LFPL's At the Library Series

Maybe you know it as a classic of opera comedy or maybe you know it thanks to a Bugs Bunny cartoon, but either way, The Barber of Seville is a crowd-pleasing favorite. This comedy tells of a count, his love, and the clever barber whose mistakes and successes lead the characters on a merry romp. Join conductor Robert Tweten as he describes what it's like to musically manage Rossini's one and only Figaro.

Will artificial intelligence help or hinder society? What will scientists and engineers need to do to keep AI from causing harm? Many scientists have predicted that humanity will achieve Artificial General Intelligence within the next hundred years. After summarizing the arguments for why AGI may pose significant risk, UofL's Dr. Roman Yampolskiy will survey the field’s proposed responses

Join beloved children's author Deborah Diesen for a discussion of her latest work: The Pout-Pout Fish and the Bully Bully Shark.

Ingrid Betancourt was a Colombian politician and presidential candidate celebrated for her determination to combat widespread corruption. In 2002 she was kidnapped by the FARC - a terrorist guerrilla organization - and held hostage in the Colombian jungle for more than six years. She was finally rescued on July 2, 2008. "Even Silence Has an End" tells her story, in her own words.

Craig Johnson, bestselling author of the Longmire series. Podcast includes special reading of Known Associate, a Longmire short story.

The Violins of Hope are a collection of more than 50 restored instruments played by Jewish musicians during the Holocaust. These instruments have survived concentration camps, pogroms and many long journeys to tell remarkable stories of injustice, suffering, resilience and survival. During this (BYO) lunch-and-learn program, Avshi Weinstein, son and partner of luthier and project founder Amnon Weinstein, will speak about the project and one of the violins will be used for a live performance featuring a violinist from the Louisville Orchestra. The song played in the middle is Bach Violin Sonata No. 1 in G minor – 1st mvt. Adagio

World-renowned journalist Gail Sheehy passed away last week. Here we revisit her appearance at the library. She talked about her new memoir, Daring: My Passages, chronicled her trials and triumphs as a groundbreaking "girl" journalist in the 1960s to one of the premier political profilers of today.

Former special advisor and press secretary to President Ronald Reagan, Mark Weinberg, shares an intimate, behind-the-scenes look inside the Reagan presidency—told through the movies they watched together every week at Camp David. Movie Nights with the Reagans is a nostalgic journey through the 1980s and its most iconic films, seen through the eyes of one of Hollywood’s former stars: one who was simultaneously transforming the Republican Party, the American economy, and the course of the Cold War.

The complex relationship between mothers and daughters is brought to life in Katie Hafner's memoir, an exploration of the year she and her octagenarian mother, Helen, spent working through a lifetime of unresolved emotions - along with the author's teenage daughter. Katie Hafner is a regular contributor to The New York Times, writing on healthcare and technology, and is the author of five previous works of nonfiction.

Chinese president Xi Jinping is transforming China at home and abroad. Over the past five years, he has taken unprecedented steps to consolidate his authority; expand the Communist Party's role in China; and control more closely the exchange of ideas and capital between China and the outside world. Beyond its borders, Beijing has recast itself as a great power, seeking to reclaim its past glory and to create a system of international norms that better serves its more ambitious geostrategic objectives.Presented in partnership with the University of Louisville Center for Asian Democracy, the World Affairs Council of Kentucky and Southern Indiana, and Asia Institute - Crane House, join Elizabeth Economy, senior fellow and director for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, for the 2018 Annual Lecture in Asian Democracy.

Dubbed "the funniest man in America" by the New York Times, Dave Barry explores the twin mysteries of parenthood and families in "You Can Date Boys When You're Forty." In his new release, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author tackles everything from family trips to bat mitzvah parties to accompanying his daughter to a Justin Bieber concert.

Join biographer Brian Jay Jones for a discussion of his latest book George Lucas: A Life, detailing the incredible life story of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones creator.Jones is the New York Times bestselling author of Jim Henson: The Biography and the award-winning Washington Irving: An American Original.

New York Times bestselling author and illustrator of Boing! and the Bad Kitty series Nick Bruel

Carolyn Finney, PhD is a storyteller, author and cultural geographer. Her widely-praised first book, Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors (UNC Press 2014) brought her to national attention as a scholar and speaker on race, belonging, environment, narrative and place – on whose story counts and who belongs. She is a former Fulbright scholar and has served on the U.S. National Parks Advisory Board.Previously a faculty member at UK, Finney is now the Environmental Studies Professor of Practice in the Franklin Environmental Center at Middlebury College.

Stephen Foster’s 1852 ballad “My Old Kentucky Home” conjures visions of home as a nurturing, humble environment, but for some Kentuckians during the Gilded Age, home was anything but nurturing. Charlene Fletcher (PhD candidate, Indiana University-Bloomington) will examine family violence in 19th century domestic spaces as she recounts the lives of two African American women from Lexington, Kentucky, Fannie Keys Harvey and Lila B. White, who were incarcerated at the Frankfort Penitentiary after fighting back against their abusive families. Using their stories, Fletcher will present home as a site of confinement for women and children in central Kentucky, an area plagued with various forms of domestic abuse, and pull acts of resistance from the archives to bring awareness to this dark chapter of history. This program is presented by MyLibraryU and the Kentucky History Room.

Carmichael's Kids, in partnership with the Louisville Free Public Library, are excited to welcome Newbery Honor Award winner Ann M. Martin to the Main Library. Martin is the New York Times-bestselling author of Rain Reign and many other award-winning novels, including the much-loved Baby-Sitters Club series. In her novel Rain Reign, Martin tells the story of Rose, a girl struggling with Asperger's syndrome, and the bond she shares with her beloved dog, Rain.

The summer months of 1776 witnessed the most consequential events in the story of our country's founding. In "Revolutionary Summer," Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian Joseph Ellis meticulously examines the most influential figures in this historic moment, including George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Britain's Admiral Lord Richard Howe and General William Howe. He weaves together the political and military experiences as two sides of a single story, and shows how events on one front influenced outcomes on the other.

Clara Bingham is a former Newsweek White House correspondent and Louisville native. Join her for a discussion of her latest book, Witness to the Revolution: Radicals, Resisters, Vets, Hippies, and the Year America Lost Its Mind and Found Its Soul, the story of the turbulent year when the sixties ended and America teetered on the edge of revolution.

This Fast Class panel discussion is presented by LFPL’s Kentucky History Room in honor of LGBTQ+ pride month. Moderator Jaison Gardner (co-host of Louisville Public Media’s Strange Fruit podcast) will lead panelists in a discussion of the public and private gathering places that have been important in the social, political, and personal lives of Louisville’s LGBTQ+ communities. Night clubs, bars, public spaces, private homes and more will be recalled and celebrated by members of the community.

Harvard Law professor and bestselling author Randall Kennedy's newest book, "For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action and the Law," is a concise and deeply personal account of the policy and history of affirmative action. The book analyzes key arguments, pro and con, critiquing the impact of Supreme Court decisions, and pondering the policy's future in American society.