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This recording is presented in partnership by Princeton Public Library and Princeton University Press. Longdon will present on her book, "Natural Connection: Six Roots of Environmental Wisdom and Action" which explores our relationships with the living world and each other.

From the publisher:
"Reimagining environmentalism as an act of doing and a way of being in the world and climate action as a shared goal, not an individual burden, Natural Connection draws on the legacies and ongoing resistance of marginalised communities around the globe to guide us toward a more sustainable relationship with the living world.

Joycelyn Longdon defines six conceptual roots—rage, imagination, innovation, theory, healing and care—that can help us to transform environmentalism from the ground up and cultivate the natural connection so essential to creating a safe and thriving shared future. Rage is a necessary response to systems of oppression but impedes progress if it isn’t transformed into action. Imagination is essential to resisting the logics of colonialism and exploitation. Theory is a means of building collective wisdom. Longdon illuminates these and other principles, practices and teachings, highlighting the voices and stories of marginalised communities who have revolutionized the landscape of environmentalism, such as the Afro-Indigenous Brazilian quilombolas who fought to defend their ancestral lands, Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni Nine of Nigeria who lost their lives in the struggle against environmental destruction by fossil fuel giants, and the women of the Indian Himalayas who sparked a mass movement of nonviolent protest against deforestation by hugging trees. Along the way, this lyrical, provocative and deeply humane book interweaves powerfully resonant ideas from writers, philosophers, environmentalists, activists and other changemakers, such as Rebecca Solnit, Poppy Okotcha, Robert Macfarlane, Katherine May and Olafur Eliasson.

Rooted in the profound knowledge that we only have each other and the earth itself, Natural Connection cultivates hope in growing a better future together."

Joycelyn Longdon is an award-winning environmental justice technologist, writer and communicator. As a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge, she investigates the design of justice-led conservation technologies. Featured in British Vogue’s December 2023 “Forces for Change” issue and a TEDx speaker, she has spoken and consulted for a broad range of organisations, including the United Nations, the Design Council and Greenpeace.

A special event of the Princeton Environmental Film Festival.

This event was recorded on eptember 30, 2026.

This recording is presented by Princeton Public Library. The author launches "Madame Composer: The Virtuosic Genius of Clara Schumann" and presents an illustrated talk on the legendary pianist and composer.

About the Books (from the publisher):
A child prodigy equal to Mozart, Paganini called her a “genuine artist;” Goethe said “she plays with the strength of six boys.” She premiered the “unplayable” works of Chopin at age twelve and brought Bach fugues and Beethoven sonatas into the concert hall at sixteen. During her sixty-year career, she made Robert Schumann a household name and premiered Brahms’s famous “Lullaby.” Many critics—who dubbed her “Saint Cecilia,” “queen of the piano,” and a “priestess of art”—preferred her piano playing to her rival Franz Liszt.

Why is her name not uttered in the breath as Liszt, Brahms, or Mozart today? In "Madame Composer," Sarah Fritz reveals how and why Clara Weick Schumann, a giant of Romantic music, has been diminished and sometimes deliberately obscured. By exposing the Nazi propaganda which buried Clara Schumann’s achievements, the power Clara once wielded in the industry comes to the fore. Fritz exposes the truth behind why Clara devoted her career to promoting men’s works instead of her own creations, even though her melodies were quoted in famous works by Brahms, Liszt, and others, which is revealed in print for the first time.

Clara’s life was more fascinating than fiction. A neurodivergent child, she shared a forbidden love with the poor composer Robert Schumann, whose tragic death in an asylum left her a single parent of seven children. And her forty-year relationship with Brahms is one of the most important artist-mentor partnerships in cultural history yet has long been relegated to tabloid scandal.

Filled with new discoveries and insight, Sarah Fritz’s fierce and dynamic "Madame Composer" is the definitive biography on a singular musical force and reveals Clara as a woman in full.

About the Author: Sarah Fritz is a musicologist, mezzo-soprano, and music historian who’s contributed to the New York Times, given pre-concert talks for the Philadelphia Orchestra, and appears in the PBS documentary, "Mozart’s Sister." She runs the Clara Schumann Channel platform, dedicated to educating the public about women composers and performs with the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Symphonic Choir, including an appearance in the choir scene of the movie Maestro. Fritz teaches on the faculty of the Westminster Conservatory in Princeton, New Jersey.

This event was recorded on September 29, 2026.

This recording is presented in partnership by the Princeton Public Library's Public Humanities Initiative and the Department of French and Italian at Princeton University.

The author and Yiyun Li discuss his Strega Prize-winning novel, "The Anniversary," a portrait of an abusive marriage in patriarchal Italy and a son’s decision to cut contact with his parents.

About the book (from the publisher):
A subtle yet heartrending portrait of an abusive marriage in patriarchal Italy and a son’s liberating decision to cut contact with his parents.

Can you leave your family behind? Can you slam the door, walk down the stairs, and decide never to see them again? Can you ever escape the grip of your origins?

A son asks himself these questions as he celebrates a bittersweet anniversary: a decade since he saw his parents. Now he finally feels able to tell their story. This is his eloquent account of a family devastated by a father’s violence and the woman who silently accepts him; of an airless relationship, unsettled only by the ringing of a telephone, a visiting classmate, or a friend soon pushed away. And it is the story of a son possessed by the irrepressible desire to be free: to be himself, to live his own life, to open up to others without fear of reprisals.

Translated by Geoffrey Brock.

Praise for "The Anniversary:"
“[The ‘domestic hell’] that Bajani depicts here is positively haunting…Bajani’s prose is sharp and brims with psychological insights…Perhaps its most salient feature—in deft translation by Geoffrey Brock—is its skill at depicting alienation…Like Albert Camus, Bajani is a poet of estrangement.” —Times Literary Supplement

“A book that confronts the purity of fact, the tyranny of memory, and the totalitarianism of family like no other.” —Jhumpa Lahiri, author of "The Namesake"

“The Anniversary is about patriarchy and family and the dream of self-determination. It is about the possibilities of fiction and the novel as a form. Bajani is an extraordinary and uncompromising artist. Every page is written with lucidity, depth, honesty, and forensic intelligence.” —Katie Kitamura, author of "Intimacies"

About the Author:
Andrea Bajani was born in Rome in 1975. He is the author of many award-winning novels, including "If You Kept a Record of Sins" and "The Book of Homes." "The Anniversary" received Italy’s highest literary award, the Strega Prize, in 2025 and will be published in more than thirty countries. His works have been translated into many languages, and have appeared internationally with publishers such as Penguin UK, The Other Press, Gallimard, Archipelago Books, Siruela, Anagrama, MacLehose, Atheneum, dtv, Humanitas, Deep Vellum, Hakusuisha. Bajani teaches creative writing at Rice University in Houston, Texas.

About the Discussant:
Yiyun Li is the Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Humanities at Princeton, where she directs the Program in Creative Writing at the Lewis Center for the Arts. She is the author of ten books, including “The Book of Goose,” which was among The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2022, and the award-winning “Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life.” Her work has been translated into more than 20 languages and she is the recipient of honors such as the the 2026 Pulitzer Prize, 2022 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story, and the 2020 Windham Campbell Prize in Fiction. In addition to teaching fiction at Princeton, she also serves the broader literary community in multiple ways, including as a judge of the Booker International Prize and the National Book Award for Fiction.

Public Humanities programs are presented with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this programming do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This event was recorded on September 24, 2026.

Presented in partnership with Not In Our Town Princeton and Princeton Public Library.

Co-author Patricia Campos Medina discuss topics raised in "Legalized Inequalities: Immigration and Race in the Low-wage Workplace" followed by small group discussions.

Dr. Campos-Medina is a researcher, RTE Faculty and labor educator focusing on the intersection of race, immigration status and worker’s rights. She is a Senior Extension Associate Faculty and the Executive Director of the Worker Institute at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University where she leads research, policy innovation and training to advance worker justice, collective bargaining rights and the interest of workers in today’s economy and society. She is a political scientist and policy expert on workplace and labor issues, women rights, voting rights, immigrant worker justice and US trade relations. She holds a PhD from Rutgers University and a BS and MPA from Cornell University. She is also a member of the Diverse Solidarity Economies (DISE), a collective of Black and Brown Feminist Scholars focused on research that decolonizes and diversifies the field of political economy and is a Visiting Fellow at the Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University-New Brunswick.

This program was recorded on September 14, 2026.

This recording is presented by Princeton Public Library. Poet Carolyn Forché launches "Otherwhere: New and Selected Poems," a collection of her poetry spanning five decades, in conversation with award-winning poet Patricia Smith.

About The Book (from the publisher):
Over more than five decades, Carolyn Forché has demonstrated the power of poetry to bear witness to history and speak to our responsibility to one another. "Otherwhere" gathers poems from throughout her groundbreaking career, from her first collection, "Gathering the Tribes," to "The Country Between Us" and "In the Lateness of the World." A short new collection, "If there is ink," is also included, lighting a signal fire in a state of emergency. In these new poems, Forché sifts through the ruins of the present, conjuring the early days of an emergency where people “pretend to live as we have always lived,” and cautioning, “There are no secrets to staying completely invisible, so they are not included here.”

Selected by Forché herself, "Otherwhere" offers a sweeping portrait of a poet whose work has consistently explored displacement, political violence, memory, and the human capacity for courage and compassion. Together, these poems represent a remarkable contribution to American poetry and letters.

About the Speakers:

Carolyn Forché is an American poet, translator and memoirist whose books of poetry include "In the Lateness of the World," "Blue Hour," "The Angel of History," "The Country Between Us" and "Gathering the Tribes." Her memoir, "What You Have Heard Is True," received the National Book Critics Circle Award. Forché is a recipient of the Academy of American Poets Fellowship and the Windham-Campbell Prize. A Pulitzer Prize finalist, she is a university professor at Georgetown University.

Patricia Smith is the author of 10 books of poetry, including "The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems," winner of the 2025 National Book Award for Poetry and the 2026 NAACP Image Award for Poetry, and a finalist for the 2026 Pulitzer Prize. Her other acclaimed collections include "Unshuttered," "Incendiary Art," "Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah" and "Blood Dazzler," which was a National Book Award finalist. Smith is also a four-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam and has received numerous honors for her work as a poet, performer and educator.

Public Humanities programs are presented with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this programming do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This event was recorded on September 8, 2026.

This recording is presented in partnership by Princeton Public Library and Labyrinth Books. The author discusses his new memoir "Dad, Love, Me" with Amy Jo Burns followed by a book signing.

About the Book (from the publisher):
Written in the form of a letter to his ailing father, this debut memoir from the bestselling author of "The Silver Linings Playbook" explores the complicated burden of caring for an abusive parent who is dying—here is Matthew Quick’s most personal and potent work to date.

On the surface, Matthew Quick seemed to have it all—a loving wife, a thriving career as a novelist, and a beautiful home. He’d traveled all over the world advocating for mental health awareness, standing before crowds as a success story. But secretly, he was depressed and some days, he didn’t want to live.

Years earlier, when he first told his father he wanted to be a novelist, the response was immediate and brutal: “Idiot!” That voice—angry and belittling—would echo through Quick’s mind for years. He channeled his pain into his debut novel, "The Silver Linings Playbook," crafting a complex father-son dynamic drawn straight from his own life. The book became a New York Times bestseller and was adapted into an Oscar-winning film starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. Still, the approval Quick longed for never came. His father remained cold and withholding. The deeper the rift between them grew, the deeper Quick sank into anxiety and addiction.

In this book, Quick takes readers deep into his psyche, as he wrestles with both his own mental health and his father’s cognitive decline. A health scare finally forces Quick to get sober, but then, overcome by creative paralysis, writer’s block threatens to end his career. The blank page is unbearable. As his desperation for healing peaks, Quick turns to a Jungian analyst he nicknames “Zeus.” In the safety of analysis, as Quick’s repressed pain and shame surface, he finally cracks. Just as he is putting himself back together, his father is diagnosed with dementia.

Suddenly, the clock is ticking. If there is ever going to be reconciliation, it has to happen now. Quick and his wife pack up their lives in coastal North Carolina, drive eight hours, and move into a house just around the corner from Quick’s parents, on an island right outside of Beaufort, South Carolina. There, as his father slips further and further away, Quick races to make a healing connection.

"Dad, Love, Me" is Quick’s raw, vulnerable, and deeply moving account of what it means to forgive a parent who never really knew how to love you. It’s about wounds that never fully heal, and the power of showing up anyway. This beautifully brave and life-affirming memoir is a must read for anyone who has been starved of love but wants to keep loving anyway.

About the Author:
Matthew Quick is the New York Times bestselling author of "The Silver Linings Playbook"—which was made into an Oscar-winning film—and eight other novels, including "We Are the Light," a main selection of the Book of the Month Club. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages, received a PEN/Hemingway Award Honorable Mention, was an Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, a #1 bestseller in Brazil, a Deutscher Jugendliteratur Preis 2016 (German Youth Literature Prize) nominee, and selected by Nancy Pearl as one of Summer’s Best Books for NPR. The Hollywood Reporter has named him one of Hollywood’s 25 Most Powerful Authors. Matthew lives with his wife, the novelist Alicia Bessette, in Beaufort, South Carolina.

About the Moderator:
Amy Jo Burns is a frequent presence at Princeton Public Library literary events. Her new novel, "Wait for Me," is the Today Show Read With Jenna pick for March 2026. She is the author of three other books, including "Cinderland," "Shiner," and "Mercury," which was a Barnes & Noble Book Club Pick, a People Magazine Book of the Week, and an Editor’s Choice selection in The New York Times. A western Pennsylvania native, she lives in New Jersey with her family.

This event was recorded on July 21, 2026.