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David S. Reynolds with Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times

Virtual Event: Thursday, December 3 at 6 PM

Presented in partnership with Porter Square Books

"A marvelous cultural biography that captures Lincoln in all his historical fullness.” – Gordon Wood, Wall Street Journal

Join us for a virtual presentation and discussion by David S. Reynolds, the author of a revelatory and enthralling new biography of our sixteenth President. Abe is the product of David Reynolds’s full-body immersion into the riotous tumult of American life in the decades before the Civil War. From New England Puritan stock on his father’s side and Virginia Cavalier gentry on his mother’s, Lincoln was linked by blood to the central conflict of the age. His genius was for striking a balance between opposing forces. Don’t miss hearing more about this remarkable man.

David S. Reynolds is a Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and book reviewer. He is the author of Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography, winner of the Bancroft Prize and the Ambassador Book Award. His other books include Beneath the American Renaissance (winner of the Christian Gauss Award); John Brown, Abolitionist; Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson; Mightier than the Sword: Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Battle for America; and Lincoln’s Selected Writings.

Nicholas Basbanes with Cross of Snow: The Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Virtual Event: Monday, December 7 at 6 PM

In conversation with Diana Korzenik, compiler of the Appleton Family Archives
Presented in partnership with the State Library of Massachusetts and GBH Forum Network

A look at the intellectual partnership of America’s best-loved nineteenth-century poet and his remarkable wife

Enjoy a lively dialogue about the life and work of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) and his multi-talented second wife, Fanny Appleton Longfellow (1817-1861), featuring Nicholas A. Basbanes, author of Cross of Snow: A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Diana Korzenik, complier of the Appleton Family Archives. Since the biography’s release in June, reviewers have taken particular note of the modern feminist approach Basbanes has employed to give full biographical attention to Fanny, taking in her work as a brilliant artist, diarist, correspondent, and chronicler of her times. His narrative follows the couple from before they met, during their seven-year courtship, and in their significant partnering on works we know as his literary production, functioning, in her words, as a “pretty active spur upon his Pegasus.” Basbanes and Korzenik will discuss their respective views of this dynamic couple at various stages of their lives.

Nicholas A. Basbanes is the author of ten books, including A Gentle Madness, a finalist in 1995 for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Nonfiction, and On Paper, a finalist in 2014 for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction presented by the American Library Association.

Diana Korzenik is an author, artist, professor emerita (Massachusetts College of Art), and compiler of five research collections housed at libraries and museums nationwide. Her first book, Drawn to Art: A Nineteenth-Century American Dream, won a Boston Globe Literary Award.

Christina Schwarz with Bonnie

Virtual Event: Wednesday, December 16 at 6 PM

Moderator: Sandra Tsing Loh, writer, performer, comedienne

The bestselling author of Drowning Ruth brings to life one of America’s most enigmatic and notorious women

In this suspenseful, gorgeously detailed novel, the #1 New York Times bestselling author vividly evokes the life of Bonnie Parker, her fascinating love affair with Clyde Barrow, and their infamous, on-the-run partnership in crime. Born in a small town in western Texas, Bonnie was a natural performer and a star student, who dreamed of being a movie star, singer, or poet. Schwarz follows Bonnie from this promising start to her final month of shoot-outs and desperate car chases through Depression-era America. In conversation with witty Sandra Tsing Loh, Schwarz will explore such topics as turning life into story, women’s struggles to make their dreams reality, and the promise and pitfalls of Christmas; unpacking scenes from the novel and more. Don’t miss their discussion and this “absorbing, poignant, often heartbreaking” tale of Bonnie (New York Times).

Christina Schwarz is the author of five novels, including The Edge of the Earth and the Oprah Book Club selection Drowning Ruth. Her celebrated works have been situated across the United States; this is her first set in Texas. Moderator Sandra Tsing Loh is the author of seven books, most recently, The Madwoman and the Roomba. Her performances have been heard on NPR’s “Morning Edition” and “This American Life.”