Corner Bookstore

Leslie Cohen & Sean Avery launch Summer Skate
2025-09-09 15:30 - 17:30 (America/New_York)
Summer has begun on the East End of Long Island and bestselling author Jessica Riley finds herself unable to deliver on her highly anticipated second book. Her children are demanding. Her husband is preoccupied. With a deadline looming, she fakes a mental breakdown to get away . . . only to find that the house next door is filled with rowdy hockey players.
One of those players is Carter Hughes, a soon-to-be rookie on the New York Rangers, and in Carter and his friends, Jessica discovers a treasure trove of material for her next book. But she quickly finds herself in over her head, as her connection with Carter spirals out of control and his behavior becomes more erratic. Meanwhile, as Carter mixes with the power scene in the Hamptons, one false move could turn what was supposed to be a summer of training and good times into a game he can’t afford to play.
Sexy and addictive, Summer Skate is the sun on your skin in a string bikini. It’s the sound of skates cutting across the ice of a hockey rink, chasing victory. It’s an answer to the question: How bad do you want it?

Eden Collinsworth presents her latest The Improbable Victoria Woodhull
2025-09-02 18:00 - 19:30
In 1894, a remarkably self-possessed American woman, with no formal education to speak of, stood before a British court seeking damages for libel from the trustees of the British Museum. It was yet another stop along the unpredictable route that was Victoria Woodhull’s life. Born dirt-poor in an obscure Ohio settlement, Woodhull was the daughter of an illiterate mother entranced by the fad of Mesmerism—a therapeutic pseudoscience—and a swindler father whose cons exploited his two daughters. It was through her mother, though, that Woodhull familiarized herself with the supernatural realm, earning a degree of fame as a clairvoyant and her first taste of financial success. Woodhull’s life would continue to turn on its axis and then turn again. Vividly written and exhaustively researched, Collinsworth tells the story of a woman truly ahead of her time—a radical visionary who made defying mores a habit and brought to the fore societal and political issues still being addressed today. Neither a saint nor a villain, Woodhull emerges as an iconic, complex woman: an entrepreneur; lover of freedom; and a fiercely loyal family member whose political activism and suffragist legacy will cement her in history.

Alexia LaFata in conversation about her new book She Used To Be Nice
2025-08-12 18:00 - 19:30
One night in college changed the course of Avery’s entire life. Her rapist took everything from her—including the trust of her friends and long-term boyfriend, who were convinced she cheated. A year later, she still can’t bear to tell the truth about what happened and risk her friendship with Morgan, the only friend she has left.
Instead, Avery finds her way under a man or into a bottle just to convince herself that she has power over her feelings and her autonomy—that her body still belongs to her. That is, until she meets Pete, a man so kind and good that he awakens a part of Avery that makes her want to try something new.
But somehow Avery’s rapist has resurfaced in her life as the best man in Morgan’s wedding. And as maid of honor, there’s no way Avery can avoid him. His mere presence grates at Avery’s already raw emotional state, and she begins to drive away the final few who care about her—including Pete.
As the wedding nears, Avery must decide whether to finally let her walls down and tell her truth or risk spiraling toward a darkness she may never be able to recover from.
Alexia will be in conversation with Ella Dawson, author of But How Are You, Really

Sarah Stein Lubrano launches her debut Don't Talk About Politics
2025-07-22 18:00 - 19:30
This provocative debut from a bold new voice combines a fascinating range of research to show us the psychological and sociological factors that really shape our politics.
Drawing from ancient philosophy to modern neuroscience and social science, Dr. Sarah Stein Lubrano reveals the surprising truth about how people think and behave politically. From friendship to community organizing and social infrastructure, she explores the actions that actually do change minds.
In a world where politics keeps getting more irrational, dishonest, violent and chaotic, it’s getting much harder to reach people with words alone. So people who really care about democracy must ask: how can we stop arguing and do the deep work to build stronger foundations for political life, and a better world for us all?

Dr. Lubrano will be in conversation with author Calvin Kalsuke.

Calvin Kasulke is a writer, podcast producer and transsexual menace living in Brooklyn. He is repped by Kent Wolf at Neon Literary.

Amy Blumenfeld in conversation about her new book Such Good People
2025-07-08 18:00 - 19:30
It’s 10 p.m. on a Thursday in the spring of her freshman year of college, and April is standing at the back of a crowded Manhattan bar waiting for her friend, Rudy, to arrive. Their eyes lock the moment he enters the room, and in an instant, lives and legacies are altered forever.
Within hours, Rudy is arrested. Within days, April is expelled. Within weeks, he’s incarcerated. And within months, she meets Peter, a prodigious young attorney who makes her world recognizable again.
Nearly fifteen years later, April is happily living in Chicago married to Peter, a mother of three with a fulfilling career and standing yoga date with her girlfriends. On the eve of Peter’s election for local office, Rudy is up for parole. Headlines explode about April’s past, jeopardizing Peter’s campaign and everything they hold dear. Suddenly, April is faced with an impossible choice: protecting the life she created, or the person who sacrificed everything to make that life a possibility. Such Good People is a captivating portrait of blurred lines, divided loyalties, and what it means to love purely, steadfastly, and interminably.
Amy will be in conversation with author Alyson Richman.

Dr. Harry Agress, Jr. launches his book Next Years Best Years: Taking Your Retirement to the Next Level
2025-06-17 18:00 - 19:30
Following a 36-year medical career in the field of Radiology, Dr. Harry Agress Jr retired at age 68. He is an experienced teacher and nationally recognized lecturer who takes great joy in passing on what he has learned and experienced both in medicine and life.

Dr. Agress has been profiled in The Wall Street Journal and appeared on NBC’s “The Today Show,” lectured at the 92NY in New York City and been featured in Marquis Who’s Who in Medicine and Healthcare, Who’s Who in America and America’s Top Doctors.

In Next Years Best Years Dr. Agress dives into the many exploits he and others have embraced as they create a new post-career life from reassessment and self-reflection to volunteering, photography, teaching, sports, coaching, acting and much more.

Jonathan Gluck launches his latest An Exercise in Uncertainty
2025-06-11 18:00 - 19:30
At age thirty-eight, Jonathan Gluck, a new father with a promising journalism career, was shocked to learn he had multiple myeloma, a rare, incurable blood cancer. He was told he had eighteen months to live.
That was more than twenty years ago.
Gluck isn’t just something of a medical miracle. He’s also part of a growing population. Thanks to revolutionary medical advances, many cancers and other serious illnesses are no longer death sentences but chronic diseases people can often live with for years. While doctors continue to look for “magic bullet” cures, they can now extend patients’ lives by slowing the progression of their diseases one treatment at a time. The result is a strange, new no-man’s-land between being sick and being well where Gluck and millions of others reside.
In An Exercise in Uncertainty, Gluck maps this previously uncharted territory. Among the many vexing side effects of chronic illness he explores is uncertainty—never knowing from one day to the next how one’s illness might change them physically, emotionally, spiritually. When you have an incurable disease, how do you cope with knowing that even when you’re in remission, it will eventually return? How do you live with the anxiety, the fear, the near-constant awareness of your mortality? For Gluck, one surprising answer is fly-fishing. If you’re looking for peace in your own sea of uncertainty, it might be something else.
As Gluck will be the first to say, cancer has absolutely nothing good to offer, but almost dying has taught him valuable lessons about how to live.

Wally Lamb launches his latest book The River is Waiting
2025-06-10 18:00 - 19:30
Corby Ledbetter is struggling. New fatherhood, the loss of his job, and a growing secret addiction have thrown his marriage to his beloved Emily into a tailspin. And that’s before he causes the tragedy that tears the family apart. Sentenced to prison, Corby struggles to survive life on the inside, where he bears witness to frightful acts of brutality but also experiences small acts of kindness and elemental kinship with a prison librarian who sees his light and some of his fellow offenders, including a tender-hearted cellmate and a troubled teen desperate for a role model. Buoyed by them and by his mother’s enduring faith in him, Corby begins to transcend the boundaries of his confinement, sustained by his hope that mercy and reconciliation might still be possible. Can his crimes ever be forgiven by those he loves?

Sabrina Kleckner launches her new book The Complex Art of Being Maisie Clark
2025-06-09 16:00 - 18:00
All eighteen-year-old Maisie Clark wants to do is leave her tiny town in upstate New York. Crescent Valley is home to Glenna’s, the family-run portrait shop she loves more than anything. But after years of imitating her dad’s artistic style, Maisie fears she will never find her own voice. So, she comes up with a plan: quit working at Glenna’s, go to art school in London, and, most importantly, stop painting portraits. If she can’t find her voice by the end of the year, she’ll give up art entirely.
Unfortunately, pushing outside her comfort zone is (surprise!) uncomfortable. Maisie struggles to connect with her eccentric new flatmates, feels farther away from her best friend than ever, and hates every art course she signed up for—especially photography, where her talented but prickly partner, Eli, is not afraid to point out her every mistake on their semester-long project. Maisie is already questioning all her life choices when a crime strikes Glenna’s, reopening old family wounds she thought she’d long healed from. It’ll take even more discomfort, as well as help from Eli, her older brother, Calum, and his earnest boyfriend, Benji, to confront the layers she’s painted over the past. But maybe, just maybe, the keys to finding herself lie closer to home than she realized.

Jena Kingsley launches her debut Darcy Dates
2025-06-03 18:00 - 19:30
Darcy Dates is a hilarious and unfiltered dating diary based on the popular 2010 blog of the same name. Written at a time when people clung to their BlackBerrys, Instagram didn’t exist, and there was no debate over whether or not skinny jeans were cool. They just were. Seven years of marriage, one child and one divorce later, Darcy found herself back in the dating pool of New York City. Only things were different. She was a single mom living on the Upper East Side, navigating dating as an adult, where people carried more baggage than any bellhop at the Pierre could handle. One night, alone in her room, she began to document her dates in the form of a blog. The blog became her diary. This book is her diary. Darcy Dates is the perfect balance of comedic, cringey and touching. You will belly laugh, you may tear up, you may want to look away at times. Most importantly the reader will be cheering Darcy on in her quest for love. But over time she starts to wonder… maybe it’s not love she was looking for all along. Maybe she was just looking for herself. Names and locations have been changed to protect the innocent.

Christine Mott launches her debut picture book Free Bird
2025-05-15 16:00 - 18:00
Embark on an exciting journey with Flaco the owl in Free Bird: Flaco the Owl’s Dreams Take Flight! This captivating picture book, perfect for children ages 4-8, is based on a true story that will inspire and delight young readers.
Flaco, a brave and determined owl, dreams of breaking free from his cage at the zoo and soaring through the sky. One day, he seizes the opportunity to escape and finally experience the freedom he has always longed for. Follow Flaco as he navigates the bustling streets of New York City, learns to fly, and makes new friends along the way.
Through Flaco’s eyes, children will learn the importance of following their dreams and showing compassion for wild animals. This heartwarming tale is beautifully illustrated and will leave a lasting impression on readers of all ages. Join Flaco on his incredible adventure and be inspired to reach for the stars!
This book comes with a bonus educational section in the back for all the curious readers. Discover amazing facts about owls that will make early learning fun and help connect the story to the real world.
50% of author’s book royalties will be donated to the Wild Bird Fund, a 501(c)(3) non-profit that rehabilitates sick, injured and orphaned wildlife and releases them back to the wilds of New York City.

Amy Larocca launches her How to Be Well
2025-05-14 18:00 - 19:30
Peloton. Pilates. Biohacking. Colonics. Ashwagandha. Today, the wellness industry is a $3.7 trillion behemoth that touches us all. In this timely and clear-eyed book, journalist Amy Larocca peels back the layers behind the wellness movement and reckons with its promises and profits. How did we get here and how did the idea of wellness become integrated with women’s lives? And how did we end up spending so much money on products that may not work at all?
Amy Larocca takes readers into the communities that swear by their activated charcoal toothpaste and green juice enemas, explaining what each of these practices really is—and what the science says. Larocca holds a magnifying glass to alternative medicine and nouveau lifestyle prescriptions — and tries a lot herself along the way — ultimately delivering an assessment of how the wellness industry embodies our (gendered, class-based, racialized) perceptions of care and self-improvement, and how it preys on our unshakable fear of the unknown. She traces the history of how the beauty and fashion industries have peddled snake oil to women for decades—and why we keep coming back for more.

Jill Bialosky in conversation about her new book The End is the Beginning
2025-05-13 18:00 - 19:30
When Iris Yvonne Bialosky died in an assisted care facility on March 29, 2020, it unleashed a torrent of emotions in her daughter, Jill Bialosky. Grief, of course, but also guilt, confusion, and doubt, all of which were compounded by the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic which made it impossible for Jill to be with her mother as she was dying and to attend her mother’s funeral.
Now, with a poet’s eye for detail and a novelist’s flair for storytelling, Jill presents a profoundly moving elegy unlike any other. Starting with her mother’s end and the physical/cognitive decline that led her to a care home, The End Is the Beginning explores Iris’s battle with depression, the tragedy of a daughter’s suicide, a failed second marriage, the death of her beloved first husband only five years into their young marriage, her joyful teenage years, and the trauma of losing her own mother at just eight years old. Compounding her challenges of raising four daughters without a livelihood or partner, Iris’s life coincided with an age of unstoppable social change and reinvention, when the roles of wife and mother she was raised to inhabit ceased to be the guarantors of stability and happiness.

Jill Bialosky will be in conversation with Roxana Robinson, author–most recently– of Leaving

Lisa Greenwald signs copies of her new book The Summer of the Fortune Tellers
2025-05-08 16:30 - 18:30
Is the magic really back?
When Mille, Nora, and Bea found fortune tellers popping up in unexpected places—with eerily accurate fortunes—they reunited as best friends. Now that they’re back to being besties, they’re excited to spend the summer together outside the city. Recruited into babysitting eight-year-old triplets and staying with Millie’s family, the girls are hoping this will be their own private summer camp, one where they’re in charge, away from annoying siblings and toxic frenemies.
But nothing perfect can last. When everything from homesickness and boy craziness to real estate developers threaten their summer, Millie, Nora, and Bea start stumbling upon fortune tellers in the strangest places. And once again it feels like these fortune tellers are speaking to them: Sometimes in life you just have to jump in. Speak your mind and stand up for what you believe in! You are here for a reason. If they speak up, can Millie, Nora, and Bea really save the summer—and the community—before it’s too late?

Susan Shapiro Barash in conversation about her new book Estranged
2025-05-06 18:00 - 19:30
When life gets hard, we turn to our female friends. Husbands, partners, and jobs come and go, but close friendships are our bedrock. Until they’re not.
What happens when these bonds sabotage instead of support? Who among us has the courage to walk away? And how can we protect ourselves from further heartbreak?
In her provocative new book, Estranged: How Strained Female Friendships are Mended or Ended (Meridian Editions; April 1, 2025), Susan Shapiro Barash takes a deep dive into the complexities of female friendships. By peeling back the societal narrative that our friendships are meant to last forever, she uncovers a more nuanced reality: the closest bonds do falter. Through groundbreaking research and 150 interviews with women ranging in age from 20-80, Barash reveals an emerging trend — estrangement among female friends.
Estranged is an eye-opening investigation/practical guide for women navigating murky waters of suboptimal friendships. The book sheds light on unspoken pain of estrangement—both for the “estranger” who walks away and the “estrangee” who is left behind. Amid candid confessions of betrayal and grief, Barash challenges women to reimagine their friendships and take the bold step of letting go when necessary.
Susan will be in conversation with Meryl Moss, President of Meryl Moss Media Group and Founder of BookTrib.com

Colum McCann reads from his new novel Twist
2025-04-29 18:00 - 19:30
Anthony Fennell, an Irish journalist and playwright, is assigned to cover the underwater cables that carry the world’s information. The sum of human existence—words, images, transactions, memes, voices, viruses—travels through the tiny fiber-optic tubes. But sometimes the tubes break, at an unfathomable depth.
Fennell’s journey brings him to the west coast of Africa, where he uncovers a story about the raw human labor behind the dazzling veneer of the technological world. He meets a fellow Irishman, John Conway, the chief of mission on a cable repair ship. The mysterious Conway is a skilled engineer and a freediver capable of reaching extraordinary depths. He is also in love with a South African actress, Zanele, who must leave to go on her own literary adventure to London.
When the ship is sent up the coast to repair a series of major underwater breaks, both men learn that the very cables they seek to fix carry the news that may cause their lives to unravel. At sea, they are forced to confront the most elemental questions of life, love, absence, belonging, and the perils of our severed connections. Can we, in our fractured world, reweave ourselves out of the thin, broken threads of our pasts? Can the ruptured things awaken us from our despair?

Amanda Eisenberg launches her debut People Are Talking
2025-04-22 18:00 - 19:30
Mallory Shepard has her back against the wall. Her girlfriend dumped her, her landlord wants to evict her and her literary agent is about to drop her—unless she can come up with a compelling follow-up to her debut novel. A book deal would solve her problems, which is why she agrees to attend an estranged college friend’s wedding in Texas. It’ll be the first time she’s seen that friend group since an incident tore them apart nine years earlier, and Mal intends to secretly squeeze her ex-friends for information. The plan is nearly foolproof, except that her still-raw hurt and righteous anger threatens to expose her agenda, as does her weakness for her college nemesis: Andrew Rosen.
Danit Leibowitz is—was Mal’s best friend. Together they transformed the Newts, a secret society, into a group that tracks alleged rapists long after they graduated from the prestigious halls of Weston College. Now a rising lefty political star, Dani is asked to come up with another plan to reinvent the Newts, which Gen Z deems out of touch amid ever-changing gender and sex politics. When she learns Mal will be there, Dani hatches a plan to appease the Newts and win back her friend, all in 72 hours.
Crammed into an Austin rental for the weekend, the six friends seek to settle old scores and win back ex-friends and lovers. But when the Newts infiltrate the wedding, with deadly consequences, Mal and Dani are forced to consider whether they’re willing to separate the personal from the political—even at the expense of protecting the people they love.

Jillian Berman presents her debut Sunk Cost: Who's to Blame for the Nation's Broken Student Loan System and How to Fix It
2025-04-15 18:00 - 19:30
Student-loan horror stories are a dime a dozen. But students today are faced with a seemingly insurmountable paradox: Research consistently shows that the clearest viable option to financial stability is a college degree. But if and when Americans decide to pursue diplomas, student loan payments quickly follow, and even after securing full-time employment, many borrowers struggle to make ends meet for years. In Sunk Cost, journalist Jillian Berman explores how the nation’s student loan program went from a well-intentioned initiative aimed at helping low- and middle-income students afford college to one that traps borrowers in long-term debt.

Kate Swenson, Adrian Wood and Carrie Cariello celebrate the publication of Autism Out Loud
2025-04-01 18:00 - 19:30
Kate Swenson, Adrian Wood and Carrie Cariello are from different parts of the country and backgrounds, but they were brought together by a singular experience: they are each a mother to a child with autism. Together they have shared laughter, tears, victories and the unconditional love that molds their lives.
Kate, Adrian and Carrie have children with very different autism profiles, and in Autism Out Loud they write about their unique experiences on a variety of topics, from diagnosis to caregiving, schooling and aging. Through their varied stories and lessons they’ve learned, these incredible women provide a glimpse of what to expect on the autism journey and show parents that they are not alone.

Angela Denker in conversation about her new book Disciples of White Jesus
2025-03-27 18:00 - 19:30
Disciples of White Jesus is a comprehensive look at the rise in radicalization among young white men in America, especially focused on the role of right-wing Christianity in the increase of religious-based hatred and violence. Denker goes deep into the online rabbit holes of right-wing Christian influencers and conservative Christian ideology to understand how the preaching of “traditional gender roles” and “submission of women” has led to anger, outrage, loneliness, depression, and limiting identities for young white Christian men across America.
Casting her journalist’s eye across the US, Denker retraces the steps of a racist South Carolina mass shooter and a Phoenix skinhead turned Evangelical pastor, interviews middle school teachers and coaches in the Midwest, and introduces us to young men across the country who will both confirm and confound our ideas about American boyhood–stories about boys and men who are forging new identities grounded in kindness, grace, respect, and even joy. A must-read for parents, grandparents, educators, coaches, faith leaders, researchers, and all who care about the state of American families, boys themselves, and the safety of American society at large.

Angela Denker will be in conversation with Anne Nelson.

Joshua Hammer discusses his latest The Mesopotamian Riddle
2025-03-20 18:00 - 19:30
It was one of history’s great vanishing acts.
Around 3,400 BCE—as humans were gathering in complex urban settlements—a scribe in the mud-walled city-state of Uruk picked up a reed stylus to press tiny symbols into clay. For three millennia, wedge shape cuneiform script would record the military conquests, scientific discoveries, and epic literature of the great Mesopotamian kingdoms of Sumer, Assyria, and Babylon and of Persia’s mighty Achaemenid Empire, along with precious minutiae about everyday life in the cradle of civilization. And then…the meaning of the characters was lost.
London, 1857. In an era obsessed with human progress, mysterious palaces emerging from the desert sands had captured the Victorian public’s imagination. Yet Europe’s best philologists struggled to decipher the bizarre inscriptions excavators were digging up.
Enter a swashbuckling archaeologist, a suave British military officer turned diplomat, and a cloistered Irish rector, all vying for glory in a race to decipher this script that would enable them to peek farther back into human history than ever before.
From the ruins of Persepolis to lawless outposts of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, The Mesopotamian Riddle whisks you on a wild adventure through the golden age of archaeology in an epic quest to understand our past.

Claudia Lebenthal launches her new book Surfer Stories: 12 Untold Stories By 12 Writers About 12 of the World's Greatest Surfers
2025-03-18 18:00 - 19:30
From the monstrous walls of water at Teahupoo, to the reef-scraping barrels of Pipeline, to the endless peeling break of Jeffreys Bay, legendary surfers have made their mark on surf history, distinguished by the fearlessness, grace, and artistry displayed while riding the most exalted waves.
Each surfer’s story is told by a different writer—fellow surfers, famed authors, celebrities, musicians, and surf journalists—who shares a passion for surfing. Surfer Stories offers an insightful perspective on the life of each surfer, both in and out of the water, as could only be told by the writer with whom they are paired:
Shaun Tomson on Kelly Slater
Sam George on Laird Hamilton
Holly Peterson on Robert “Wingnut” Weaver
Gerry Lopez on Garrett McNamara
Chris Carter on Shaun Tomson
Liza Monroy on Keala Kennelly
Chris Shiflett on Tom Curren
Jamie Brisick on Derek Hynd
Brett Crozier on Bethany Hamilton
Jim Kempton on Gerry Lopez
Karen Rinaldi on Rell Sunn
Selema Masekela on Michael February
The sport of surfing has a mystique and allure that has transformed many of these icons into mythical figures. Surfer Stories brings them together in one definitive collection that will appeal to those who surf and those who don’t!

Dr.'s Robert Jaffe, Alexander Kolevzon, & Pillar Trelles launch their debut A Parent's Guide to Psychiatric Medication for Kids
2025-03-06 18:00 - 19:30
For parents and caregivers, considering psychiatric medications for your child can be scary and overwhelming as they weigh the risks and benefits. A Parent’s Guide to Starting Psychiatric Medications for Kids boils down the process of evaluating children and deciding whether to use medication, and then explores different classes of medications in detail, from the side effects to ongoing monitoring. Three child psychiatrists from New York’s Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Alexander Kolevzon, MD; Robert Jaffe, MD; and Pilar Trelles, MD, combine their years of research and experience to deliver a straightforward, accessible Q&A guidebook for parents and caregivers.
Whether you are considering medications for ADHD, anxiety, depression, or autism, this guide empowers you to ask your provider all the tough questions to ensure you are comfortable and confident in your journey of exploring psychiatric medications for your child.

Lauren Willig launches her latest novel The Girl from Greenwich Street
2025-03-04 18:00 - 19:30
At the start of a new century, a shocking murder transfixes Manhattan, forcing bitter rivals Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr to work together to save a man from the gallows.
Just before Christmas 1799, Elma Sands slips out of her Quaker cousin’s boarding house—and doesn’t come home. Has she eloped? Run away? No one knows—until her body appears in the Manhattan Well.
Her family insists they know who killed her. Handbills circulate around the city accusing a carpenter named Levi Weeks of seducing and murdering Elma.
But privately, quietly, Levi’s wealthy brother calls in a special favor….
Aaron Burr’s legal practice can’t finance both his expensive tastes and his ambition to win the 1800 New York elections. To defend Levi Weeks is a double win: a hefty fee plus a chance to grab headlines.
Alexander Hamilton has his own political aspirations; he isn’t going to let Burr monopolize the public’s attention. If Burr is defending Levi Weeks, then Hamilton will too. As the trial and the election draw near, Burr and Hamilton race against time to save a man’s life—and destroy each other.
Part murder mystery, part thriller, part true crime, The Girl From Greenwich Street revisits a dark corner of history—with a surprising twist ending that reveals the true story of the woman at the center of the tale.

Emma Otheguy launches her latest book Cousins in the Time of Magic
2025-02-25 18:00 - 19:30
History is alive with magic. That’s what zany Tía Xia is always telling cousins Jorge, Camila, and Siggy. Daredevil Jorge couldn’t be more different than his cousins: Camila is a dreamer who adores animals and Siggy is an aspiring influencer who has an exclusive party to attend. And their aunt has many secrets, including a mysterious diamond-encrusted sword that Jorge definitely wasn’t supposed to see.
But when the three stumble upon a time portal in their aunt’s yard, they are transported back to 1862, a past filled with wonders—and dangers. To return to the present, they must race to deliver the sword to General Ignacio Zaragoza in time for the historic Battle of Puebla in Mexico: the foundation of the holiday Cinco de Mayo.
As their journey to Mexico takes them through the Civil War–era United States, the cousins see just how much US history has been shaped by Latin communities. They must find the power within themselves to make sure things happen as they’re supposed to, without altering the past.

Laura Robson launches her debut A Curse for the Homesick
2025-02-20 18:00 - 19:30
On Stenland, there comes a time known as skeld season: one day, any woman on the island can wake with three black lines on her forehead, the mark of a skeld. Skeld season comes around without warning, and while each window of time lasts only three months, anyone a skeld turns to stone is very much dead.
That’s how Tess’s mother killed Soren’s parents. Maybe for this reason alone, Tess and Soren should not have fallen in love. Since the time her mother was a skeld, Tess has wanted to leave Stenland, to run from the windswept island, from her family and friends. She is unwilling to bear the responsibility of one day killing anyone, let alone someone she loves. Soren has been determined to stay, to live out his life in the place he knows as home, even if that life could be cut short during the latest skeld season. They cannot see eye to eye—and yet they cannot stay apart. She tries to come back for him. He tries to leave for her. But can your love for one person outweigh everything else combined? And how do you decide how much you’re willing to risk, if it might mean destroying someone else in the process?

Diane Kiesel launches her latest book When Charlie Met Joan
2025-02-18 18:00 - 19:30
Charlie Chaplin, the silent screen’s “Little Tramp,” was beloved by millions of movie fans until he starred in a series of salacious, real-life federal courtroom dramas. The 1944 trial was described by ace New York Daily News reporter Florabel Muir as “the best show in town.” The leading lady was a woman under contract to his studio—red-haired ingénue Joan Barry, Chaplin’s protégée and former mistress. Although he beat the federal criminal trial, Chaplin lost a paternity case and had to pay child support despite blood type evidence that proved he was not the child’s father.
A decade later during the Cold War, the U.S. government used the Barry trials as an excuse to bar the left-leaning, sexually adventurous, British-born comic from the country he had called home for forty years. Not only did these trials have a lasting impact on law; they also raise concerns about the power of celebrity, Cold War politics, the media frenzy surrounding high-profile court proceedings, and the sorry history of the casting couch. When Charlie Met Joan examines these trials from the perspective of both parties, asking whether Chaplin was unfairly persecuted by the government because of his left-leaning political beliefs, or if he should have been held more accountable for his cavalier treatment of Barry and other women in his life.
Diane Kiesel is a retired judge of the New York Supreme Court. Her other books include She Can Bring Us Home: Dr. Dorothy Boulding Ferebee, Civil Rights Pioneer, and Domestic Violence: Law, Policy, and Practice.

Todd Almond launches his debut Slow Train Coming
2025-01-28 18:00 - 19:30
Bob Dylan and Conor McPherson’s musical Girl from the North Country weaves two dozen songs from the legendary catalog of Bob Dylan into a story of Duluth during the Great Depression, to create a future American classic. Despite historic, seemingly insurmountable setbacks of four openings, the musical was hailed as an experience “as close as mortals come to heaven on earth,” by The New York Times.Opening on Broadway in the middle of an unprecedented moment, Slow Train Coming is a book about pressing on in the face of extreme adversity. Todd Almond’s behind-the-scenes oral history weaves his personal first-hand account of starring in the show with exclusive interviews and reflections from fellow cast members and the creative team.Told through personal stories, anecdotes from the cast, production shots, behind-the-scenes photos, and insights from the creators, this book is both an inside look at a perilous moment of one of America’s proudest institutions, Broadway, and a true story of American grit and determination lived by the company of this quirky musical-that-could.

Cynthia Weiner discusses her new book A Gorgeous Excitement with editor Amy Einhorn
2025-01-23 18:00 - 19:30
There are two things Nina Jacobs is determined to do over the summer of 1986: avoid her mother’s depression-fueled rages, and lose her virginity before she starts college in the fall. Both are seemingly impossible—when her mother isn’t lying in bed for days, she’s lashing out at Nina over any perceived slight. And after a blowjob gone spectacularly wrong, Nina is the talk of Flanagan’s, the Upper East Side bar where young Manhattan society congregates. It doesn’t help that she’s Jewish, an outsider among the blue-eyed blondes who populate this rarified world. She can fit in, kind of, with enough alcohol and prescription drugs stolen from her parents’ medicine cabinet.
Flanagan’s is where she pines for the handsome, preppy, and charismatic Gardner Reed. Every girl wants to sleep with him and every guy wants to be him. After she’s introduced to cocaine, Nina plunges headlong into her pursuit of Gardner, oblivious to the warning signs. When a new medication seemingly frees her mother from darkness, and Nina and Gardner grow closer, it seems like Nina might finally get what she wants. But at what cost?
Amy Einhorn is SVP, Publisher of Fiction at Crown Publishing Group

Henry Alford launches his new book I Dream of Joni
2025-01-21 18:00 - 19:30
Joni Mitchell’s life, psyche, and evolving legacy are explored here in vivid technicolor—from her childhood in Saskatoon, Canada, to her arrival in Laurel Canyon that turned her into, as Alford puts it, “the bard of heartbreak and longing.” Each period of Mitchell’s life is observed via the artists, friends, family, and lovers she encountered along the way, including James Taylor, Leonard Cohen, Georgia O’Keefe, Prince, and, most significantly, Kilauren, the daughter Mitchell gave up for adoption at birth but then reconnected with decades later.
Presented in the impressionistic vein of Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret, I Dream of Joni explores in fifty-three essays, with the author’s trademark wit and verve, the life of the legendary singer-songwriter.
