dysfunction. Her two most recent books, Eight Hundred Grapes and Hello, Sunshine dove into the messy realities of family and romantic love– film rights were snatched up and reviewers, booksellers, and librarians all offered glowing words of praise.
Jonathan Tropper, our moderator for this event, is an American screenwriter, novelist, and producer, and the best-selling author of six novels. He is the co-creator and executive producer of the Cinemax television series Banshee and the creator of the Cinemax television series Warrior.
BOOK SYNOPSIS:
A gripping mystery about a woman who thinks she’s found the love of her life—until he disappears. Hannah Hall and her husband, Owen, are still in the honeymoon phase after a year of being married. That is until Owen vanishes one afternoon and leaves a duffel bag full of cash behind and a note that reads “protect her” referring to his teenage daughter, Bailey, who wants nothing to do with her new stepmother. With its breakneck pacing, dizzying plot twists, and evocative family drama, The Last Thing He Told Me is a riveting mystery, certain to shock you with its final, heartbreaking turn.
The Doctors BlackwelL by Janice Nimura, April 15 2021
Janice Nimura
Dorothy Wickenden
The Doctors Blackwell is a biography of Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell, two extraordinary sisters who were the first women in the U.S. to receive medical degrees. Entering the profession in the 1800s, a time of culturally ingrained sexism and discrimination, the Blackwell sisters later went on to open the first women-run hospital for women and indigent children in New York City. For the recent New York Times book review on The Doctors Blackwell, click here.
Author Janice P. Nimura is the winner of a 2017 Public Scholar award from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the author of Daughters of the Samurai: A Journey from East to West and Back, a New York Times Notable Book. For more on Janice P. Nimura and The Doctors Blackwell, please click here.
The Doctors Blackwell is a biography of Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell, two extraordinary sisters who were the first women in the U.S. to receive medical degrees. Entering the profession in the 1800s, a time of culturally ingrained sexism and discrimination, the Blackwell sisters later went on to open the first women-run hospital for women and indigent children in New York City. For the recent New York Times book review on The Doctors Blackwell, click here.
Author Janice P. Nimura is the winner of a 2017 Public Scholar award from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the author of Daughters of the Samurai: A Journey from East to West and Back, a New York Times Notable Book. For more on Janice P. Nimura and The Doctors Blackwell, please click here.
Dorothy Wickenden our moderator for this event, is the author of Nothing Daunted and The Agitators, and has been the executive editor of The New Yorker since January 1996. For more on Dorothy Wickenden and her new book The Agitators, click here.
September 16,2020
Barbara Demick
On Wednesday, Sept. 16, Barbara Demick will discuss her new book, "Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town.” A National Book Award finalist for “Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea,” Demick’s latest book was recently featured on the cover of the New York Times Book Review (July 28) and in a New York Times list of “Ten New Books We Recommend This Week” (July 23), which described it as “the profile of a group of Tibetans with roots in Ngaba County, in the Chinese province of Sichuan, which bears the gory distinction of being the “undisputed world capital of self-immolations.” Parul Sehgal calls the book “masterly,” and says that it “covers an awe-inspiring breadth of history,” from the heyday of the Tibetan empire to the present day.”
September 30,2020
Fiona Davis
On Wednesday, Sept. 30, best-selling author Fiona Davis will discuss her new book, "The Lions of Fifth Avenue,” which Good Morning America selected as its August Book Club Pick and was recently reviewed for BookTrib by Claudia Keenan, author of a history of the Bronxville School: “In the world’s fastest growing city, where well over a dozen daily newspapers were read by more than five million people, the year 1914 burst forth with the Great War and battles over modernism and women’s rights. While immigrants lived in stifling squalor on the Lower East Side, the lingering Gilded Age millionaires and new industrialists dispensed extraordinary philanthropy. Two of the institutions they created — the New York Public Library and the Columbia Journalism School — play important roles in Fiona Davis’s new novel, “The Lions of Fifth Avenue”(Dutton).”
“The Lions of Fifth Avenue” was featured in the New York Post as a Best Book of the Week (July 18) and Publisher’s Weekly gave it a starred review: “The characters and story are stellar, but the real star of the show is the library, which Davis evokes beautifully.”