Tom Stoppard’s Tony Award-winning Best Play arrives in a marvelously funny, spectacularly beautiful new production. This modern-day classic tragicomedy imagines the lives of two minor characters from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. As the story unfolds, they voice their confusion about the play that’s being performed without them, untangling bigger questions about life and death, reality and art.

#Read4Refugees is an annual, worldwide read-in to support refugees. By staying in to read a book on a night of their choice between October 1st and 15th and donating what they would have spent on a night out, readers around the world will help bring critical resources to vulnerable refugees in Africa and around the world. This October, join more than 80 best selling authors such as Neil Gaiman, Elizabeth Gilbert, Isabell Allende, Busy Philipps, Jodi Picoult, Khaled Hosseini, and others to #Read4Refugees.

Join the Faneuil Kid’s Book Club, 5th, 6th and 7th graders. We meet the 1st Monday of every month. Come to this first meeting and help decide what we want to read this year!

Daniel Ford, author of Sid Sanford Lives! reads from his new short story collection Black Coffee (2019). These nine moving, funny, and, at times, terrifying stories explore how people meander in and out of each other’s lives, why family bonds are the hardest to navigate and break, and how hope lights a path even in the darkest of coffee cups. Plenty of (free!) Black Coffee swag will be handed out.

Language is something we humans have to use all the time. But for something so important we tend not to give much thought to how it works, why or what we and our fellow humans are doing with it; and it’s a big, complex mess. Luckily, the award-winning podcast The Allusionist is here to deal with all of that and turn it into light entertainment laced with facts for you to throw into your next awkward small-talk-at-a-party situation.

New for 2019, The Allusionist live special, “No Title” gets stuck into gender in language via medieval werewolves, Ms. Marvel and a boring but life-changing incident in a suburban bank. The Allusionist host and producer Helen Zaltzman brings her witty, effortlessly informative show to the stage with musical support from Martin Austwick. Join them for a fascinating and irreverent adventure into the world we make with words.

Themed storytimes for all ages celebrating autumn and Hispanic Heritage Month!

Join us after hours for this year’s Overnight Readathon! Ever wonder what the books whisper to each other when the store is closed? Support literacy for young readers and students? Want to stay up all night reading? Then join us for our Overnight Readathon on Saturday, October 12 into Sunday, October 13. Tickets for the event are $25 and all of the proceeds will go to support The Porter Square Books Foundation. All attendees will be entered in a raffle to win swell prizes. Most of the night will be spent reading, but we’ll have food and snacks and games and art activities when you need a break.

Enrich your museum visit by listening to an evocative playlist of contemporary poems by Native American authors. Wander freely across the first-floor galleries to see where the poems take you and expand your understanding of Native arts and cultures. The poems, drawn from a powerful recent anthology, New Poets of Native Nations (edited by Heid E. Erdrich; Graywolf Press) celebrate Native poets first published in the twenty-first century. Hear the exhibits “come into voice” and experience the museum in a new way.

Julie Fogliano’s Just In Case You Want to Fly is a gentle, contemplative book about growing up. It’s about parents giving their children the gifts, no matter how quiet or small, to succeed and to navigate the world on their own. And it’s about the connection that binds a parent and child… because no matter how far they fly or who they become, they will always have home. In Susan Cooper’s The Word Pirates, a ravenous band of pirates who eat words for breakfast gobble up the world’s greatest stories. But never fear–the Word Wizard and the children she reads to are on the case!

A mesmerizing, indelible coming-of-age story about a girl in Boston’s tightly-knit Ethiopian community who falls under the spell of a charismatic hustler out to change the world. A haunting story of fatherhood, national identity, and what it means to be an immigrant in America today, Nafkote Tamirat’s The Parking Lot Attendant explores how who we love, the choices we make, and the places we’re from combine to make us who we are.

Bring one to three books in good condition (no textbooks or mass markets, please!) to swap with fellow attendees. Everyone will go home with a new book to add to their shelves. This will operate like a white elephant gift exchange.

Emerson College WLP presents “Writing About Other People: Biographers and Profile Writers Tell All,” featuring Jazmine Hughes, Lance Richardson, Deborah Solomon, and Louisa Thomas.

A reading, discussion, Q&A and signing with Alissa Quart, facilitated by Fairyland author, Alysia Abbott.

Thoughts and Prayers is a beautiful and startling volume of poetry about our political existence. With both humor and luminosity, it gets at the personal and collective emotional experience of American public life, from the 1970s to the 1990s Democrats, through the collapse of the news industry, to the burlesque Trump era.

Join us for stories and songs in English and Spanish and a craft. For children 2-4, with an adult. Acompáñanos para cuentos y canciones en inglés y español. Para niños/as de 2-4, con un adulto.

Harvard Book Store welcomes beloved, bestselling fantasy writer Leigh Bardugo—author of the Shadow and Bone trilogy, Six of Crows duology, and more—for a discussion of her debut adult novel NINTH HOUSE. Attendance to this talk is free and open to the public.

Trident has a wide poetry readership, and we want to hear some of your own pieces! Those interested in reading their poetry will throw their names in a hat, and we’ll draw 10 names to read. Each of the 10 selected poets then gets up to 5 minutes to read their poem(s), and the rest of us in the audience will enthusiastically cheer them on! All are welcome!

Please join us for a reception welcoming the 2019-2020 Associates of the Boston Public Library Writer-in-Residence, Shawnna Thomas, and celebrating outgoing 2018-2019 Writer-in-Residence, Jorge Vega. Both writers will read from their respective manuscripts. A reception with the authors will follow.

Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein when she was only eighteen. At once a Gothic thriller, a passionate romance, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of science, Frankenstein tells the story of committed science student Victor Frankenstein. Obsessed with discovering the cause of generation and life and bestowing animation upon lifeless matter, Frankenstein assembles a human being from stolen body parts but; upon bringing it to life, he recoils in horror at the creature’s hideousness.

For the October meeting we will discuss Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Copies of the book are available at the Borrower Services Desk. New members are welcome.

The Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo was established in 2010 to create a showcase space for artists and writers in the greater-Boston area working in the field of comics. The event is produced by the Boston Comic Arts Foundation and hosted by Lesley University College of Art and Design. Unlike traditional comics shows, which emphasize commerce and memorabilia, MICE puts a focus on the art of making comics. We connect local creators with local audience. We also run a number of workshops for children and adults, as well as panel discussions on the craft and relevance of the comics form. We’ll be featuring several special guest creators, along with an expanded line-up of programming.

Join us for The Gwen Ifill College of Media, Arts, and Humanities annual, public event celebrating Gwen Ifill’s legacy. This year’s discussion topic will be Race, Media, and Democracy.

PodTales, a festival of audio drama and fiction podcasting, is the only event in the United States dedicated to the burgeoning art forms of imaginative audio storytelling. This year, PodTales will hold its first annual festival on October 20, 2019 at Lesley University’s Porter Square campus in Cambridge, MA.

Always wishing you had more time to read? Trying to meet more bookish folks? Then Silent Book Club is perfect for you! Treat yourself once a month to a night of reading and friendship. It’s a great way to practice self-care during the week, meet new people, and find great book recommendations. The book is not assigned; just bring the one you are currently reading and dive in!

The chamber of secrets has been opened, and all kinds of strange happenings are afoot here at the Hogwarts bookstore & cafe. When Colin Creevey was mysteriously killed during an innocent meeting of the dueling club, we knew something had gone seriously, seriously wrong. Help restore order to our hallowed halls by joining us for a dinner and group investigation into this terrible crime. Tickets include a Harry Potter-themed meal as well as an hour of gameplay. *Costumes highly encouraged!*

The Somerville Community Corporation works to keep Somerville equitable, inclusive, and affordable. As part of our 50th Anniversary celebration, we are hosting an event on October 26 inviting community members to imagine Somerville in 50 years. It’s open to anyone – artists, students, teachers, poets, makers, kids – and we’d love to include poems or literary submissions and presentations from local writers and poets!

Join us for a night of trivia about the life, legacy, and empire built around the Boy Who Lived. Bring a team of up to six of your muggle friends and answer questions about the Wizarding World for a chance to win a $35 Trident gift card. Themed prizes for second and third place as well! And even if you don’t win, you can drown you sorrows in a butter beer.

How We Win’s message is urgent: America and its allies can defeat extremism, but not until we significantly shift our approach. We must counter extremism intellectually. Extremists are preying on a rising generation of nearly one billion Muslim millennials and Gen Z who are in the midst of an identity crisis, vulnerable to extremists’ seductive, intolerant, “us” versus “them” ideology, delivered using the latest technologies and real-life peer-suasion. Drones and special forces operations won’t destroy extremism at its root like a grassroots war of ideas will. In How We Win, Farah Pandith reveals emerging data, on-the-ground stories, and proven solutions.