LFPL's At the Library Series

Join author Jermaine Fowler, host of the top-rated history podcast The Humanity Archive , for the launch of his new book of the same name. This sweeping survey of Black history challenges dominant perspectives and goes outside the textbooks to reveal America's hidden history.

In The Power of Giving Away Power: How the Best Leaders Learn to Let Go, businessman and former U.S. Ambassador Matthew Barzun layers lessons from American history and business with insights from his career in tech, politics, and diplomacy to show how we can lead meaningful change in our companies, communities, and even our nation. Barzun served as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom during the Obama administration and is the current owner/publisher of Louisville Magazine.

Aging is a subject of concern to many that is often misunderstood. However, it presents a wonderful opportunity to make informed choices and live to our potential. Dr. Robert Friedland will help you learn the steps to take in your activities, diet, and mental outlook, in order to grasp that opportunity.

MARGO PRICE is a Nashville-based singer-songwriter.She has released three LPs, earned a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist, performed on Saturday Night Live, and is the first female musician to sit on the board of Farm Aid.S.G. GOODMAN is a critically-acclaimed musician and Kentucky native. She was rightly coined an “untamed rock n roll truth-teller” by Rolling Stone.

Join us for a fun-filled evening where Andy Weir (The Martian, Artemis, Project Hail Mary) is interviewed by John Scalzi (Old Man's War, Redshirts). Sponsored by Carmichael's Bookstore and LFPL.

It's a common rule of physical comedy. A successful fall on the keister requires that you know how a real pratfall looks. And feels. And who are more qualified to find laughs in the foibles of daily human behavior than those prone to such…foiblings, I guess? (This, by the way, means everyone on Earth is qualified.) Join actor/creator and physical comedy teacher Gregory Maupin for an evening of slapstick recognition that only by identifying patterns of Wrong can we even begin to identify what Right might look like.

We often think of science as the result of a gradual process of improvement. On this view, partially successful theories are replaced over time by ever more successful ones. In this class, I argue that deeply flawed theories – which even contemporaries immediately recognize as failures – can influence and encourage scientific investigation and thinking. Descartes' hydrodynamic conception of neurophysiology provides a specific example of how it is possible to fail up in science.

This class discusses how our fear of failure ultimately impedes collective efforts in working towards establishing a racially equitable society. Many people find discussions about race to be extremely fraught and divisive, which is usually expressed as a fear of “saying the wrong thing”. This discomfort that arises when thinking and talking about racial inequity and injustice, I propose, arises from a collective social failure to be sensitive and attentive to racial privilege and oppression.

Angeline Boulley is a storyteller and proud Chippewa author who writes about her Ojibwe community in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. A former Director of the Office of Indian Education at the U.S. Department of Education, her debut Young Adult novel Firekeeper's Daughter was an instant #1 New York Times Bestseller. The book was named one of the top 100 YA novels of all time by TIME Magazine and is currently being adapted into a Netflix miniseries by Higher Ground Productions.

To celebrate its 50th anniversary, Kentucky Humanities, in partnership with the Kentucky Tourism, Arts, and Heritage Cabinet and the Louisville Free Public Library, will host Louisville's own musical group Linkin' Bridge in conversation with inspirational speaker and humanities scholar Aminata Cairo. The group will discuss storytelling through song and the lessons we learn from each other's stories in a world that is often fraught with division.

Join Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks (March) for a discussion of her latest novel, Horse, based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington.

#1 New York Times bestseller E. Lockhart (We Were Liars, Family of Liars) in conversation with Brooke Lauren Davis (After Dark with Roxie Clark, The Hollow Inside), brought to you by Carmichael's Bookstore and LFPL.

Join Poet Laureate Crystal Wilkinson (Perfect Black) and historian Emily Bingham (My Old Kentucky Home: The Astonishing Life and Reckoning of an Iconic American Song) as they read from and discuss their latest works, which offer fresh new perspectives on the Bluegrass state, past and present.

Join civil rights lawyer and University of Louisville law professor Dan Canon for a discussion of his new book Pleading Out – a blistering critique of America's assembly-line approach to criminal justice through plea bargaining, and the permanent criminal class it creates.

Join several of the parents featured in the book A Celebration of Family: Stories of Parents with Disabilities as they share their experiences, the difficulties they may have encountered, and their family successes.

Affrilachian poet Bernard Clay narrates his West-Side Louisville upbringing and the complexities of Black Appalachian identity, reading from his debut collection of poems compiled from more than twenty years of work.

Co-authors Winfrey P. Blackburn, Jr. and R. Scott Gill discuss their latest book Gideon Shryock: His Life & Architecture. This program is presented in partnership with the Filson Historical Society.

Former U.S. Ambassador/peace mediator Carey Cavanaugh will discuss the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its effect on the future of the Eastern European region. Ambassador Carey Cavanaugh is professor of diplomacy and conflict resolution at the University of Kentucky and chairman of International Alert, a London-based independent peacebuilding organization.

When was the last time your race played a role in your interactions with your colleagues, neighbors, and people you meet here in Louisville? In this talk, Dr. Kalasia S. Ojeh will give a history, definition, and description of critical race theory, and discuss race relations at the national level relative to our everyday localized experience. Dr. Ojeh is Assistant Professor in the University of Louisville's Department of Pan-African Studies, and a 2020-2021 Commonwealth Center for the Humanities and Society Faculty. She is editor of the Journal of Social Problems and the Co-Chair of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee for the College of Arts and Sciences

United We Stood: Memories of 9/11 panel discussion: Moderator Melissa Swan and panelists recall their first-hand experiences during and following the attacks.

Dale Dougherty, a Louisville native, tech pioneer and a national leader of the Maker movement, talks about how that movement is opening up the world -- and bringing people together. He is the founder of MAKE Magazine and creator of Maker Faire.

Maybe you know it as a classic of opera comedy or maybe you know it thanks to a Bugs Bunny cartoon, but either way, The Barber of Seville is a crowd-pleasing favorite. This comedy tells of a count, his love, and the clever barber whose mistakes and successes lead the characters on a merry romp. Join conductor Robert Tweten as he describes what it's like to musically manage Rossini's one and only Figaro.

Will artificial intelligence help or hinder society? What will scientists and engineers need to do to keep AI from causing harm? Many scientists have predicted that humanity will achieve Artificial General Intelligence within the next hundred years. After summarizing the arguments for why AGI may pose significant risk, UofL's Dr. Roman Yampolskiy will survey the field’s proposed responses

Join beloved children's author Deborah Diesen for a discussion of her latest work: The Pout-Pout Fish and the Bully Bully Shark.

Join beloved children's author Deborah Diesen for a discussion of her latest work: The Pout-Pout Fish and the Bully Bully Shark.

Ingrid Betancourt was a Colombian politician and presidential candidate celebrated for her determination to combat widespread corruption. In 2002 she was kidnapped by the FARC - a terrorist guerrilla organization - and held hostage in the Colombian jungle for more than six years. She was finally rescued on July 2, 2008. "Even Silence Has an End" tells her story, in her own words.

Craig Johnson, bestselling author of the Longmire series. Podcast includes special reading of Known Associate, a Longmire short story.

The Violins of Hope are a collection of more than 50 restored instruments played by Jewish musicians during the Holocaust. These instruments have survived concentration camps, pogroms and many long journeys to tell remarkable stories of injustice, suffering, resilience and survival. During this (BYO) lunch-and-learn program, Avshi Weinstein, son and partner of luthier and project founder Amnon Weinstein, will speak about the project and one of the violins will be used for a live performance featuring a violinist from the Louisville Orchestra. The song played in the middle is Bach Violin Sonata No. 1 in G minor – 1st mvt. Adagio

World-renowned journalist Gail Sheehy passed away last week. Here we revisit her appearance at the library. She talked about her new memoir, Daring: My Passages, chronicled her trials and triumphs as a groundbreaking "girl" journalist in the 1960s to one of the premier political profilers of today.

Former special advisor and press secretary to President Ronald Reagan, Mark Weinberg, shares an intimate, behind-the-scenes look inside the Reagan presidency—told through the movies they watched together every week at Camp David. Movie Nights with the Reagans is a nostalgic journey through the 1980s and its most iconic films, seen through the eyes of one of Hollywood’s former stars: one who was simultaneously transforming the Republican Party, the American economy, and the course of the Cold War.

The complex relationship between mothers and daughters is brought to life in Katie Hafner's memoir, an exploration of the year she and her octagenarian mother, Helen, spent working through a lifetime of unresolved emotions - along with the author's teenage daughter. Katie Hafner is a regular contributor to The New York Times, writing on healthcare and technology, and is the author of five previous works of nonfiction.

Chinese president Xi Jinping is transforming China at home and abroad. Over the past five years, he has taken unprecedented steps to consolidate his authority; expand the Communist Party's role in China; and control more closely the exchange of ideas and capital between China and the outside world. Beyond its borders, Beijing has recast itself as a great power, seeking to reclaim its past glory and to create a system of international norms that better serves its more ambitious geostrategic objectives.Presented in partnership with the University of Louisville Center for Asian Democracy, the World Affairs Council of Kentucky and Southern Indiana, and Asia Institute - Crane House, join Elizabeth Economy, senior fellow and director for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, for the 2018 Annual Lecture in Asian Democracy.

Dubbed "the funniest man in America" by the New York Times, Dave Barry explores the twin mysteries of parenthood and families in "You Can Date Boys When You're Forty." In his new release, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author tackles everything from family trips to bat mitzvah parties to accompanying his daughter to a Justin Bieber concert.

Join biographer Brian Jay Jones for a discussion of his latest book George Lucas: A Life, detailing the incredible life story of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones creator.Jones is the New York Times bestselling author of Jim Henson: The Biography and the award-winning Washington Irving: An American Original.

New York Times bestselling author and illustrator of Boing! and the Bad Kitty series Nick Bruel

Carolyn Finney, PhD is a storyteller, author and cultural geographer. Her widely-praised first book, Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors (UNC Press 2014) brought her to national attention as a scholar and speaker on race, belonging, environment, narrative and place – on whose story counts and who belongs. She is a former Fulbright scholar and has served on the U.S. National Parks Advisory Board.Previously a faculty member at UK, Finney is now the Environmental Studies Professor of Practice in the Franklin Environmental Center at Middlebury College.

Stephen Foster’s 1852 ballad “My Old Kentucky Home” conjures visions of home as a nurturing, humble environment, but for some Kentuckians during the Gilded Age, home was anything but nurturing. Charlene Fletcher (PhD candidate, Indiana University-Bloomington) will examine family violence in 19th century domestic spaces as she recounts the lives of two African American women from Lexington, Kentucky, Fannie Keys Harvey and Lila B. White, who were incarcerated at the Frankfort Penitentiary after fighting back against their abusive families. Using their stories, Fletcher will present home as a site of confinement for women and children in central Kentucky, an area plagued with various forms of domestic abuse, and pull acts of resistance from the archives to bring awareness to this dark chapter of history. This program is presented by MyLibraryU and the Kentucky History Room.

Carmichael's Kids, in partnership with the Louisville Free Public Library, are excited to welcome Newbery Honor Award winner Ann M. Martin to the Main Library. Martin is the New York Times-bestselling author of Rain Reign and many other award-winning novels, including the much-loved Baby-Sitters Club series. In her novel Rain Reign, Martin tells the story of Rose, a girl struggling with Asperger's syndrome, and the bond she shares with her beloved dog, Rain.

The summer months of 1776 witnessed the most consequential events in the story of our country's founding. In "Revolutionary Summer," Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian Joseph Ellis meticulously examines the most influential figures in this historic moment, including George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Britain's Admiral Lord Richard Howe and General William Howe. He weaves together the political and military experiences as two sides of a single story, and shows how events on one front influenced outcomes on the other.

Clara Bingham is a former Newsweek White House correspondent and Louisville native. Join her for a discussion of her latest book, Witness to the Revolution: Radicals, Resisters, Vets, Hippies, and the Year America Lost Its Mind and Found Its Soul, the story of the turbulent year when the sixties ended and America teetered on the edge of revolution.

This Fast Class panel discussion is presented by LFPL’s Kentucky History Room in honor of LGBTQ+ pride month. Moderator Jaison Gardner (co-host of Louisville Public Media’s Strange Fruit podcast) will lead panelists in a discussion of the public and private gathering places that have been important in the social, political, and personal lives of Louisville’s LGBTQ+ communities. Night clubs, bars, public spaces, private homes and more will be recalled and celebrated by members of the community.

Harvard Law professor and bestselling author Randall Kennedy's newest book, "For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action and the Law," is a concise and deeply personal account of the policy and history of affirmative action. The book analyzes key arguments, pro and con, critiquing the impact of Supreme Court decisions, and pondering the policy's future in American society.

If being a dad is a full-time job, being a father and the president of the United States is a whole other ballgame. And yet nearly every president has performed both roles, leading Joshua Kendall to write First Dads, an original take on family, politics, and the politics of family.

If being a dad is a full-time job, being a father and the president of the United States is a whole other ballgame. And yet nearly every president has performed both roles, leading Joshua Kendall to write First Dads, an original take on family, politics, and the politics of family.

Dr. Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson's new book "Promises Kept: Raising Black Boys to Succeed in School and Life" is an unprecedented guide to helping black boys, regardless of socio-economic background, achieve success at every stage of their lives - at home, at school, and in the world.

Dr. Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson's new book "Promises Kept: Raising Black Boys to Succeed in School and Life" is an unprecedented guide to helping black boys, regardless of socio-economic background, achieve success at every stage of their lives - at home, at school, and in the world.

In his latest book, The Defender: How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America, award-winning author, publisher, and journalist Ethan Michaeli recounts the incredible story of a newspaper that changed the course of history in segregated America.

In his latest book, The Defender: How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America, award-winning author, publisher, and journalist Ethan Michaeli recounts the incredible story of a newspaper that changed the course of history in segregated America.

From New York Times bestselling author James McBride comes "The Good Lord Bird: A Novel" -- the story of a young boy born a slave who joins John Brown's antislavery crusade - and who must pass as a girl to survive. McBride's landmark memoir, "The Color of Water," is considered an American classic and read in schools and universities across the United States.

From New York Times bestselling author James McBride comes "The Good Lord Bird: A Novel" -- the story of a young boy born a slave who joins John Brown's antislavery crusade - and who must pass as a girl to survive. McBride's landmark memoir, "The Color of Water," is considered an American classic and read in schools and universities across the United States.

In his book, "Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers," Frank X Walker explores the void left by the horrific slaying of the civil rights activist - taking on the voices of Evers' family, Evers' killer, and others surrounding the events in Mississippi in 1963. Join Kentucky's Poet Laureate for an evening of poetry.