Should we worry about a Medicare Meltdown? Is a newly identified autoimmune disease responsible for instances of demonic possession recorded in the past? What is the Secret History of Coffee, Coca & Cola? How can we best care for aging parents (and ourselves)? How has "tinkering" made America great? What is it like to grow up as the child of concentration camp survivors? What is an extreme desert? What dangers lurk behind the scenes at large food companies? How do food trucks contribute to life in NYC? How many different faces has Manhattan's SoHo worn? What's the true story behind the prices we pay and what are those prices telling us? What do you know about ancient Nubia? How is the story of the Cooper-Hewitt Dynasty a quintessential New York story?

Have any of these questions piqued your curiosity? Then we invite you to join us at the Mid-Manhattan Library to hear noted non-fiction authors discuss these topics during the month of June and to reserve copies of their books using the links to the catalog included below. Author talks take place at 6:30 p.m. on the sixth floor. No reservations are required.

Tuesday, June 4, Rosemary Gibson, author of Medicare Meltdown: How Wall Street and Washington are Ruining Medicare and How to Stop It, explores how Medicare works, how it could work better, and where it will go if reforms are not made.

Wednesday, June 5, journalist Susannah Cahalan, author of Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness, will be in conversation with Dr. Souhel Najjar of NYU Langone Medical Center, who saved her by diagnosing her autoimmune disease.

Thursday, June 6, artist, writer and publisher Ricardo Cortés reveals A Secret History of Coffee, Coca & Cola in an illustrated lecture.

Monday, June 10, former New York Times reporter Jane Gross, author of A Bittersweet Season: Caring for Our Aging Parents – and Ourselves, shares the story of her own struggle to learn how to care for her aging and ailing mother and offers helpful insights and, often surprising, advice.

Wednesday, June 12, Alec Foege, author of The Tinkerers: The Amateurs, DIYers, and Inventors Who Make America Great, offers a tribute to America's innovators and traces the nation's history through its feats of engineering in an illustrated lecture.

Thursday, June 13, playwright and essayist Sonia Taitz, author of The Watchmaker’s Daughter: A Memoir, describes her life as the American child of Yiddish-speaking, Orthodox, European concentration camp survivors.

Monday, June 17, celebrated photographer George Steinmetz gives an illustrated presentation exploring the world's “extreme deserts,” which receive less than four inches of precipitation per year. His recent book, Desert Air, is the first comprehensive photographic collection of the world's deserts.

Tuesday, June 18, freelance writer and editorial cartoonist Martha Rosenberg exposes the dangers lurking behind the scenes at large food companies in Born with a Junk Food Deficiency: How Flaks, Quacks, and Hacks Pimp the Public Health.

Wednesday, June 19, David Weber, founder and President of the NYC Food Truck Association (NYCFTA) and author of The Food Truck Handbook: Start, Grow, and Succeed in the Mobile Food Business, gives an illustrated lecture on New York City food trucks, which offer more to the city than a quick place to grab a snack.

Monday, June 24, Alfred Pommer and Eleanor WInter, authors of Exploring New York’s Soho, reveal the trendy Manhattan neighborhood’s fascinating history and describe its urban decline, which includes a period as an infamous red light district, and regeneration.

Tuesday, June 25, New York Times columnist Eduardo Porter takes us on a global adventure, explaining The Price of Everything: Solving the Mystery of Why We Pay What We Do.

Wednesday, June 26 New York Times photographer Chester Higgins, Jr. takes us to Ancient Nubia: African Kingdoms on the Nile with an illustrated lecture that attempts to document recent discoveries about ancient Nubia.

Thursday, June 27 fashion historian Polly Guérin, author of The Cooper-Hewitt Dynasty of New York, showcases the lives of Peter Cooper, Abram Hewitt and their kin as a quintessentially New York story of family, philanthropy and legacy in an illustrated lecture.

Those are all the Author @ the Library programs we've got for June. Find lists of non-fiction books by authors speaking at the Mid-Manhattan Library in the BiblioCommons catalog:

• Author @ the Library, June 2013
• Author @ the Library, May 2013
• Author @ the Library, April 2013
• Author @ the Library, March 2013
• Author @ the Library, February 2013
• Author @ the Library, January 2013

The Author @ the Library lists include only authors discussing their recent non-fiction books at the Mid-Manhattan Library. We have some other interesting readings, talks and discussions on our June calendar. On Monday, June 17, we are hosting a meeting of the European Book Club to discuss The Attic by Serbian writer Danilo Kiš, and on Friday, June 21, Lesléa Newman, author of many books for children, teens and adults, will speak about her verse novel, October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard, a 2013 Stonewall Honor book. Our schedule also includes regular art lectures and discussions and short story readings at our Story Time for Grown-ups programs. We hope to see you @ the Library this summer!