Author Talks

Your mobile phone is dinging, the coffee pot is overflowing, and you are running late for work (again). THIS IS NOISE! Sometimes it’s blaring, obvious, and in your face. Other times it’s pervasive, sneaky, and barely audible. The moments you can’t seem to shake the nagging feeling you are just not good enough, the “helpful” advice that floods your thoughts with worry, stress, or guilt, waking up feeling more exhausted than the night before. ‘Noise’ is relentless, it can affect everything. Fortunately, we don’t have to be at the mercy of ‘noise.’ Blocking the Noise gives you the tools to identify, understand, and remove the way in which ‘noise’ influences your life. Blocking the Noise is a reset button providing you with the guidance to live a life you truly enjoy rather than one you passively accept. Books will be available for sale/signing.

What connects Dionysus and Spider-Man? In Tony Stark, Odysseus, and the Myths Behind Marvel, Professor of Classics Peter Meineck explores how Marvel’s superheroes draw from ancient Greek mythology. From Captain America and Wolverine to Black Widow and Black Panther, Meineck reveals surprising and insightful connections between modern pop culture and the myths that shaped human storytelling. Entertaining and eye-opening, this talk bridges ancient legends and today’s superheroes. Books will be available for sale and signing.

David Hosack (1769-1835) transformed medicine and surgery, medicinal and agricultural botany, and the intellectual and cultural life of New York City. He knew virtually every major European scientist, and virtually every American Founder – he was the physician who attended both Hamilton and Burr at their duel. Lively and learned, American Eden was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History (2019) and the National Book Award for Nonfiction (2018), among many other awards and prizes. Victoria Johnson is Professor of Urban Policy and Planning at Hunter College in New York City.

Join author Ariel Sullivan and Jenna Bush Hager in conversation on Ariel’s new book Beneath. A copy of the book is included with each ticket. Presented in partnership with Bedford Books. Hundreds of years before the Illum ruled supreme, humanity risked everything to rebuild after a devastating war in this explosive dystopian romance and prequel to Conform. Twenty-three-year-old Sasha Cadell knows time is running out in the underground city, filled with survivors of the nuclear fallout six years ago. She works in the Expansion Sector, trying to escape the memories of those she lost. Her bleak existence is upended when Tristian Hayes, a stunningly handsome, frustratingly determined commander of the Force, recruits her to join him and his elite team of soldiers as they embark on a secret mission to the surface. Sasha is thrust into brutal training with stakes far beyond mere survival. The fate of the remaining humankind depends on their success—or failure. As she confronts her own demons, Sasha finds both allies and foes in the training program, as well as a sizzling attraction between her and Tristian that threatens the walls she’s built around her heart. But under the surface, secrets and deception run as rampant as illnesses. And not everyone will survive the rise of a power more terrifying than anything they’ve ever known.

The second in a trilogy about America’s Constitution, Born Equal follows The Words That Made Us:  America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840; Amar asks us to consider 10 possible meanings of the word “equal.” A widely published and cited Constitutional scholar, Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale and winner of their DeVane Medal for excellence in teaching, he has spoken twice at the John Jay Homestead, about New York and the US Constitution, and in an interview with Albie Sachs, about the Constitution of South Africa.  He is sometimes called a “liberal originalist,” and that is what he calls Lincoln.

The Founders wanted schools to teach students to understand our political system and to engage in reasoned political debate as adults; the Schoolhouse at John Jay Homestead was built for Jay children and also for the children of tenant farmers and farm hands. Historian, journalist and former Friends of John Jay Homestead speaker on his renowned John Quincy Adams: Militant Spirit, Traub spent a year exploring how schools now teach students–or fail to teach them–the essentials of American history and government, as well as how to use that knowledge in respectful, informed debate. Note: the talk will be preceded by a short business section of John Jay Homestead's Annual Meeting.