Emily Nussbaum

Cue the Sun! The Invention of Reality TV

December 4, 2024

Emily Nussbaum, a staff writer at The New Yorker, unearths the origin story of the genre that ate the world, as told through the lively voices of the people who built it. 

Clara Bingham

The Movement

November 18, 2024

For lovers of both Barbie and Gloria Steinem, The Movement is the first oral history of the decade that built the modern feminist movement.

David Leonhardt

Ours Was the Shining Future

November 12, 2024

Drawing on decades of writing about the economy for The New York Times, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer David Leonhardt examines the past century of American history, from the Great Depression to today’s Great Stagnation, in search of the American Dream

Jean Strouse

Family Romance: John Singer Sargent and the Wertheimers

November 21, 2024

Jean Strouse captures the dramas, mysteries, intrigues, and tragedies surrounding John Singer Sargent’s portraits of the Wertheimer family.

Alison Espach

The Wedding People

November 12, 2024

Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.

Griffin Dunne

The Friday Afternoon Club

November 11, 2024

For all its boldface cast of characters and jaw-dropping scenes, The Friday Afternoon Club is no mere celebrity memoir. It is, down to its bones, a family story that embraces the poignant absurdities and best and worst efforts of its loveable, infuriating, funny, and moving characters—its author most of all.

Sebastian Junger

In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife

October 17, 2024

In My Time of Dying is part medical drama, part searing autobiography, and part rational inquiry into the ultimate unknowable mystery.

James Traub

True Believer

September 24, 2024

In True Believer, acclaimed historian and journalist James Traub details how Hubert Humphrey was liberalism’s most dedicated defender, and its most public and tragic sacrifice.

Alan Govenar in conversation with Phaedra Michelle Scott

Stompin’ at the Savoy

September 24, 2024
Dallas, TX

Novelist Alan Govenar appears in celebration of his childrens’ book Stompin’ at the Savoy in conversation with playwright Phaedra Michelle Scott, a collaborator on the book’s stage adaptation.

Jeff Schaffer

Curb Your Enthusiasm

May 29, 2024

Jeff Schaffer has worked on a number of cult-favorite television shows and movies, including EuroTrip, The Dictator, and Seinfeld, which brought him back around to working with the show’s co-creator, Larry David, on the premiere sitcom improvisational show, Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Colm Tóibín

April 24 2024

Long Island

Long Island is a spectacularly moving and intense novel of secrecy, misunderstanding, and love, the story of Eilis Lacey, the complex and enigmatic heroine of Brooklyn, Tóibín’s most popular work twenty years later.

Elizabeth Crook

April 24, 2024

The Madstone

With its vivid characters and expansive canvas, The Madstone calls to mind Lonesome Dove, yet Elizabeth Crook’s new novel is a singular achievement.

Lisa Grunwald

April 17, 2024

The Evolution of Annabel Craig

From the author of Time After Time and The Irresistible Henry House, Grunwald’s The Evolution of Annabel Craig follows a young Southern woman sets out on a journey of self-discovery as the infamous 1925 Scopes Trial tests her faith and her marriage.

Simon Schama

April 16, 2024

Foreign Bodies: Pandemics, Vaccines, and the Health of Nations

Delivered through gripping, page-turning stories set in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries – smallpox strikes London; cholera hits Paris; plague comes to India – Foreign Bodies is a vibrant cultural history investigating pandemics and vaccines. 

Anna Quindlen

April 9, 2024

After Annie

Quindlen’s trademark wisdom on family, emotions, and the secrets of people in a small town are at the center of this novel about triumph over adversity and the power of love to transcend time, by the bestselling author of Alternate Side and Every Last One.

Jennifer Breheny Wallace

April 4, 2024

 Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic—And What We Can Do About It

In Never Enough, award-winning reporter Jennifer Breheny Wallace investigates the deep roots of toxic achievement culture, and finds out what we must do to fight back. 

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

April 3, 2024

The Black Box: Writing the Race

We are delighted to feature Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. for a special Author’s Evening in celebration of his new book, The Black Box: Writing the Race.

Jonathan Taplin

March 13, 2024

The End of Reality

The End of Reality provides an insightful and important critique of the myths that four uniquely influential tech and finance giants have sold to the twenty-first century consumer.

Douglas Stuart

March 5, 2024

Young Mungo

Stuart’s extraordinary second novel, Young Mungo, is both a page-turner and literary tour de force, a vivid portrayal of working-class life in Glasgow and a deeply moving and highly suspenseful story of the dangerous first love of two young men.

Prudence Peiffer

February 27, 2024

The Slip

Longlisted for the National Book Award and named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, The Slip is the never-before-told story of an obscure little street at the lower tip of Manhattan and the remarkable artists who got their start there. 

Ann Patchett

February 21, 2024

Tom Lake

In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America’s finest writers in Tom Lake.

Susan Choi

February 6, 2024

Trust Exercise

Choi’s fifth novel, Trust Exercise, won the 2019 National Book Award for Fiction, and in 2021 she received the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award for “Flashlight.”

S.A. Cosby

January 16, 2024

All the Sinners Bleed

 A “provocative and page-turning entry in the Southern noir genre” (Kirkus Reviews), All the Sinners Bleed features Titus Crown, the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia, a small, quiet town brimming with secrets under the surface.

Gabrielle Zevin

Sunday, December 10, 2023

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

“Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a decade-spanning feat in storytelling, switching perspectives as the story winds through the years.”

—Elena Nicolaou, TODAY Show

Drew Faust

Thursday, December 7, 2023

 Necessary Trouble: Growing Up at Midcentury

Culminating in the upheavals of 1968, Necessary Trouble captures a time of rapid change and fierce reaction in one young woman’s life, tracing the transformations and aftershocks that we continue to grapple with today.

Esmeralda Santiago

Wednesday, November 15, 2023

Las Madres

From the award-winning, best-selling author of When I Was Puerto Rican, comes a powerful novel of family, race, faith, sex, and disaster that moves between Puerto Rico and the Bronx, revealing the lives and loves of five women and the secret that binds them together.

Christine Coulson

Thursday, November 9, 2023
Dallas, Texas

One Woman Show: A Novel

One Woman Show is a sly and stylish novel—remarkably told through museum wall labels—about a twentieth-century woman who transforms herself from a precious object into an unforgettable protagonist.

James McBride

Wednesday, November 8, 2023

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

From James McBride, author of the bestselling Oprah’s Book Club pick Deacon King Kong and the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store is a novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them.

Richard Haass

Wednesday, November 1, 2023

The Bill of Obligations

The Bill of Obligations is a bold call for change. In these pages, New York Times bestselling author Richard Haass argues that the very idea of citizenship must be revised and expanded.

Gay Talese

Thursday, October 26, 2023

Bartleby and Me: Reflections of an Old Scrivener

‘A smooth and enchanting wordsmith, Talese delivers a lovely testament to the ‘unobtrusive if not kindred Bartleby personalities’ of New York City. It’s a delight.’ — Publishers Weekly

Chelsea G. Summers

Tuesday, October 24, 2023

A Certain Hunger  

“One of the most uniquely fun and campily gory books in my recent memory… A Certain Hunger has the voice of a hard-boiled detective novel, as if metaphor-happy Raymond Chandler handed the reins over to the sexed-up femme fatale and really let her fly.” —The New York Times

Al Franken

Monday, October 23, 2023

An Evening with Al Franken 

Join us for an intimate evening with Al Franken! He will discussing his remarkable career as a five-time Emmy winning Saturday Night Live writer/producer, a four-time #1 New York Times bestselling author, a three-time highest-rated national progressive radio host, a two-time Grammy winning artist, and a former US Senator.

Kai Bird

Thursday, October 12, 2023

An Evening with Kai Bird and Special Guest Christopher Nolan

Join us for an intimate dinner with author Kai Bird and filmmaker Christopher Nolan and discussing the Pulitzer Prize winning 2005 biography American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin.

Ned Blackhawk

Thursday, October 5, 2023

The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History

In The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History, Ned Blackhawk “…[shows] that Native communities have, instead, been inseparable from the American story all along.” Washington Post Book World, “Books to Read in 2023”

Ayad Akhtar

Wednesday, October 4, 2023

Homeland Elegies

PEN America President Ayad Akhtar will discuss his remarkable career including his novel Homeland Elegies, which The New York Times called “a beautiful novel…that had echoes of The Great Gatsby and that circles, with pointed intellect, the possibilities and limitations of American life.”

Adam Nagourney

Monday, October 2, 2023

The Times: How the Newspaper of Record Survived Scandal, Scorn and the Transformation of Journalism

The Times is a sweeping behind-the-scenes look at the last four turbulent decades of “the paper of record,” The New York Times, as it confronted world-changing events, internal scandals, and faced the existential threat of the internet.

Felix Gillette and John Koblin

Tuesday, September 26, 2023

It’s Not TV: The Spectacular Rise, Revolution and Future of HBO

HBO’s own behind-the-scenes story told by veteran media reporters Gillette and Koblin is as complex, compelling, and innovative as the dramas the network created, driven by unorthodox executives who pushed the boundaries of what viewers understood as television at the turn of the century. 

Kate Manning

Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Gilded Mountain

The New York Times raves that “Kate Manning’s fat, immersive novel transfixed me… Manning builds her characters’ challenges with such empathy, I didn’t even realize I was getting a crash course in the history of labor relations… There are views to admire, mysteries to be solved and love stories to escape into… awe-inspiring.”

Hernan Diaz

Thursday, September 21, 2023

Trust

“A riveting novel set in a bygone America that explores family, wealth and ambition through linked narratives rendered in different literary styles, a complex examination of love and power in a country where capitalism is king.” –The Pulitzer Prizes

Cynt Marshall

Tuesday, September 19, 2023
Dallas, Texas

You’ve Been Chosen: Thriving Through the Unexpected

Marshall, the CEO of the Dallas Mavericks has written a relentlessly optimistic memoir. One of the most influential Black business leaders in America today, Marshall offers hope and practical guidance for navigating life’s most difficult challenges.

William Gibson

Monday, July 10, 2023
7:00-8:30 pm ET

Virtual Author’s Evening with William Gibson

Join us for an intimate evening with William Gibson in conversation about his remarkable career. William Gibson is credited with having coined the term “cyberspace” and having envisioned both the Internet and virtual reality before either existed.

Xochitl Gonzalez

Thursday, June 8, 2023

Olga Dies Dreaming

Set against the backdrop of New York City in the months surrounding the most devastating hurricane in Puerto Rico’s history, Xochitl Gonzalez’s New York Times bestseller Olga Dies Dreaming is a story that examines political corruption, familial strife, and the very notion of the American dream.

Priscilla Gilman

Tuesday, May 9, 2023

The Critic’s Daughter: A Memoir

Gilman’s memoir is an exquisitely rendered portrait of a unique father-daughter relationship and a moving memoir of family and identity. 

Brooke Kroeger

Thursday, May 4, 2023

Undaunted: How Women Changed American Journalism

In Undaunted, Brooke Kroeger examines the lives of the best-remembered and long-forgotten woman journalists and their effect on American journalism. 

Bill Buford

Friday, April 28, 2023

Dirt

Join us in Connecticut for an intimate dinner with Bill Buford. Renowned journalist, editor, food writer, and bestselling author Buford will discuss his work and remarkable career. 

Lynn Nottage

Thursday, April 27, 2023

Playwright and screenwriter Lynn Nottage will be discussing her remarkable career. She is the first, and remains the only, woman to have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice. Her plays have been produced widely in the United States and throughout the world.

Chachi D. Hauser

Tuesday April 25, 2023

It’s Fun to Be a Person I Don’t Know

Chachi Hauser’s It’s Fun to Be a Person I Don’t Know, which Gloria Steinem hails as a “rare gift”, is an innovative and multifaceted narrative that navigates a variety of terrains, seeking truth as its final destination. 

Andrea Elliott

Tuesday, April 18, 2023

Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City

Andrea Elliott discusses her Pulitzer-prize winning book, Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an America City. By turns heartbreaking and revelatory, provocative and inspiring, Invisible Child tells an astonishing story about the power of resilience, the importance of family, and the cost of inequality.

Colm Tóibín

Thursday, April 13, 2023

A Guest at the Feast: Essays

From one of the most engaging and brilliant writers of our time comes a collection of essays about growing up in Ireland during radical change; about cancer, priests, popes, homosexuality, and literature. 

Stacy Schiff

Thursday, March 23, 2023

The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams

The Revolutionary is a revelatory biography from a Pulitzer Prize-winner about the most essential Founding Father—the one who stood behind the change in thinking that produced the American Revolution.

Paul Goldberger

Tuesday, March 21, 2023

Why Architecture Matters

In Why Architecture Matters, Goldberger shows us how that works in examples ranging from a small Cape Cod cottage to the vast, flowing Prairie houses of Frank Lloyd Wright, from the Lincoln Memorial to the Guggenheim Bilbao.

Susan Wilner Golden

Thursday, February 23, 2023

Stage (Not Age): How to Understand and Serve People Over 60

Golden, Lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and Director of the dciX impact initiative at the Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute, thinks people 60+ are the fastest growing, most dynamic market in the world and her book argues for the ways in which businesses can best reach this diverse group.

Jon Meacham

Thursday, February 16, 2023

And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle

Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer and #1 New York Times bestselling author Jon Meacham chronicles the life of Abraham Lincoln, charting how—and why—he confronted secession, threats to democracy, and the tragedy of slavery to expand the possibilities of America.

Catherine Grace Katz

Wednesday, February 15, 2023

The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans – A Story of Love and War

In The Daughters of Yalta, Katz tells the amazing story of tensions during the Yalta Conference in February 1945 which threatened to tear apart the wartime alliance among Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin just as victory was close at hand and the three young women who played a part in this historic moment. 

Mark Whitaker

Thursday, February 9, 2023

Saying It Loud: 1966—The Year Black Power Challenged the Civil Rights Movement

Journalist and author Mark Whitaker explores the momentous year that redefined the civil rights movement as a new sense of Black identity expressed in the slogan “Black Power” challenged the nonviolent philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis.

Raven Leilani

Tuesday, February 7, 2023

Luster

Leilani’s debut novel, Luster “shines with sharp wit and dark humor” (NPR). Join us for an evening with Leilani and PEN America’s Young Patrons group. 

Patrick Radden Keefe

Thursday, January 5, 2023

Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks

Patrick Radden Keefe, the award-winning New York Times bestselling author of Empire of Pain, explores colorful characters, from whistleblowers and con men to Anthony Bourdain in his latest book, Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks.