Author Visits & Talks

As part of the Library Speakers Consortium, you are invited to a FREE intimate conversation with Nina Totenberg as she talks about her nearly fifty-year friendship with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her book, Dinners With Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships. Dinners with Ruth is an extraordinary account of two women who paved the way for future generations by tearing down professional and legal barriers. It is also an intimate memoir of the power of friendships as women began to pry open career doors and transform the workplace. Ruth and Nina saw each other not only through personal joys but also illness, loss, and widowhood. They shared not only a love of opera, but also of shopping, as they instinctively understood that clothes were armor for women who wanted to be taken seriously in a workplace dominated by men. During Ruth’s last year, they shared so many small dinners that Saturdays were “reserved for Ruth” in Nina’s house. Inspiring and revelatory, Dinners with Ruth is a moving story of the joy and true meaning of friendship. Register now: libraryc.org/tiltonlibrary/42965 Funded by the Friends of Tilton Library

 As part of the Library Speakers Consortium, you’re invited to a fascinating exploratory conversation with Madeline Miller, bestselling author of The Song of Achilles and Circe, as she chats with us about her body of work and her process of retelling Greek classics into fresh, modern epics in fiction. In The Song of Achilles, Achilles, "the best of all the Greeks," son of the cruel sea goddess Thetis and the legendary king Peleus, is strong, swift, and beautiful, irresistible to all who meet him. Patroclus is an awkward young prince exiled from his homeland after an act of shocking violence. Brought together by chance, they forge an inseparable bond despite risking the gods' wrath. In Circe, to Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child--neither powerful like her father nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power: the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves. Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from or with the mortals she has come to love. Register Now: libraryc.org/tiltonlibrary/42967 Funded by The Friends of Tilton Library

Paula J. Johnson, The Foods, People, and Innovations That Feed Us, Tuesday, April 2nd   Virtually step into the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History with Curator Paula Johnson as she discusses the book Smithsonian American Table: The Foods, People, and Innovations That Feed Us.   American Table is a sweeping history of food and culture that summons everyone to the table for a fresh look at some of the people, ingredients, events, and movements that have shaped how and what we eat. Johnson, curator and project director of the American Food History Project, will discuss several stories featured in the volume, with an emphasis on those that intersect most directly with the Smithsonian’s research, collecting, and programming around food history.   After this enlightening, enriching, and entertaining webinar, you can cook your way through the recipes that are featured in the volume that reflect American history and culture. Hungry for more? Register now: libraryc.org/tiltonlibrary/44621   Funded by the Friends of Tilton Library

As part of the Library Speakers Consortium, join us for a one-of-a-kind conversation with National Book Award-winner Colum McCann as he is joined by Diane Foley, the inspiration behind the heartrending book American Mother, the story of a mother who, in the course of confronting her son’s killer, gets to the elemental heart of violence and forgiveness. Diane Foley is the mother of Jim, a freelance journalist captured and beheaded by ISIS in 2014, an image that became one of the most iconic of the 21st century. Seven years later, Diane gets the chance to spend three days with the murderer of her son in a Virginia courthouse, inspiring her to tell her life story. https://libraryc.org/tiltonlibrary/45026 Funded by The Friends of Tilton Library

As part of the Library Speakers Consortium, join us as we chat with award-winning and bestselling author Xochitl Gonzalez about her newest novel Anita de Monte Laughs Last. In 1985. Anita de Monte, a rising star in the art world, is found dead in New York City; her tragic death is the talk of the town. Until it isn’t. By 1998 Anita’s name had been all but forgotten―certainly by the time Raquel, a third-year art history student was preparing her final thesis. On College Hill, surrounded by privileged students whose futures are already paved out for them, Raquel feels like an outsider. Students of color, like her, are the minority there, and the pressure to work twice as hard for the same opportunities is no secret. But when Raquel becomes romantically involved with a well-connected older art student, she finds herself unexpectedly rising up the social ranks. As she attempts to straddle both worlds, she stumbles upon Anita’s story, raising questions about the dynamics of her own relationship, which eerily mirrors that of the forgotten artist. https://libraryc.org/tiltonlibrary/45431 Funded by The Friends of Tilton Library