Upcoming Author Events & Readings

Newton Free Library

Curtain Times

Newton Free Library · Newton · newtonfreelibrary.net

8 upcoming author events and readings from Newton Free Library, with dates, venues and ticket links taken from the organization’s own pages and refreshed weekly. All readings in Greater Boston →

Production art for Author Talk: Elizabeth Lund — Un-silenced

Wed Oct 7 · 12:30pm

Author Talk: Elizabeth Lund — Un-silenced

· · 345 Walnut Street · ·

Elizabeth Lund reads from Un-silenced (Červená Barva Press, 2023), her debut poetry collection, which honours a beloved aunt and other women who suffered domestic abuse. Lund was for many years poetry editor of the Christian Science Monitor and later wrote a monthly poetry review column for the Washington Post. The monthly local-author series, run with Newton's Department of Older Adult Services, closes with questions from a moderator and the audience.

Details
Production art for Assessing AI: A Discussion of Its Individual and Societal Impact
New

Tue Oct 13 · 7pm

Assessing AI: A Discussion of Its Individual and Societal Impact

· · ·

Rob Greenfield, a history and social science teacher and digital literacy coordinator at Newton North High School, leads a seminar on AI’s effects on individuals and society, the tradeoffs between its benefits and costs, and frameworks for judging it as it grows more powerful. A doctoral student at Northeastern researching AI education, he wrote a 23-part digital media curriculum for the Hulu series Social Studies in 2024.

Details
Production art for Pianist Fredrik Wanger in Concert
New

Sun Oct 25 · 2pm

Pianist Fredrik Wanger in Concert

· · ·

Fredrik Wanger plays a programme built around five linked lives: Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms, and the two women whose artistry shaped them, Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann. Wanger taught piano for many years at the Boston University School for the Arts and has performed at Carnegie Hall, Town Hall and Jordan Hall, with tours of Europe, Canada and Israel.

Details
Production art for Author Talk: Jean Duffy

Wed Nov 4 · 12:30pm

Author Talk: Jean Duffy

· · 345 Walnut Street · ·

Jean Duffy reads from and discusses Soccer Grannies: The South African Women Who Inspire the World, her book about South Africa's teams of soccer-playing grandmothers. The session is part of the library's monthly Author Talk series, in which local writers give the background to a book, read excerpts and take questions from a moderator and the audience. It runs in partnership with Newton's Department of Older Adult Services.

Details
Big-screen Stories with Ty Burr and Janice Page
New

Tue Nov 10 · 7pm

Big-screen Stories with Ty Burr and Janice Page

· · ·

Former Boston Globe and Washington Post film critics Ty Burr and Janice Page talk through the Oscar frontrunners and recent festival hits and misses, and Page discusses her memoir Year of the Water Horse, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice she worked on as the 2023 Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger resident at Yaddo. Burr, a 2017 Pulitzer finalist for criticism, is the author of Gods Like Us.

Details
Production art for Concert with Violinist Ilana Zaks
New

Sun Nov 29 · 2pm

Concert with Violinist Ilana Zaks

· · ·

Ilana Zaks plays a solo programme drawn from folk and dance traditions: Bach’s Partita No. 3 in E major, Zhou Long’s settings of eight Chinese folk songs, Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate’s Oshta (Four) and movements from Wynton Marsalis’s Fiddle Dance Suite. Zaks, a graduate of New England Conservatory and the Yale School of Music who studied with Itzhak Perlman, teaches at Boston University Tanglewood Institute and Rollins College.

Details
Production art for Author Talk: Rosie Sultan

Wed Dec 2 · 12:30pm

Author Talk: Rosie Sultan

· · 345 Walnut Street · ·

Rosie Sultan reads from and discusses All the Small Surrenders in the library’s monthly Author Talk, in which local writers give the background to a book, read excerpts and take questions from a moderator and the audience. Sultan won a PEN Discovery Award for fiction, wrote the novel Helen Keller in Love, and has taught writing at Boston University. The series runs with Newton’s Department of Older Adult Services.

Details
Production art for A Musical Journey with the Willow Flute Ensemble
New

Sun Dec 6 · 2pm

A Musical Journey with the Willow Flute Ensemble

· · ·

The Willow Flute Ensemble plays the full flute family, from piccolo to bass flute, in a programme of classical favourites, familiar tunes, dances, music from around the world and seasonal selections. The Massachusetts flute choir, whose four sizes of flute blend into a single sound, plays European and American classical repertoire old and new, and has appeared at Boston Conservatory and the Arlington and Brookline Porchfests.

Details