Members Only Preview Sale
Friday, August 29, 3:00-7:00pm
Academy members have early access to the giant book sale. Free for members, $10 for member’s guest. Memberships for sale online and at the door. Refreshments served from 5:00-7:00pm. Scanning devices prohibited on Friday.
GIANT BOOK SALE – Free Admission
Saturday, August 30, 10:00am-5:00pm
Sunday, August 31, 10:00am-4:00pm
Monday, September 1, 10:00am-2:00pm
Browse affordable, gently used books, vinyl LPs, CDs, DVDs and audio books. Young readers find books, puzzles and games in the Kids Corner. The Special Book Room holds first edition, out-of-print and collectible books; no scanning devices here. Teachers with IDs get 20% discount, excluding Special Book Room and guest author books.
Children’s Program – Free Admission
Saturday August 30
10:00am-Noon Marcus Pfister, The Rainbow Fish
The Rainbow Fish is Marcus Pfister’s beloved children’s picture book about a beautiful fish who finds friendship and happiness when he learns to share. Kids can have their photos taken with the costumed book character, get crafty with art activities, and listen to the story read by Rae Gilson.
Author Events – Free Admission
Saturday, August 30
12:30pm: Peter Canellos, The Great Dissenter: The Story of John Marshall Harlan
Peter S. Canellos discusses his latest book with writer and television producer Dalton Delan. The Great Dissenter is a “superb” (The Guardian) biography of an American who stood against all the forces of Gilded Age America to fight for civil rights and economic freedom: Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan. It’s a profound tale of how a former slave owner—with the help of a once-enslaved man who grew up alongside him and was believed to be his half-brother—changed American law.
2:00pm: Bonnie Yochelson, Too Good to Get Married: The Life and Photographs of Miss Alice Austen
Art historian Bonnie Yochelson talks with curator Diane Shewchuk about Too Good to be Married, a biography of Gilded Age amateur photographer Alice Austen. Austen captured the social rituals of New York’s leisured class and the bustling streets of the modern city. She also is celebrated as queer artist. The book describes how a woman challenged and conformed to the conservative ideals of Staten Island high society when the term “lesbian” did not yet exist. Austen’s family cottage, Clear Comfort, is a National Historic Landmark and LGBTQ Historic Site.
3:30pm: Lisa Lerer, The Fall of Roe: The Rise of a New America
Top journalist Lisa Lerer discuss her national bestseller, The Fall of Roe: The Rise of a New America, with Rebecca Hart Holder, executive director of Reproductive Equity Now. This groundbreaking book charts the shocking political and religious campaign to take down abortion rights and remake American families, womanhood, and the nation itself. She reveals the untold story of the plan to overturn Roe v. Wade and the consequences for women and abortion, charting the rise of this new America in “a rich narrative.” (Rolling Stone).
Sunday, August 31
11:30am: Chloé Caldwell, Trying: A Memoir
Author Chloé Caldwell will talk about her memoir Trying with novelist Jen Beagin. Known for writing with candor, irreverence, and heart, her latest book is about infertility, betrayal, and rebirth. Broken by her husband’s betrayal but freed from domesticity, Caldwell felt reawakened, to long-buried desires, to her queer identity, to pleasure and possibility. Trying intimately captures a self in a continuous process of becoming—and the mysterious ways that writing informs that process. Caldwell is the author of national bestseller Women, the memoir The Red Zone, and several essay collections.
1:00pm: Mayukh Sen, Love, Queenie: Merle Oberon, Hollywood’s First South Asian Star
Mayukh Sen discusses Love, Queenie, a beautiful reclamation of a pioneering South Asian actress, with Mary Darcy, WMHT classical DJ. Sen draws on family interviews and untapped archival material to animate the star’s hard-won journey from poverty to fame. Merle Oberon’s nomination for The Dark Angel marked the first time the Academy recognized a performer of color. Born to a South Asian mother and white father in India, Oberon broke through a racial barrier—but no one knew it. She was “passing” for white. Sen’s compelling chronicle illuminates troubling truths on race, gender and power that resonate today.
2:30pm: David Hajdu, The Uncanny Muse: Music, Art, and Machines from Automata to AI
David Hajdu discusses his book, The Uncanny Muse, with music journalist Seth Rogovoy. He tells the story of art’s relation to machines, from the Baroque period to the age of AI. The Uncanny Muse explores the history of automation in the arts and delves into one of the most momentous and controversial aspects of AI: artificial creativity. Hajdu takes a novel and contrarian approach: he sees how machines through the ages have enabled creativity, not stifled it, and sees no reason why this shouldn’t be the case with AI today.
