Join the South Street Seaport Museum for a recurring maritime-themed book club! You can find information on upcoming book selections below. Seaport Museum staff and special guests will stir up lively discussions informed by our shared love of literature, history, and preservation. Our literary selections will be announced one month in advance.

Sophie Ratcliffe presents her new book Loss, A Love Story: Imagined Histories and Brief Encounters, and Adam Gopnik presents his new book All That Happiness Is.

New books of poetry are celebrated.

Walk & writing session led by poet Jon Curley. Participants will be encouraged to use observations as a way to enhance their writing styles in any preferred mode. Registration required, please email: [email protected].

Award-winning Atlantic staff writer Zoë Schlanger delivers a groundbreaking work of popular science that probes the hidden world of the plant kingdom and reveals the astonishing capabilities of the green life all around us.

Evening with acclaimed artist Yang Yongliang. In this special talk, the artist will delve into the inspirations and techniques behind his innovative works. Yongliang is renowned for his digital collages that blend the aesthetic principles of traditional Chinese shan shui (mountain-water) paintings with contemporary themes, creating visually stunning landscapes that reflect on modern societal issues. […]

A timeless comedy of manners—refreshing as a summer breeze and bracing as the British seaside—about a generation of young women facing the seismic changes brought on by war and dreaming of the boundless possibilities of their future, from the bestselling author of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand.

o celebrate the launch of her fourth collection of poems, Catherine Barnett has invited novelist Garth Greenwell and actor Dianne Wiest to share the texts that have kept them company in moments of loneliness, that essential human experience. Followed by conversation, inquiry, and conviviality.

Walk & writing session led by poet Jon Curley. Participants will be encouraged to use observations as a way to enhance their writing styles in any preferred mode. Registration required, please email: [email protected].

What did “the pursuit of happiness” mean to our nation’s founders and how did that famous phrase become the foundation of our democracy? The Declaration of Independence identifies “the pursuit of happiness” as one of our unalienable rights, along with life and liberty. In his new book, National Constitution Center President and CEO Jeffrey Rosen […]

“There is something valuable about wanting the small world around you to know how richly you are being moved, so that maybe some total stranger might encounter your stomp, your clap, your shout, and find themselves moved in return," writes Hanif Abdurraqib. Join him and Jennifer Wilson, two of our most ardent and attuned culture […]

Facing the harrowing task of rebuilding a life in the wake of the Holocaust, many Jewish survivors, community and religious leaders, and Allied soldiers viewed marriage between Jewish women and military personnel as a way to move forward after unspeakable loss. Proponents believed that these unions were more than just a ticket out of war-torn […]

Weigian Shan will share his profound insights into the fabric of China’s economy with a special focus on its housing market, current trends, and future outlook. He will provide an analysis enriched by his first-hand experiences, discussing not only China’s domestic economic policies but also the delicate interplay between the world’s two largest economies.

Step into a gripping narrative of maritime history with best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin as he unveils a true story of resilience, treachery, and survival at the edge of the world.

Poetry reading.

Karmela Waldman is an eighty-something psychotherapist and Holocaust survivor. Her son, Joel Waldman, is a successful broadcast journalist. After a discontented Joel chooses to leave his network news job, he gets a crazy idea for the next step in his career: what if he and his elderly mother did a podcast together? Things get off […]

Walk & writing session led by poet Jon Curley. Participants will be encouraged to use observations as a way to enhance their writing styles in any preferred mode. Registration required, please email: [email protected].

In considering why humans get cancer, it is useful to ask an alternative question, “Why have humans been so good at not getting cancer in the first 4-5 decades of life?” There is no singular explanation for why an aging body is more susceptible to cancer. However, many recent studies now show that aging — […]

Award-winning author of The Plaza, Julie Satow looks south on Fifth Avenue and back through the 20th century to examine the golden age of American department stores and of three visionary women who led them. In three chic palaces of consumption – Bonwit Teller, Lord & Taylor, and Henri Bendel – Satow writes, "men owned […]

The earliest Jewish Sunday schools were female-led, growing from one school in Philadelphia established by Rebecca Gratz in 1838 to an entire system that educated vast numbers of Jewish youth across the country. These schools were modeled on Christian approaches to religious education and aimed to protect Jewish children from Protestant missionaries. But debates soon […]

Poets John Keene and Pamela Sneed read their work.

B Hills – A Queens native whose diverse music selections reflect his eclectic upbringing in NYC. Selections for the evening will be a hypnotic blend of deep, jazzy, and soulful sounds.

Jesse McCarthy presents The Blue Period: Black Writing in the Early Cold War, in conversation with Vinson Cunningham. From the author of Who Will Pay Reparations on My Soul?, a new book addressing the political and aesthetic evolution of African American literature and its authors during the Cold War, an era McCarthy calls “the Blue […]

In Jewish Life in Medieval Spain, Jonathan Ray explores the Jewish experience in medieval Spain from the dawn of Sephardic society in the ninth century to the expulsion of 1492. An important contribution of the book is the integration of the rise and fall of Jewish life in Muslim al-Andalus into the history of the […]

Do you regret not talking to the hot person on the train reading a book you like? Did your last Hinge date reveal that they haven't read a book since high school? In lieu of a traditional sit-down discussion, mix and mingle at the McNally Jackson Seaport beer and wine bar and discuss books. Tonight's […]