Library Live.
We are thrilled to welcome these four brilliant authors to our 2023-2024 series. Library Live is for adventurous readers who enjoy hearing from established literary figures and emerging talent. Novelists, poets, historians, journalists, biographers, memoirists and more share their ideas firsthand with our community. Participate, engage, and be challenged by our presentations with today’s most gifted scribes.
Lisa See
Lady Tan’s Circle of Women
Thursday, October 19, 7:00pm
The latest historical novel from New York Times bestselling author Lisa See (The Island of Sea Women, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, and On Gold Mountain), inspired by the true story of a woman physician from 15th-century China.
According to Confucius, “an educated woman is a worthless woman,” but Tan Yunxian—born into an elite family – is being raised by her grandmother who teaches her Chinese medicine. But when Yunxian is married, she is banned from practicing medicine and instead is to act like a proper wife. How might a woman like Yunxian break free of these traditions, go on to treat women and girls from every level of society, and lead a life of such importance that many of her remedies are still used five centuries later? It is also a triumphant reimagining of the life of a woman who was remarkable in the Ming dynasty and would be considered remarkable today.
SOLD OUT – Email programs@nbplf.foundation to be on the waitlist
Steve Lopez
Independence Day: What I learned About Retirement from Some Who’ve Done it and Some Who Never Will
Thursday, November 9, 7:00pm
Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez offers advice on decision making and how to find the next path in life. With his trademark poignancy, wisdom, and humor, Lopez establishes a useful polemic in planning ahead, as he also evaluates questions of identity, financial limitations, and ultimately what to do with your life when the obituary pages are no longer filled with strangers.
Lopez, a four-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and winner of multiple national awards, has been a journalist since 1971. He is the author of Independence Day – an Amazon best-seller, and The Soloist – which won the PEN USA award for literary non-fiction and was the subject of a DreamWorks movie, and two collections of his LA Times columns.
SOLD OUT – Email programs@nbplf.foundation to be on the waitlist
Michael Scott Moore
The Desert and the Sea: 977 Days Captive on the Somali Pirate Coast
Thursday, February 15, 7:00pm
Michael Scott Moore is a journalist and a novelist, author of a comic novel about L.A., Too Much of Nothing, as well as a travel book about surfing, Sweetness and Blood, which was named a best book of 2010 by The Economist. He’s won Fulbright, Logan, and Pulitzer Center grants for his nonfiction, and MacDowell and Wallace Foundation fellowships for his fiction.
He grew up in California, but worked for several years as an editor and writer at Spiegel Online International in Berlin. Moore was kidnapped in early 2012 on a reporting trip to Somalia and held hostage by pirates for 32 months. At times he was held on land, other times at sea. Once, when he was on a 160-foot tuna boat, he tried to escape by jumping over the side at night. The Desert and the Sea is a memoir about that ordeal and became an international bestseller.
SOLD OUT – Email programs@nbplf.foundation to be on the waitlist
Tess Gunty in conversation with Patricia Pierson
The Rabbit Hutch and Literature in the Age of AI
Thursday, April 18, 7:00pm
An online obituary writer. A young mother with a dark secret. A woman waging a solo campaign against rodents — neighbors, separated only by the thin walls of a low-cost housing complex in the once bustling industrial center of Vacca Vale, Indiana. Welcome to the Rabbit Hutch. Set over one sweltering week in July and culminating in a bizarre act of violence that finally changes everything, The Rabbit Hutch is a savagely beautiful and bitingly funny snapshot of contemporary America, a gorgeous and provocative tale of loneliness and longing, entrapment and, ultimately, freedom.
Tess Gunty holds an MFA in Creative Writing from NYU. Her work has appeared in many publications, such as The Iowa Review, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. The Rabbit Hutch won the 2022 National Book Award for Fiction. It has been optioned for film rights by Fremantle.
Patricia Pierson, PhD is an Associate Director of the UC Irvine Center for Storytelling and the Literary Journalism Program. Her research, community projects, and teaching explore the intersections of life writing, narrative, and critical theory.
LECTURE DETAILS / TICKETS
Held in Friends Room at Central Library, 1000 Avocado Avenue, Newport Beach, CA 92660
Limited Seating
The upcoming construction of Witte Hall will temporarily disrupt parking in the main lot of the Central Library with limited spaces available. There are additional parking located in the Civic Center parking structure.
Thursday, 7:00pm – 8:30pm || Doors open at 6:30pm
Lecture, Book Sale & Signing, Refreshments
Library Live Season Pass $100*
*Members can buy season pass July 1, 2023
Individual Ticket: General $35 || NBPLF Member $30
(Discount on Individual ticket for members that are Book Collector $250 level and above)
REGISTRATION / BOOK PURCHASE
Individual Ticket on sale September 1, 2023 || Box office closes at 2pm on the day of the event
Opportunity to buy a signed copy of the speakers’ publications at the event
QUESTIONS
Contact programs@nbplf.foundation or 949-717-3892. www.nbplf.foundation
VIDEO ARCHIVE FOR PAST PROGRAMS
2023 Sponsors
The Foundation would like to express our deepest gratitude to the funding Sponsors and Partners for the steadfast support and generosity of 2022-2023 Library Live season.
Titanium
The Isidore and Penny Myers Foundation
Silver
Pacific Life Foundation
Tammy and Sam Tang
Bronze
Karen and Bruce Clark
Johanna and Kenneth Kim
Barbara Roberts
Iron
Buky and Kyong Lee
Roger and Marion Palley
Chiyo Imai Rowe
Dr. Tom Weinberg Staple
Jill Johnson-Tucker and Larry Tucker
Steel
Loren Blackwood
David and Trudi Gartley
Ann Stephens
Ginger Sun and Arthur Ong
Partners
All About You Event Planning
City of Newport Beach
Ed Olen Photography
Firebrand Media LLC
Hi-Time Cellars
Lido Village Books
Newport Beach Public Library
Sterling OC
2023-2024 Library Live Committee
Loren Blackwood
Patricia Dreyfus, Co-Chair
Amy Fulford
Johanna Kim, Co-Chair
Lauren Kramer – Trustee Liaison
Dorothy Larson
Toby Larson
Ann Stephens
Adrian Windsor