The American Library in Paris

Evenings with an Author: Suzanne Nossel in conversation with Michelle Kuo [Virtual Public Event; RSVP Required]
2021-02-09 19:30 - 20:30 (Europe/Paris)
*Covid-19 Update: This winter, the Library’s Evening with an Author series will continue to meet virtually, via Zoom. These events, which are free and open to the public, require advance sign up. Evenings with an Author programs begin at 19h30 (Central European Time). Please check eLibris or our programs calendar for updates and line-up.
Please follow this link to register!
Join us for an interview with Suzanne Nossel (moderated by author and lawyer Michelle Kuo) as she introduces her new book, Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All
Online trolls and fascist chat groups. Controversies over campus lectures. Cancel culture versus censorship. The daily hazards and debates surrounding free speech dominate headlines and fuel social media storms. In an era where one tweet can launch—or end—your career, and where free speech is often invoked as a principle but rarely understood, learning to maneuver the fast-changing, treacherous landscape of public discourse has never been more urgent.
In Dare To Speak, Suzanne Nossel, a leading voice in support of free expression, delivers a vital, necessary guide to maintaining democratic debate that is open, free-wheeling but at the same time respectful of the rich diversity of backgrounds and opinions in a changing country. Centered on practical principles, Nossel’s primer equips readers with the tools needed to speak one’s mind in today’s diverse, digitized, and highly-divided society without resorting to curbs on free expression.
Suzanne Nossel is Chief Executive Officer at PEN America and author of Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All. Prior to joining PEN America, she served as the Chief Operating Officer of Human Rights Watch and as Executive Director of Amnesty International USA. She has served in the Obama Administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations, leading US engagement in the UN and multilateral institutions on human right issues, and in the Clinton Administration as Deputy to the US Ambassador for UN Management and Reform. Nossel coined the term “Smart Power,” which was the title of a 2004 article she published in Foreign Affairs Magazine and later became the theme of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s tenure in office. She is a featured columnist for Foreign Policy magazine and has published op-eds in The New York Times, Washington Post, and LA Times, as well as scholarly articles in Foreign Affairs, Dissent, and Democracy, among others. Nossel serves on the Board of Directors of the Tides Foundation. She is a former senior fellow at the Century Foundation, the Center for American Progress, and the Council on Foreign Relations. Nossel is a magna cum laude graduate of both Harvard College and Harvard Law School.

Michelle Kuo is the author of Reading with Patrick, runner-up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Goddard Riverside Book for Social Justice. She has worked as a lawyer for undocumented immigrants and incarcerated people. Michelle has written for the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, Public Books, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Point, and other publications. Currently, she is an associate professor of History, Law, and Society at the American University of Paris, where she works closely with students on issues of social justice.

Evenings with an Author are generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg

Evenings with an Author: Stephen Clarke [Virtual Public Event; RSVP Required]
2021-02-02 19:30 - 20:30
*Covid-19 Update: This winter, the Library’s Evening with an Author series will continue to meet virtually, via Zoom. These events, which are free and open to the public, require advance sign up. Evenings with an Author programs begin at 19h30 (Central European Time). Please check eLibris or our programs calendar for updates and line-up.
Follow this link to register!
Join us for an evening with Stephen Clarke as he presents his new book, The Spy Who Inspired Me

It is April 1944, just before D-Day. A young woman spy, Margaux Lynd, has to go undercover into Occupied France to find missing agents in the Resistance. Unfortunately she is lumbered with a male sidekick, a suave naval officer called Ian Lemming (not, not Fleming). He thinks Occupied France is dirty and dangerous and wants to go back to his office in the Admiralty, but she has to drag him along, and meanwhile teaches him all the tricks of real wartime spy craft. To compensate for the humiliation, he starts to fantasise about a male spy who would operate in champagne luxury while lording it over women. A world-famous secret agent is born…

Stephen Clarke is a British writer living in Paris (unless he’s since been deported because of Brexit). He is the author of the worldwide bestselling Merde series of novels about an Englishman failing to adapt to life in France. He has also written history books such as 1000 Years of Annoying the French and The French Revolution & What Went Wrong.

Praise for Stephen Clarke
‘An entertaining and thrilling read.’ -The Historical Novel Society.
‘Tremendously entertaining’ -Sunday Times
‘Outrageously readable’ -Daily Mail
‘Edgier than Bryson, hits harder than Mayle’ -The Times
‘Wicked and witty’ -Daily Express
‘Breezy, entertaining’ -Sunday Express

Evenings with an Author are generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg

Once Upon a Time: Starting Your Short Story (ages 6-12) [VIRTUAL—RSVP REQUIRED]
2021-01-30 14:00 - 15:30
For ages 6-12

Begin your own original short story during this interactive writing workshop.

Children ages 6-12 are invited to join us for an interactive writing workshop direct to your living room, kitchen, bedroom, or wherever you connect. Caregivers are requested to join in with their children and participate in the program.

Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager Celeste and volunteers will read two short stories, then lead you through creating an outline of your own original story. We’ll discuss story structures and opening lines. Participants should log-in with pens and paper ready!

This event requires advance registration. Click HERE to register.

We thank you for your continued support and for being a part of the Library community! If you would like to support the Library, you can donate here to help sustain this vital institution in its 100th year of service.

Ethics in AI with Elena Sinel (ages 12-18) [VIRTUAL—RSVP REQUIRED]
2021-01-29 19:00 - 21:00
For ages 12-18

As robots become ever more present in our daily lives, questions of how to control and modify their behavior come up more often. Join us for an interactive discussion on ethics in AI with Elena Sinel, founder of Teens in AI

Teens ages 12-18 are invited for a presentation on ethics in Artificial Intelligence with Elena Sinel, followed by a Q&A. As robots become ever more present in our daily lives, questions of how to control their behavior naturally come up. Artificial intelligence carries with it a whole host of issues that force us to think about our own morality and ethics. In books and films, AI is often portrayed by malevolent robots or programs who decide to eradicate humans. These stories are fiction, but, can we guarantee that machines won’t reach the same decisions? How do we protect access to AI from bad actors? Who benefits from AI? Think about these issues and more as we explore ethics in AI with Elena, the founder of Teens in AI. Teens in AI is an organization which gives young people exposure to AI and tech for good through hackathons. You can find out more about Teens in AI in this BBC video.
About Elena: Elena Sinel is a multi-award-winning social entrepreneur on a mission to inspire young people across the world into Artificial Intelligence for Impact. She launched Teens in AI at the UN AI For Good Global Summit with the mission to create pipelines for underrepresented talent, thereby improving diversity and inclusion in Artificial Intelligence. It offers young people aged 12-18 early exposure to AI for social good through a combination of expert mentoring, talks, workshops in AI/ML, human-centered design and ethics, hackathons, accelerators, company tours and networking opportunities. The vision is for AI to be developed by a diverse group of thinkers and doers advancing AI for humanity’s benefit. Elena’s latest appointment as a member of the Education Task Force at All Parliamentary Group in Artificial Intelligence gives her an opportunity to influence British policy in respect of AI skills in education. Prior to this, Elena worked as international specialist consultant with nine years of experience in poverty reduction strategies, rural livelihood development and poverty alleviation with a specific focus on creation of small and medium enterprise development, product design, marketing and fundraising in Central Asia, the Balkans, Ethiopia and Bangladesh.

This event is free and open to Library members ages 12-18 and will be hosted virtually via Zoom. Advance registration is required (sign-up HERE). Registered participants will be sent a link to join the event via email.

Send an email to Celeste, our Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager, with questions about events and collections for children and teens: celeste@americanlibraryinparis.org.

Evenings with an Author: V. E. Schwab [Virtual Public Event; RSVP Required]
2021-01-27 19:30 - 20:30
*Covid-19 Update: This winter, the Library’s Evening with an Author series will continue to meet virtually, via Zoom. These events, which are free and open to the public, require advance sign up. Evenings with an Author programs begin at 19h30 (Central European Time). Please check eLibris or our programs calendar for updates and line-up.
Click here to register for this event!
VICTORIA “V.E.” SCHWAB is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty books, including the internationally acclaimed Shades of Magic series, the Villains series, the Cassidy Blake series and more. Her latest novel, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, is set to be adapted into a feature film by eOne and First Kill – a YA vampire series based on Schwab’s short story – is set to hit Netflix, produced by Emma Roberts’ Belletrist Productions. When she’s not haunting Paris streets or trudging up English hillsides, she lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is usually tucked in the corner of a coffee shop, dreaming up monsters. Her newest book, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, follows the title character across centuries and continents, across history and art, as she learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.
For her evening at the American Library, Victoria will be in conversation with Kirsty McCulloch Reid. Kirsty works here at the Library, assisting in the Children’s and Teens’ Services department with programs, the collection, and social media. She holds a Masters in Information and Library studies from Robert Gordon University.

Evenings with an Author are generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg

Story Hour (ages 3-5) [VIRTUAL—RSVP REQUIRED]
2021-01-27 14:30 - 15:30
For ages 3-5
3-5 year-olds and their grown-ups are invited to join us for our weekly interactive Wednesday Story Hour! This virtual program lasts 45 minutes and features songs, stories and hand rhymes in English, and is hosted by our children’s librarians and volunteers.
Our Story Hours are hosted by Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager Celeste, Children’s and Teens’ Services Librarian Kirsty, and volunteers, who will read books and lead you and your little one in stories during this live virtual session. While we usually don’t recommend screen use for young children (see articles here, here and here), video conferencing can be appropriate when mediated by an adult. This participatory program is intended to encourage children to engage with stories. Plan to join in, sing along, and move around, as you would do in one of our in-person events. If you join in this virtual session, it will be as important as ever to model movement and song for your little one.

This virtual Story Hour is free for Library members. Click HERE to register. Registered participants will be sent an email a link to join us via Zoom. Registration closes 24 hours before the event.

Can’t make it to this live online event? Check out our curated list of online resources for children here. If you would like to support the Library and our services, you can donate here to help sustain this vital institution in its 100th year of service.

Evenings with an Author: Fiona Sze-Lorrain [Virtual Public Event; RSVP Required]
2021-01-26 19:30 - 20:30
Photo by Dominique Nabokov
*Covid-19 Update: This winter, the Library’s Evening with an Author series will continue to meet virtually, via Zoom. These events, which are free and open to the public, require advance sign up. Evenings with an Author programs begin at 19h30 (Central European Time). Please check eLibris or our programs calendar for updates and line-up.
Click here to register for this event!
Join us for an evening of poetry and art
Fiona Sze-Lorrain is one of the rare few English-language poets of our times who works across genres and artistic expressions, as well as more than three languages or cultures. In this reading, she will present poems from her latest collection, Rain in Plural (Princeton, 2020), and her new translations of contemporary Chinese-language and American poets. She will also discuss the role and aesthetics of poetry beyond language/culture in a seemingly globalized yet politically fragile world, and the relationship between her writing, music, art, and life.

“If ordering the book via the link above, attendees can use the code RAI21 for a 20% discount on the website. This code will expire on 28 February 2021.”
Fiona Sze-Lorrain is a poet, translator, editor, and zheng harpist who writes and translates in English, French, Chinese, and occasionally Spanish. Her latest poetry title out from Princeton is Rain in Plural (2020). Also the author of The Ruined Elegance (2016), a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and two earlier collections, My Funeral Gondola (2014) and Water the Moon (2010), she has translated more than a dozen books of contemporary Chinese, French, and American poetry. A 2019-20 Abigail R. Cohen Fellow at the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination, she lives in Paris and co-runs a small independent press, Vif Éditions.

Evenings with an Author are generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg

Junk Kouture workshop with Rebecca Devaney (ages 12-18) [VIRTUAL—RSVP REQUIRED]
2021-01-22 19:00 - 20:30
For ages 12-18

Join us for an interactive workshop Rebecca Devaney of Junk Kouture, and brainstorm ways to turn everyday objects into fashion!

Junk Kouture is a global platform to unleash young people’s creative brilliance. One way is through a fashion competition which challenges the world’s hottest emerging designers and artists to envision, create and model high end couture from everyday junk! During this interactive event, Rebecca will show participants examples of fashion made from 100% recycled materials, and then workshop participants will get help to create their own fashion pieces using recycled materials found at home. Ahead of the workshop, please gather: empty Nespresso capsules (or other coffee capsules) or scraps of wrapping paper, scissors, empty plastic bottles (rinsed), candy wrappers (any type) and a hole-punch, if possible.
About Rebecca: Rebecca worked as an Art and Design teacher in Ireland and then came to Paris in 2017 to follow her dream of studying haute couture embroidery at École Lesage. After graduating she worked as an haute couture embroiderer for Yves Saint Laurent, Chanel, Dior, Valentino, Givenchy, and Louis Vuitton, adding embroidery and embellishment to gowns seen at the Met Gala Ball, Cannes Film Festival and red carpets around the world. Check out this video to find out more about Junk Kouture, and find out more about a past competition winner here.

This event is free and open to Library members ages 12-18 and will be hosted virtually via Zoom. Advance registration is required (sign-up HERE). Registered participants will be sent a link to join the event via email.

Send an email to Celeste, our Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager, with questions about events and collections for children and teens: celeste@americanlibraryinparis.org.

The Ship We Built: A Discussion with Lexie Bean and Noah Grigni (ages 9-adult) [VIRTUAL—BY RSVP]
2021-01-16 14:00 - 15:00
Please join us for an interactive book talk on The Ship We Built with author Lexie Bean and illustrator Noah Grigni.
for ages 9-Adult
Please join us for an interactive book talk on The Ship We Built with author Lexie Bean and illustrator Noah Grigni. We’ll talk about the creative process, and how identity shaped the story, as well as how the author and illustrator worked together to find artwork to fit the story. Lexie will read a passage from The Ship We Built, and Noah will share several of the sketches used in the book, then following a discussion moderated by Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager Celeste, we will move into a Q&A with the audience. Both Lexie and Noah identify as queer and trans, and The Ship We Built, which received starred reviews from Kirkus and Booklist, is the first middle grade book from a major American publisher centering a trans boy and written by one. The text deals with themes of isolation, faith, gender and sexuality, abuse, addiction, incarceration, and imagination as a tool for survival. This event is sure to interest young readers, aspiring writers, activists, and artists of all ages. You can check out the book from our collections.
About Lexie: Lexie Bean is a queer and trans multi-media artist from the Midwest USA whose work revolves around themes of bodies, homes, cyclical violence, and LGBTQIA+ identity. They are a member of the RAINN National Leadership Council and are Lambda Literary Finalist for their anthology Written on the Body, centering trans survivors of domestic abuse and sexual assault. The Ship We Built is their debut novel, which began with a text message dare from a crush in 2014. It has also taken the form of an animated short, and soon a feature-length script. Like Rowan, Lexie has a deep resonance with water and letter writing, and is also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse.

About Noah: Noah Grigni is a children’s book illustrator and trans activist from Atlanta, Georgia. Influenced by queer futurism, magical realism, dreams, and the subconscious, Noah uses art to imagine a radically inclusive future and uplift voices fighting for change. Their art ranges from vibrant watercolor illustrations, to meticulous anatomical drawings, to promotional graphics for activist groups. Noah is the illustrator of It Feels Good To Be Yourself by Theresa Thorn, The Every Body Book by Rachel Simon, The Ship We Built by Lexie Bean, and The Gender Identity Workbook For Kids by Kelly Storck. Last year, The American Library in Paris hosted Noah’s first-ever book signing event! Noah is excited to return to the library virtually for this discussion.

This event is free and open to the public (ages 9-Adult). This event will be hosted virtually via Zoom. Registered participants will be sent a link to join the event. Advance registration is required (register HERE).

Send an email to Celeste, our Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager, with questions about events and collections for ages 0-18: celeste@americanlibraryinparis.org.

The American Library in Paris Book Award 2020 [Virtual Event]
2021-01-14 19:30 - 20:30
Honoring literature. Interpreting France.

Date: 14 January 2021 at 19h30 CET
Location: Hosted live on Zoom

RSVP required- please follow this link to register.

Digital tickets to the 2020 Book Award Ceremony are now available. For the first time, the ceremony will be open to the public and there is no cost to attend. Please sign up below to be added to the event’s guest list and login information will be sent to you in January.
The winner of the 2020 prize will be announced and will deliver a live talk on their winning book. The evening will also include a tribute to Library supporters, remarks from the jury about the six shortlisted books, and many other special surprises.
The Book Award ceremony is the Library’s most significant donor appreciation event of the year, and the Library will host a separate gathering to celebrate the generosity of its community. If you haven’t donated this year and you would like to join the hundreds of supporters who have made a contribution in 2020, please use the donate button on this page.

A Special Panel on Change over Time in Technology and Ethics- from 2000 to 2021 [Virtual Public Event; RSVP Required]
2021-01-06 19:30 - 21:00
*Covid-19 Update: This winter, the Library’s Evening with an Author series will continue to meet virtually, via Zoom. These events, which are free and open to the public, require advance sign up. Evenings with an Author programs begin at 19h30 (Central European Time). Please check eLibris or our programs calendar for updates and line-up.
Follow this link to register!
A Panel on Change over Time in Technology and Ethics- from 2000 to 2021
This special panel, moderated by Christine Finn and featuring Nicholas Hall and Mike Cassidy as discussants, will explore and debate the issues surrounding technology and our relationship with its ethics. Finn first interviewed the discussants in 2000 while adopting a left-field take on technology though its fast-changing material culture, (Artifacts: an archaeologist’s year in Silicon Valley: MIT Press 2001). They will cover the state of tech around the year 2000, before and after the dot com bubble burst, through the era of startups, the beginnings of social media as a benign means to connect people and ideas, and apps to make life simpler, to our present concerns about social media leaving us vulnerable, and divided by technology. While innovation has the potential for positive and sweeping change, have the technologies developed in the last two decades grown too large and powerful, and beyond regulation we rely upon to protect us? Inspired in part by recent popular documentaries such as The Social Dilemma and The Great Hack, panelists will share their recollections of the early days of tech and Silicon Valley, and reflect upon how we got here, where we might go next, and what an ethics of technology might look like.

Christine Finn is a journalist and creative archaeologist, and author of Artifacts: an Archaeologist’s Year in Silicon Valley (MIT Press, 2001) and Past Poetic: Archaeology and the Poetry of WB Yeats and Seamus Heaney (Duckworth, 2004). She began her journalism career at 16, and has followed it from analogue to digital, print, blog, photography and broadcast, including the BBC’s “From Our Own Correspondent”, Wired.com, and Edge.org. In 2003 she was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. She is a former Reuter Fellow at Oxford, before returning in 1992 as one of the first undergrads to read Archaeology and Anthropology, continuing to a doctorate in archaeology and poetry. She has received seven Arts Council England awards as a visual artist. Her site-specific work engages with change-over-time in technology and media.

Mike Cassidy, Signifyd lead storyteller: I was a long-time journalist at the newspaper of Silicon Valley, covering the valley’s rise and fall and rise and, well, you get the idea. I worked and watched as the Mercury News became one of the best newspapers in the U.S., shortly before a death-defying collapse that has rendered it almost invisible. I fled to a tech start-up and then another, called Signifyd, where I tell the story of a company that protects merchants from online fraud.

Nicholas Hall: I met Christine Finn when she wrote a little piece about my community website, Startupfailures, back in 2001. I created the community website after the collapse of my startup, Intori, which was focused on becoming an online tool to support offline business networking. At one time I had over 4,000 connections on LinkedIn but now under 100. The same was true with Facebook. As the noise grows, our ability to listen lessens. Can you hear me now?

Evenings with an Author are generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg

Evenings with an Author: Amor Towles in conversation with Mark Mayer [Virtual Public Event; RSVP Required]
2020-12-16 19:30 - 20:30
Update (posted 16/12/20): A Zoom meeting link has been sent to all registered participants. Please check your spam folder if you have not received it (do not sign up twice). If you are registering for the first time today, Wednesday 16 December, you can expect a forwarded email with the link to be delivered within an hour or so of your registration.

*Covid-19 Update: This winter, the Library’s Evening with an Author series will continue to meet virtually, via Zoom. These events, which are free and open to the public, require advance sign up. Evenings with an Author programs begin at 19h30 (Central European Time). Please check eLibris or our programs calendar for updates and line-up.
Click here to register for this event!
Please join us for a conversation with author Amor Towles (moderated by Mark Mayer) about writing, inspiration, and especially, the hugely popular novel, A Gentleman in Moscow (French translation- Un gentleman à Moscou, out now with Editions Fayard).
Born and raised in the Boston area, Amor Towles received his BA from Yale College and an MA in English from Stanford University. His first novel, Rules of Civility, published in 2011, was a New York Times bestseller and was named by the Wall Street Journal as one of the best books of 2011. His second novel, A Gentleman in Moscow, published in 2016, was on the New York Times bestseller list for over a year while in hardcover. It was named as one of the best books of 2016 by the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the San Francisco Chronicle, and NPR. Both novels have sold over one million copies and been translated into over twenty languages. Having worked as an investment professional for over twenty years, Mr. Towles now devotes himself fulltime to writing in Manhattan, where he lives with his wife and two children.

Mark Mayer has an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a PhD from the University of Denver. His first book, AERIALISTS, won the Michener-Copernicus Prize and was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. He has been published in American Short Fiction, the Kenyon Review, Guernica, the Iowa Review, Best American Mystery Stories, and the New York Times and interviewed in the Paris Review and BOMB. He is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing in the University of Memphis MFA.

Evenings with an Author are generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg

Evenings with an Author: Maurice Samuels [Virtual Public Event; RSVP Required]
2020-12-08 19:30 - 20:30
*Covid-19 Update: This winter, the Library’s Evening with an Author series will continue to meet virtually, via Zoom. These events, which are free and open to the public, require advance sign up. Evenings with an Author programs begin at 19h30 (Central European Time). Please check eLibris or our programs calendar for updates and line-up.
Click here to register for this event!

The Betrayal of the Duchess: The Scandal that Unmade the Bourbon Monarchy and Made France Modern

The year was 1832, a cholera pandemic raged, and the French royal family was in exile, driven out by yet another revolution. From a drafty Scottish castle, the duchesse de Berry — the mother of the eleven-year-old heir to the throne — hatched a plot to restore the Bourbon dynasty, but was betrayed by her trusted advisor, the son of France’s Chief Rabbi. The betrayal became a cause célèbre for Bourbon loyalists and ignited a firestorm of hate against France’s Jews. By blaming an entire people for the actions of a single man, the duchess’s supporters set the terms for the century of antisemitism that followed.

Dr. Maurice Samuels is the Betty Jane Anlyan Professor of French at Yale University, where he is also the founding director of the Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism. A recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, he is the author of three previous books, including The Right to Difference: French Universalism and the Jews (University of Chicago Press, 2016). He lives in New Haven, CT and New York City.

Evenings with an Author are generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg

Monster Dance: a reading and Q&A with Eva Lou and Denis O'Hare (ages 3+) [VIRTUAL]
2020-12-05 14:00 - 15:00
For children ages 3+ their families

Enjoy a reading of Monster Dance by Denis O’Hare, then stay for a Q&A with another of the book’s creators: Eva Lou (connecting virtually).

Meet Maurice, an endearingly melodramatic dog, and Charlie, an artistic little girl, as they take on a world that’s suddenly gone topsy-turvy. This picture book (also available as a picture book app) is a story about coping with our fears. Monster Dance was created to teach the youngest readers that living with a virus — or any sickness — isn’t just about “waiting it out.”
Find out more about Monster Dance, and buy the book here.
This event requires advance registration. Click here to register.
We thank you for your continued support and for being a part of the Library community! If you would like to support the Library, you can donate here to help sustain this vital institution in its 100th year of service.

Evenings with an Author: Peter Gumbel in conversation with Charles Fleming [Virtual Public Event; RSVP Required]
2020-11-25 19:30 - 20:30
*Covid-19 Update: This fall, the Library’s Evening with an Author series will continue to meet virtually, via Zoom. These events, which are free and open to the public, require advance sign up. Evenings with an Author programs begin at 19h30 (Central European Time). Please check eLibris or our programs calendar for updates and line-up.
Please click here to register.

Citizens of Everywhere: Searching for Identity in the Age of Brexit

In 1939, with Europe on the brink of war, Peter Gumbel’s grandparents fled Nazi Germany for England. In 2019, appalled by the result of the Brexit referendum and the ugliness it exposed in the UK’s politics and wider society, he became a citizen of Germany, the country that had persecuted his grandparents eighty years earlier. How had it come to this? In his latest book, Citizens of Everywhere, Gumbel uses the story of his family to explore existential issues of identity and belonging in today’s unsettled world. In this Evening with an Author, he will discuss the essay and reflect on its key themes: the resurgence of a nationalistic world view, the growing multiplicity of identity in the digital age, and a surprising reversal of roles as Germany replaces Britain as the hope-bearer in Europe.

Peter Gumbel is a Paris-based writer and editor. He spent sixteen years at the Wall Street Journal, including postings in New York, Moscow, Berlin, and Los Angeles, and moved to Paris in 2002 to cover European business and the economy for Time Magazine. In 2006, the Work Foundation named him Journalist of the Year. He is the author of four books on France, including a best-selling critique of the French education system, On achève bien les écoliers (“They Shoot School Kids, Don’t They?”)
Peter will be interviewed by Charles Fleming, a communications consultant and former Wall Street Journal reporter.

To purchase Citizens of Everywhere, click here.
Evenings with an Author are generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg

Evenings with an Author: Scott Carpenter in conversation with Erin Byrne [Virtual Public Event; RSVP Required]
2020-11-24 19:30 - 20:30
*Covid-19 Update: This fall, the Library’s Evening with an Author series will continue to meet virtually, via Zoom. These events, which are free and open to the public, require advance sign up. Evenings with an Author programs begin at 19h30 (Central European Time). Please check eLibris or our programs calendar for updates and line-up.
Please click here to register.
Join Erin Byrne as she interviews Scott Dominic Carpenter about his hilarious new memoir, French Like Moi: A Midwesterner in Paris
When Scott Carpenter moves from Minnesota to Paris, little does he suspect the dramas that await: scheming neighbors, police denunciations, surly demonstrators, cooking disasters, medical mishaps―not to mention all those lectures about cheese! It turns out that nothing in the City of Light can be taken for granted, where even trips to the grocery store lead to adventure. In French Like Moi, Carpenter guides us through the merry labyrinth of the everyday, one hilarious faux pas after another. Through it all, he keeps his eye on the central mystery of what makes the French French (and Midwesterners Midwestern).

Scott Dominic Carpenter teaches literature and creative writing at Carleton College (MN). Winner of a Mark Twain House Royal Nonesuch Prize (2018) and a Minnesota State Arts Board grant, he’s the author of Theory of Remainders: A Novel (named to Kirkus Reviews’ “Best Books of 2013”) and of This Jealous Earth: Stories. His shorter work has appeared in a wide variety of venues, including South Dakota Review, The Rumpus, Silk Road, Catapult, and various anthologies. His website is sdcarpenter.com.

Erin Byrne is the award-winning author of Wings: Gifts of Art, Life, and Travel in France, editor of Vignettes & Postcards from Morocco and Vignettes & Postcards from Paris and writer of The Storykeeper film. She is Travel Writing and Photography Curator of The Creative Process Exhibition, and has taught writing at Shakespeare and Company in Paris, Book Passage Bookstore, and on Deep Travel trips. To learn more, visit e-byrne.com
Evenings with an Author are generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg

Evenings with an Author: François-Xavier Fauvelle [Virtual Public Event; RSVP Required]
2020-11-17 19:30 - 20:30
*Covid-19 Update: This fall, the Library’s Evening with an Author series will continue to meet virtually, via Zoom. These events, which are free and open to the public, require advance sign up. Evenings with an Author programs begin at 19h30 (Central European Time). Please check eLibris or our programs calendar for updates and line-up.
Please join us for a book talk on The Golden Rhinoceros: Histories of the African Middle Ages
Click here to sign up!
From the birth of Islam in the seventh century to the voyages of European exploration in the fifteenth, Africa was at the center of a vibrant exchange of goods and ideas. It was an African golden age in which places like Ghana, Nubia, and Zimbabwe became the crossroads of civilizations, and where African royals, thinkers, and artists played celebrated roles in the globalized world of the Middle Ages. Francois-Xavier Fauvelle brings this unsung era marvelously to life, taking readers from the Sahara and the Nile River Valley to the Ethiopian highlands and southern Africa. Drawing on fragmented written sources as well as his many years of experience as an archaeologist, Fauvelle painstakingly reconstructs an African past that is too often denied its place in history.

François-Xavier Fauvelle received his PhD from the University of Paris-I-Panthéon-Sorbonne, where he specialized in the history of Africa. Since 2002, he has been affiliated with the CNRS and the Institute for African Studies in Aix-en-Provence. He spent time as a researcher in the US, Ethiopia, and South Africa. Since returning to France in 2009, he joined a research team, TRACES, at the University of Toulouse-II-Jean-Jaurès. With his colleagues François Bon and Caroline Robion-Brunner, he created “le Pôle Afrique,” a research initiative bringing together archaologists specializing in Africa and doctoral students, some originating from Africa, pursuing doctoral research in the field. He has been a professor at the Collège de France since 2019.
To order the book at a special discounted rate, please visit https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691181264/the-golden-rhinoceros
(Use code FAU20 at checkout to receive a 30% discount on sterling and euro + p&p)

Evenings with an Author are generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg

Evenings with an Author: Eula Biss in conversation with Susan Harlan [Virtual Public Event; RSVP Required]
2020-11-10 19:30 - 20:30
*Covid-19 Update: This fall, the Library’s Evening with an Author series will continue to meet virtually, via Zoom. These events, which are free and open to the public, require advance sign up. Evenings with an Author programs begin at 19h30 (Central European Time). Please check eLibris or our programs calendar for updates and line-up.
Please click here to register.
Join us for an interview with Eula Biss about her newest book, Having and Being Had, moderated by Susan Harlan.
“My adult life can be divided into two distinct parts,” Eula Biss writes, “the time before I owned a washing machine and the time after.” Having just purchased her first home, the poet and essayist now embarks on a provocative exploration of the value system she has bought into. Through a series of engaging exchanges— in libraries and laundromats, over barstools and backyard fences— she examines our assumptions about class and property and the ways we internalize the demands of capitalism. Described by The New York Times as a writer who “advances from all sides, like a chess player,” Biss offers an uncommonly immersive and deeply revealing new portrait of work and luxury, of accumulation and consumption, of the value of time and how we spend it. Ranging from IKEA to Beyoncé to Pokemon, Biss asks, of both herself and her class, “In what have we invested?”
Eula Biss is the author of four books, most recently Having and Being Had, which Cathy Park Hong calls “a revelatory and necessary primer on how late capitalism affects our daily lives.” Biss holds an MFA in nonfiction writing from the University of Iowa and has been teaching writing at Northwestern University for fifteen years. Her book On Immunity was named one of the Ten Best Books of 2014 by the New York Times Book Review and Notes from No Man’s Land won the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism in 2009. Her work has been translated into over ten languages and has been recognized by a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, a Howard Foundation Fellowship, a Rona Jaffe Writers’ Award, a 21st Century Award from the Chicago Public Library, and a Pushcart Prize. Her essays and poems have recently appeared in the New Yorker, the Guardian, the Times Literary Supplement, The Believer, Harper’s, and the New York Times Magazine.

Susan Harlan’s essays have appeared in venues including The Guardian US, The Paris Review Daily, Guernica, Roads & Kingdoms, Literary Hub, The Common, Racked, The Brooklyn Quarterly, The Bitter Southerner, and Public Books. Her book Luggage takes readers on a journey with the suitcases that support, accessorize, and accompany our lives. She also writes satire for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Billfold, Avidly, Queen Mob’s Tea House, The Hairpin, The Belladonna, Janice, and The Establishment, and her humor book Decorating a Room of One’s Own: Conversations on Interior Design with Miss Havisham, Jane Eyre, Victor Frankenstein, Elizabeth Bennet, Ishmael, and Other Literary Notables was published by Abrams last October. She teaches English literature at Wake Forest University.

Evenings with an Author are generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg

Evenings with an Author: Oliver Gee [Virtual Public Event; RSVP Required]
2020-11-04 19:30 - 20:30
*Covid-19 Update: This fall, the Library’s Evening with an Author series will continue to meet virtually, via Zoom. These events, which are free and open to the public, require advance sign up. Evenings with an Author programs begin at 19h30 (Central European Time). Please check eLibris or our programs calendar for updates and line-up.
Join us for an evening with Oliver Gee!
Follow this link to register.
Oliver Gee is an Australian who’s been in Paris since 2015. He arrived as a journalist, but now makes a living as the host of the hugely popular Paris travel podcast “The Earful Tower”. This year, he released his laugh-out-loud memoir, Paris On Air, which he will discuss with us live on Zoom. Oliver will give an entertaining performance and host a lively Q&A in which he’ll talk about publishing a book during a lockdown, cancelling a mega US book tour and doing it virtually instead, and the perks and perils of life as a podcaster in the City of Light.

In Paris On Air, Oliver Gee tells of how five years in France taught him how to order cheese, make a Parisian person smile, and convince anyone you can fake French (even if, like Oliver, you speak the language like an Australian cow).
A fresh voice on the Paris scene, he shares the soaring highs and crushing lows that come with following your dreams to the French capital.
He also befriends the city’s too-cool-for-school basketballers, chases runaway crocodiles, and goes on a mammoth honeymoon trip around France on his little red scooter.
To order, please visit www.theearfultower.com/memoir.

Evenings with an Author are generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg

Writers Reading during the Pandemic: A Panel with Joyce Carol Oates, Edmund White, and Sheila Kohler [Virtual Public Event; RSVP Required]
2020-10-29 19:30 - 20:30
*Covid-19 Update: This fall, the Library’s Evening with an Author series and related panels will continue to meet virtually, via Zoom. These events, which are free and open to the public, require advance sign up. Evenings with an Author programs begin at 19h30 (Central European Time). Please check eLibris or our programs calendar for updates and line-up.
Writers Reading during the Pandemic
Please join us for a special panel in which we’ll discuss reading in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. We’ll be joined by acclaimed authors Joyce Carol Oates, Edmund White, and Sheila Kohler, who will speak to us about what they have been reading and how it has shaped their response to the outbreak of the virus and resulting challenges, including illness, confinement and quarantine, isolation and loneliness, anxiety about the health of our loved ones, and frustration stemming from the responses of our leaders. We hope attending this event and listening to our panelists trade insights and perspectives might give you a chance to reflect upon how your own reading habits have changed throughout the course of 2020 as well. We believe books have the power not only to captivate, entertain, and instruct, but also to heal.
Please click here to register for this event.

Photo by Geraint Lewis
Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Medal of Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Book Award, and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, and has been several times nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys, Blonde, which was nominated for the National Book Award, and the New York Times bestseller The Falls, which won the 2005 Prix Femina. Her most recent novel is A Book of American Martyrs. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978. Her most recent book, Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars, is out now.

Photo by Andrew Fladeboe
Edmund White has written thirty books, taught at Princeton and won many awards. He lives in New York City. His most recent novel, A Saint from Texas, is out now.

Photo by Beowulf Sheehan

Sheila Kohler is the author of over ten novels, three volumes of short fiction, a memoir, and many essays. Her most recent novel is Open Secrets, out now. Her memoir Once we were sisters is just out with Penguin as well as Canongate in England. She has won numerous prizes including the O.Henry twice and been included in Best American Short Stories most recently in 2013. Her work has been published in thirteen countries. She has taught at Columbia, Sarah Lawrence, Bennington and at Princeton since 2007. Her novel, Cracks was made into a film with directors Jordan and Ridley Scott with Eva Green playing Miss G. You can find her blog at Psychology Today under “Dreaming for Freud.”

Writing Workshop with Susan Tiberghien [Virtual Event, Library members only, RSVP Required]
2020-10-22 19:00 - 20:30
*Covid-19 Update: This fall, the Library’s programs will continue to meet virtually, via Zoom. Please check eLibris or our programs calendar for updates and line-up. This event is limited to Library members and requires advance reservation. Please use this form to sign up.
Interested in moving forward with a writing project in the wake of what has been an extremely turbulent year?
Library members are invited to join us for a multi-genre workshop, “Finding Our Stories for a New Tomorrow,” with author and writing instructor Susan Tiberghien. Susan will share her approach, guide us through writing prompts, and answer any questions you might have about technique and/or practice. Read her workshop description and more about work below to learn more:
Where is the story? Margaret Atwood writes, “The story is in the dark.” We will find our way into the dark, into the unconscious and bring our stories into the light. As we read excerpts from Atwood, Toni Morrison, Orhan Pamuk, and Terry Tempest Williams, we will start to craft our own stories. Our voices will bear witness in these turbulent times.
Susan M. Tiberghien, an American writer living in Geneva, holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Literature and Philosophy with graduate work at the Université de Grenoble and the C.G. Jung Institute of Zurich. She is the author of four memoirs: Looking for Gold: A Year in Jungian Analysis, Circling to the Center, Side by Side, Footsteps; two writing books: One Year to a Writing Life, Writing Toward Wholeness: Lessons Inspired by C.G. Jung; and most recently, the 20th Anniversary Edition of Circling to the Center, An Invitation to Silent Prayer.
For over 20 years Tiberghien has been teaching workshops at C.G. Jung Societies, at the International Women’s Writing Guild, and at writers’ centers and conferences, in the U.S. and Europe. Recently she recorded online master classes for the Jung Society of Washington DC: Writing to the Soul, Seeing Beauty with Words, and Through Darkness to Light. An active member of International PEN, Tiberghien founded and directed the Geneva Writers’ Group for 25 years, bringing together over 230 English language writers. She is married, with six children, fifteen grandchildren, and one great grandchild.
Website: www.susantiberghien.com

Scary Stories: Write Your Own (ages 6-12) [VIRTUAL–RSVP REQUIRED]
2020-10-17 11:00 - 12:30
For ages 6-12

Create your own haunted tale during this writing workshop – not for the faint of heart!

Children and their grown-ups are invited to join us for an interactive writing workshop direct to your living room, kitchen, bedroom, or wherever you connect. Caregivers are requested to join in with their children and participate in the program.

Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager Celeste and volunteers will read two short scary stories from the book In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Scary Stories by Alvin Schwartz, then lead you through as you write your own spooky tale – just in time for Halloween!

This event requires advance registration. Click HERE to register.

We thank you for your continued support and for being a part of the Library community! If you would like to support the Library, you can donate here to help sustain this vital institution in its 100th year of service.

Evenings with an Author: Dalia Sofer [Virtual Public Event; RSVP Required]
2020-10-14 19:30 - 20:30
*Covid-19 Update: This fall, the Library’s Evening with an Author series will continue to meet virtually, via Zoom. These events, which are free and open to the public, require advance sign up (follow this link!). Evenings with an Author programs begin at 19h30 (Central European Time). Please check eLibris or our programs calendar for updates and line-up.

Please join us for a reading and interview with author Dalia Sofer to learn more about her latest novel, Man of My Time.
Set in Tehran and New York, Man of My Time is the story of Hamid Mozaffarian, a man as alienated from himself as he is from the world. After decades of working with ambivalence for the Iranian government, Hamid travels on a diplomatic mission to New York, where he encounters his estranged family and retrieves the ashes of his father. Tucked into a mint tin in Hamid’s pocket, the ashes propel him into an excavation of a lifetime of betrayals, forcing him to confront his past. Exploring variations of loss, Man of My Time is not only about family and memory, but also about the relationship between captor and captive, country and citizen, and individual and history.

Dalia Sofer is the author of the novels Man of My Time—a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and The Septembers of Shiraz—selected as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and published in sixteen countries. A recipient of a Whiting Award and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, she has contributed essays and reviews to various publications, including The New York Times Book Review, The LA Review of Books, and The Believer. Born in Tehran, Iran, Sofer currently lives in New York City.

Evenings with an Author: Harriet Welty Rochefort in conversation with Alan Riding [Virtual Public Event; RSVP Required]
2020-10-13 19:30 - 20:30
*Covid-19 Update: This fall, the Library’s Evening with an Author series will continue to meet virtually, via Zoom. These events, which are free and open to the public, require advance sign up (follow this link!). Evenings with an Author programs begin at 19h30 (Central European Time). Please check eLibris or our programs calendar for updates and line-up.
Please join us for a conversation between Harriet Welty Rochefort and Alan Riding about Harriet’s new book, Final Transgression.

Two sisters, two different destinies. In Final Transgression, 85-year-old Caroline Aubry tells the tale of the tragic wartime destiny of her beloved younger sister, Séverine. From their humble beginnings in a hamlet in the southwest of France to a château where Séverine becomes the protegée of the beautiful countess who employs their parents, their trajectories differ. After they move to Paris, the pragmatic Caroline becomes a successful designer and the high-spirited Severine marries a rich jeweler. When WW2 breaks out and her collaborationist husband betrays her, the headstrong Séverine flees to the chateau and the countess –– in spite of warnings about the risk of traveling to an area that is a fierce battleground for rival groups of résistants, Nazis and collaborators. Severine is beautiful, intelligent but obstinate – and it is that obstinacy that will ultimately seal her fate. The end of the war in France was a time for settling scores. Séverine, an ordinary woman living in extraordinary times, unwittingly hands the hangman’s noose to her enemies in one egregious act—her final transgression.
Harriet Welty Rochefort grew up in Iowa, traveled to France after graduating from college, and never left. She is the author of three nonfiction books about the French: French Toast, French Fried and Joie de Vivre, all published by St. Martin’s Press. Final Transgression is her first work of fiction. Learn more at www.harrietweltyrochefort.com

Alan Riding is the former Paris bureau chief and European cultural correspondent for The New York Times. Still living in Paris and now devoted to writing plays, he is author of several books, most recently And The Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris.

Bilingual-ish: A Language-Exploring Comic Workshop with Kate Gavino (ages 12-18) [VIRTUAL—RSVP REQUIRED]
2020-10-02 19:00 - 21:00
For ages 12-18

Join graphic novel author and artist Kate Gavino for a virtual workshop that explores the highs and lows of being bilingual, whether you’re perfectly fluent in many languages or struggling to get by in more than one. By making our own short comics, we’ll explore different language personalities, un-translatable words, and more. Come prepared to share a little about your second (or third or fourth) tongue, but don’t worry: there’s no need to be perfectly fluent in those languages. In fact, misunderstandings and mix-ups will be encouraged in our comics!

About Kate: Kate Gavino is a writer and illustrator. She is the creator of the website, Last Night’s Reading, which was compiled into a published collection by Penguin Books in 2015. Her work has been featured in BuzzFeed, Lenny Letter, Oprah.com, Rookie, and more. She was recently named one of Brooklyn Magazine’s 30 Under 30. Her second book, Sanpaku, was published by BOOM! Studios in 2018.

This event is free and open to Library members ages 12-18 and will be hosted virtually via Zoom. Advance registration is required (sign-up HERE). Registered participants will be sent a link to join the event via email.

Send an email to Celeste, our Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager, with questions about events and collections for children and teens: celeste@americanlibraryinparis.org.

The Art of the Scary Story: Write the Haunted Paris Script (ages 14-adult) [VIRTUAL—BY RSVP]
2020-09-26 14:00 - 16:00
For ages 14-adult

Work on your craft in a fun, creative atmosphere with other writers and help us build the script for our Haunted Library!

Scripts are an art form. Just like short stories and novels, they must be crafted carefully. Join us in crafting the script for the evening portion of the Library’s Halloween event. We will have a basic outline drafted of the route tours will take through the 7th arrondissement on the evening of 31 October 2020. During this workshop, we’ll create scary vignettes for actors to perform, and a tale for our tour guides to recount during the evening. Help us create an evening of scares for visitors who attend the event on Saturday 31 October. New writers, fans of scary stories and professionals are all welcome to attend!

This event is free and open to Library members ages 12-adult and will be hosted virtually. Advance registration is required (sign-up HERE). Registered participants will be sent the info about how to join the meeting.

Send an email to Celeste, our Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager, with questions about this event, or any of our events for children and teens: celeste@americanlibraryinparis.org.

[FULL] Mindfulness Workshop with Daria Steketee [Virtual Event, Library members only, RSVP Required]
2020-09-24 19:00 - 20:00
This event has filled; thank you for your understanding.

*Covid-19 Update: This fall, the Library’s programs will continue to meet virtually, via Zoom. Please check eLibris or our programs calendar for updates and line-up.
Mindfulness Workshop for Creatives (1 hour in length)
Please join us for a relaxing and informative session in which you’ll get a preview of Mindfulness Meditation techniques, all of which can be used for writers and other creatives looking to find their flow.
This workshop presents a secular approach to Mindfulness that focuses on how it can be practical and helpful in our daily lives. Participants will take away practical and accessible ways to reduce stress, increase enjoyment of the present moment, and promote resilience. No prior experience in meditation necessary.
This workshop will include:
• an overview of the global phenomenon that mindfulness has become
• simple techniques to get you started
• a few short guided meditations
• a Q&A
Daria Steketee began meditating over 30 years ago in New York City, where she grew up. She studied meditation in the Buddhist and Yogic traditions, while pursuing studies in Comparative Religion, Theatre, and Art at Bryn Mawr College and New York University. Working as a visual artist in Paris, she continued meditation training in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition before discovering Mindfulness through a series of classes, silent retreats, and books. A graduate of Mindfulness Training Institute, she has been certified to teach meditation in a variety of formats and settings (for companies, associations, individuals, etc.).
For more, please visit Daria’s website: https://www.mindfultoday.fr.

Evenings with an Author: Clara Oropeza [Virtual Public Event; RSVP Required]
2020-09-22 19:30 - 20:30
*Covid-19 Update: This fall, the Library’s Evening with an Author series will continue to meet virtually, via Zoom. These events, which are free and open to the public, require advance sign up. Evenings with an Author programs begin at 19h30 (Central European Time). Please check eLibris or our programs calendar for updates and line-up.

Please join us for an evening with Clara Oropeza, author of Anaïs Nin: A Myth of Her Own, which traces Nin’s literary craft by following the intimacy of self-exploration and poetic expression attained in the details of the quotidian, transfigured into fiction. By digging into the mythic tropes that permeate both her literary diaries and fiction, this book demonstrates that Nin constructed a mythic method of her own, revealing the extensive possibilities of an opulent feminine psyche.
In this work, Clara demonstrates that the literary diary, for Nin, is a genre that with its traces of trickster archetype, among others, reveals a mercurial, yet particular understanding of an embodied and at times mystical experience of a writer. The cogent analysis of Nin’s fiction alongside the posthumously published unexpurgated diaries, within the backdrop of emerging psychological theories, further illuminates Nin’s contributions as an experimental and important modernist writer whose daring and poetic voice has not been fully appreciated. By extending research on diary writing and anchoring Nin’s literary style within modernist traditions, this book contributes to the redefinition of what literary modernism was comprised, who participated and how it was defined.
Dr. Clara Oropeza is a Latina writer and Professor of English Literature at Santa Barbara City College, California. Clara’s research combines comparative mythology, feminist and literary studies and cultural theory. She has contributed various essays to Sagewoman and Between. Clara earned a Ph.D. in Comparative Mythology and Literature from Pacifica Graduate Institute and an MA in English Literature from California State University, Los Angeles.

Fantasy Book Club (ages 12-adult) [VIRTUAL—RSVP REQUIRED]
2020-09-17 17:00 - 18:00
ages 12-adult

Join fantasy fans to discuss new worlds and novels with like-minded readers.

Bring along your current or most recent fantasy read to talk about with the group during our online meeting. Participants are also encouraged to prepare a cup of tea or coffee to enjoy during the meeting. Each participant will be asked to read the first line of the fantasy novel they’ve selected and share a bit about the book. High and low fantasy, contemporary or classic–it’s all perfect to bring along to discuss during these book club meetings. New members are welcome! This book club is facilitated by Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager Celeste Rhoads.

Looking for your next great fantasy read? Stop by and browse our extensive collections! These titles are available for Library members in e-book format:
The Cruel Prince by Holly Black, The Inquisitor’s Tale by Adam Gidwitz, A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula le Guin, Coraline by Neil Gaiman, The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien, and The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu.

Advance registration is required for this book group (sign-up HERE). Once registered, participants will be sent an email with instructions to join the online meeting. Participation in this book group is open to Library members, and free of charge. If you are not yet a Library member, but would like to participate, please join the Library before the first session. Send an email to Celeste Rhoads, our Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager, with questions about this event: celeste@americanlibraryinparis.org.

Evenings with an Author: Mamta Chaudhry in conversation with Russell Banks [Virtual Public Event; RSVP Required]
2020-09-16 19:30 - 20:30
*Covid-19 Update: This fall, the Library’s Evening with an Author series will continue to meet virtually, via Zoom. These events, which are free and open to the public, require advance sign up. Evenings with an Author programs begin at 19h30 (Central European Time). Please check eLibris or our programs calendar for updates and line-up.
Mamta Chaudhry’s debut novel, Haunting Paris, is set in Paris in 1989. Alone in her luminous apartment on Île Saint-Louis, Sylvie discovers a mysterious letter among her late lover’s possessions, launching her into a decades-old search for a child who vanished in the turbulence of the Second World War. She is unaware that she is watched over by Julien’s ghost, his love for her powerful enough to draw him back to this world, though doomed now to remain a silent observer. Sylvie’s quest leads her deep into the secrets of Julien’s past, shedding new light on the dark days of Nazi-occupied Paris. A timeless story of love and loss, Haunting Paris matches emotional intensity with lyrical storytelling to explore grief, family secrets, and the undeniable power of memory.
The book has been praised as “elegantly wrought” by The New York Times Book Review, “extraordinarily beautiful” by Bonjour Paris, and “a heart-wrenching love letter to Paris” by Publishers Weekly. Marilynne Robinson called “this fine first novel . . . a small parable, pondering the nature of civilization itself,” and Russell Banks described it as “powerful and moving . . . with a heartbreaking, profoundly adult love story at its center.”
Mamta Chaudhry lives with her husband in Coral Gables, Florida. They spend part of each year in India and in France. Much of her professional career was in television and classical radio at stations in Calcutta, Gainesville, Dallas, and Miami. Mamta has studied with Marilynne Robinson and has also taught literature and creative writing at the University of Miami. Her early fiction, poetry, and feature articles have been published in newspapers and magazines in the States and in India. She is currently working on a second novel.

Photo by Nancie Battaglia
For her virtual evening at the Library, Mamta will be in conversation with Russell Banks. Russell is the author of Cloudsplitter and Continental Drift, and is one of America’s most prestigious fiction writers, a past president of the International Parliament of Writers, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His work has been translated into twenty languages and has received numerous prizes and awards. He lives in upstate New York and Miami, Florida.
