All BPL Presents programs at the Dr. S. Stevan Dweck Cultural Center at Central Library are free of charge (unless otherwise noted) and reservations are required for most adult programs. Patrons with reservations will be seated on a first-come, first-served basis. Unclaimed reservations will be released fifteen minutes before the start of an event; we recommend arriving early. Patrons without reservations will be seated as capacity allows.
Reservations can be made 24 hrs. a day, 7 days a week on our website by visiting the program’s calendar entry at bklynlibrary.org/bplpresents or by phone at 718.230.2200 (please see our phone reservation policy for hours and additional details). Reservations can be made up to approximately one hour before the scheduled program start time. The maximum number of seats that can be reserved per event is 3.
The Dweck Center is an accessible venue. To request additional information regarding accessibility or accommodations at the event, please contact BPLPresents@bklynlibrary.org.
Reservations for adult programs can be made with a BPL representative Monday-Friday from 9:00 am – 4:00 pm. For weekend events, reservations must be made by 4 pm on the Friday before the event takes place. Any reservations received after 4pm will not be processed. If leaving a message, please slowly and clearly state your first and last name, your phone number, the name and date of the program you would like to attend, and the number of seats you are requesting (maximum of 3).
Sips & Scholars: Ruth Averbach on "Too Many Wives: Polygamist Nightmares in Gogol’s Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka and His Aunt"
Sips & Scholars is a free lecture series in partnership with the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research set in bars and restaurants all over Brooklyn. This session, entitled: "Too Many Wives: Polygamist Nightmares in Gogol’s Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka and His Aunt" will be led by Professor…
Sandy Hudson Discusses Defund: Black Lives, Policing, and Safety for All with Brian Jones
BPL Presents welcomes Sandy Hudson, author, activist and co-founder of Black Lives Matter Canada to discuss her new book Defund: Black Lives, Policing, and Safety for All. Hudson will be in conversation with Brian Jones, director of the Center for Educators and Schools at The New York Public…
Myth Lab Evenings at L10
We need new and renewed stories as a culture. In this workshop series, curated by The Myth Lab, guest artists and leaders will share their practice of imagination and some of the new myths and visions they're creating in their work. They'll then guide participants to cross-pollinate and dream…
Tribute to Nikki Giovanni with Edwidge Danticat, Mahogany L. Browne & Renée Watson
BPL Presents welcomes Edwidge Danticat, Mahogany L. Browne & Renée Watson, who lead this tribute to a true American original: the poet Nikki Giovanni. Nikki Giovanni’s extraordinary final collection—The New Book—is a landmark of American literature which speaks to the fury and upheaval of our…
Miriam Toews Discusses A Truce That is Not Peace, with Rumaan Alam
BPL Presents welcomes internationally bestselling author Miriam Toews, whose memoir of the will to write is a work of disobedient memory, humor, and exquisite craft set against a content-hungry, prose-stuffed society.
“Why do you write?” the organizer of a literary event in Mexico City…
CBH Talk | Howard W. French and Annette Gordon-Reed Discuss “The Second Emancipation”
Join us for a conversation between journalist and historian Howard W. French and Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar Annette Gordon-Reed about The Second Emancipation: The Rise of Global Black Power and the Retreat of Colonialism. In this sweeping narrative, French interweaves the struggles of…
Peter Guralnick and Elvis Costello Discuss The Colonel and The King
BPL Presents welcomes celebrated music historian Peter Guralnick, returning with his new biography The Colonel and the King: Tom Parker, Elvis Presley, and the Partnership that Rocked the World. He’ll be joined in-conversation by Elvis Costello—a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and…
Art Spiegelman Discusses MetaMaus with Dan Nadel
BPL Presents is delighted to welcome Pulitzer-Prize winner Art Spiegelman to discuss the MetaMaus paperback with Dan Nadel.
In the pages of MetaMaus, Spiegelman re-enters Maus, the the Pulitzer Prize–winning modern classic that has altered how we see literature, comics, and the…
CBH Talk | The Erasure of Black History: Battling For America’s Narrative
This program is offered in partnership with The Dayton Literary Peace Prize.
Black history is under siege. Recent political efforts to erase America’s deep-seated legacy of racial injustice have gained ground at an alarming rate. Many narratives of Black…
Just Conversations | This Moment in Immigration: What’s at Stake and What Can Be Done
About Just ConversationsJust Conversations is a series co-presented by the Center for Brooklyn History and Brooklyn Org that brings into dialogue issues facing our borough, city, and society and gives voice to the change makers who move us towards a more equitable future.This program is co-…
Tour of Tove Jansson & The Moomins
Join us for a guided tour of our newest exhibition, Tove Jansson and the Moomins: The Door Is Always Open, that explores the queer Finnish author’s impact on children’s literature and social-emotional learning through her beloved Moomin characters, bold political cartoons and reflective adult…
Brooklyn Book Festival 2025: Broadway Books TV Pilot Screening
AN OFFICIAL 2025 BROOKLYN BOOK FESTIVAL BOOKEND EVENTBROADWAY BOOKS NEW YORK PREMIERE: join us for a screening of the pilot episode of Broadway Books, a sitcom set in New York City, about an independent bookstore struggling to survive using increasingly desperate measures.
…
The Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize Shortlist Reading & Panel
Join us for our annual BPL Book Prize Shortlist Reading & Panel, featuring the shortlisted authors for 2025 BPL Book Prize.
Each fall, BPL honors outstanding works of nonfiction and fiction/poetry. Selected by librarians and staff, who draw on their broad knowledge of literature and…
The Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize Winners Reading & Panel
Join us for our annual BPL Book Prize Winners Reading & Panel, featuring the 2025 BPL Book Prize winners in conversation at the Brooklyn Book Festival.
Each fall, BPL honors outstanding works of nonfiction and fiction/poetry. Selected by librarians and staff, who draw on their broad…
Ken Follett Discusses Circle of Days with David Grann
BPL Presents welcomes the bestselling author of epic fiction, Ken Follett, who brings us the deeply human story of one of the world’s greatest mysteries: the building of Stonehenge. Follett will be in conversation with David Grann.
Seft, a talented flint miner, walks the Great Plain in the…
CBH Talk | Two Dragons in Hollywood: Bruce Lee, Anna May Wong, and the Past and Future of Asian American Representation
This program is offered in partnership with the Asian American Arts Alliance and the Sunset Park Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library.
Join acclaimed biographers Jeff Chang (Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America) and Katie Gee Salisbury…
CBH Talk | The Birth of Identity: Race, Racism, and Personhood in New York City Health Records
This program is offered in partnership with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, part of its 220th anniversary celebration.
Founded in 1805 during a yellow fever epidemic, the New York City Health Department began recording births and deaths in 1847—a…
Colloquy: Emily Wilson & Luke Soucy on Translating the Epic
BPL Presents welcomes World Poetry Books for the latest installment of Colloquy: Translators in Conversation, featuring a discussion on "Translating the Epic," with readings and discussion from Emily Wilson and Luke Soucy, moderated by Colloquy curator C. Francis Fisher.Wilson will…
CBH Talk | Susana M. Morris and Ibi Zoboi Discuss “Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler”
Susana M. Morris’s new book, Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler, is a magnificent cultural biography that charts the life of one of our greatest writers, situating her alongside the key historical and social moments that shaped her work.
As the first Black woman to…
CBH Talk | Eric Foner and Andrew Delbanco Discuss “Our Fragile Freedoms”
Join two of our nation’s most distinguished historians for a searching conversation about freedom, democracy, and the lessons of the past. Eric Foner’s newest collection of essays, Our Fragile Freedoms, serves as the springboard for an intimate exchange with Andrew Delbanco. Together, these two…
Cory Doctorow Discusses Ensh*ttification with Lina M. Khan
BPL Presents welcomes Cory Doctorow, to discuss Ensh*ttification, which argues that “it’s not just you—the internet sucks now. Here’s why, and here’s how we can fix—or disensh*ttify—it.” Doctorow will be in conversation with Lina M. Khan.When Cory Doctorow coined the term ensh*ttification, he…
CBH Hosts the 2025 Liberación Film Festival: Two Days of Films, Music, and Conversation | Day 1
The Center for Brooklyn History is excited to partner with the Afrolatino Festival of New York and the Afrolatin@ Project for the return of the Liberación Film Festival. This year’s focus is on Panamá and the United States, highlighting stories of resilience, activism, and cultural pride.
…
Brian Jones Discusses Black History Is for Everyone
BPL Presents welcomes Brian Jones, a longtime educator whose Black History Is For Everyone explores how the study of Black history challenges our understanding of race, nation, and the stories we tell about who we are.
Black history is under attack from powerful forces that seek to excise…
CBH Talk | Jelani Cobb and Salamishah Tillet Discuss “Three or More Is a Riot”
Acclaimed historian, Pulitzer Prize finalist, staff writer at The New Yorker, and dean of Columbia Journalism School Jelani Cobb’s latest book is a searing portrait of America’s last turbulent decade. In Three or More Is a Riot: Notes on How We Got Here, 2012–2025, Cobb chronicles the rise of…
Lance Richardson Discusses True Nature: The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen with Benjamin Moser
BPL Presents welcomes Lance Richardson and this first biography of Peter Matthiessen, the novelist, naturalist, and Zen roshi, whose trailblazing work championed Native American rights and helped usher in the modern environmental movement.
Peter Matthiessen (1927-2014), a towering figure…
Krisztina Tóth Discusses Eye of the Monkey
Eye of the Monkey begins in the wake of a devastating civil war that led to the formation of the United Regency, an autocracy in an unnamed European country. The ravages of war are sweeping, and the populace has been divided into segregated zones, where the well-off are under mass surveillance…
CBH Talk | Tourmaline and Hugh Ryan Discuss “Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson”
Join Black transgender luminary Tourmaline for a conversation about her definitive biography of the revolutionary activist Marsha P. Johnson. Moderated by Hugh Ryan.
Rumor has it that after Marsha P. Johnson threw the first brick in the 1969 Stonewall Uprising, she picked up a shard of…
Molly Jong-Fast Discusses How to Lose Your Mother
BPL Presents welcomes Molly Jong-Fast, the political writer and podcaster, to discuss How to Lose Your Mother, a ferociously honest and disarmingly funny memoir about her elusive mother’s encroaching dementia and a reckoning with her complicated childhood.
Molly Jong-Fast is the only child…
Vivian Gornick, Robin D.G. Kelley & David Waldstreicher on Boston Review at 50
Join BPL Presents as we celebrate the legendary Boston Review, as it turns fifty this year—with appearances by Vivian Gornick, Robin D.G. Kelley, David Waldstreicher, and others, who ask what is the responsibility of intellectuals now.
To commemorate this milestone, the review will publish…
George Packer Discusses The Emergency with Jennifer Senior
BPL Presents welcomes George Packer, whose gripping fable of imperial collapse—The Emergency—illuminates the crises of our times.
George Packer’s bestselling nonfiction work exploring American life has won many prizes, including the National Book Award. With The Emergency, he turns to…
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