Are you interested in the history of free-market health care, classic DC comics, the story of an American bride in Kabul in 1961, or an American divorcee in 21st century Qatar, the pleasures of English gardens, rising Islamophobia, tales from 1940s post-war Germany, creating fashion portfolios, the life of early 20th century mover and shaker Mabel Dodge Luhan, GMO foods, new visions for urban life, or secular humanism?

If so, then we’ve got an Author @ the Library program for you coming up at the Mid-Manhattan Library!  Please join us in October to hear these distinguished nonfiction authors discuss their work and answer your questions. Author talks take place at 6:30 p.m. on the 6th floor of the Library unless otherwise noted. You can also request the authors' books using the links to the catalog included below.

Wednesday, October 1: How were four key sectors of the healthcare industry - pharmaceuticals, hospitals, the medical profession, and private insurance - built up by the federal government? Healthcare and public health policy expert Robert Field discusses Mother of Invention: How the Government Created 'Free-Market' Health Care.

Thursday, October 2:  The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, and Batman! How did DC Comics revive superheroes in the 1950s? Paul Levitz, past editor/publisher of The Comic Reader, describes The Silver Age of DC Comics.

Tuesday, October 7: How did a pioneering American feminist and human rights activist’s experience as an Afghan man’s wife shape her? Best-selling author, feminist leader, psychotherapist,  and CUNY professor Phyllis Chesler shares her compelling memoir An American Bride in Kabul.

Wednesday, October 8: What can you learn about yourself while navigating the societal expectations of another culture? Journalist Lisa L. Kirchner shares tale of being lost and found in  Hello American Lady Creature: What I Learned as a Woman in Qatar.

Tuesday, October 14: How did the English garden become the look of America? Professor Thomas J. Mickey explains the commercial and aesthetic forces that created America's Romance with the English Garden.

Thursday, October 16: How well are counter-radicalization strategies working in the in the US and the UK?  Arun Kundnani  of New York University and John Jay College  offers a comprehensive critique in The Muslims are Coming! Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror.

Monday, October 20: What stories are to be told of Germany in the aftermath of World War II? Werner Sollors of Harvard University describes the contradictory emotions of a defeated people and the ambiguities of Allied victory and occupation in The Temptation of Despair: Tales of the 1940s.

Tuesday, October 21: Need some help with fashion illustration, art media, fashion design history, forecasting, fashion styles, or design approaches? Anna Kiper, author of Fashion Illustration: Inspiration and Technique and Fashion Portfolio: Design & Presentation, shares her expertise.

Thursday, October 23: How do one early 20th century woman’s struggles with identity, sexuality, and manic depression speak to the lives of many women of her era?  Lois Palken Rudnick of the University of Massachusetts, Boston reveals The Suppressed Memoirs of Mabel Dodge Luhan: Sex, Syphilis, and Psychoanalysis in the Making of Modern American Culture.

Monday, October 27:  What do we know about the long-term effects of genetically modified foods on human health and ecology and do we need to be concerned about them? Dr. Sheldon Krimsky of Tufts University, author of The GMO Deception: What You Need to Know about the Food, Corporations, and Government Agencies Putting Our Families and Our Environment at Risk, examines these questions.

Tuesday, October 28:  How have the city and its citizens begun to incorporate the urban archipelago ecology into plans for a livable and sustainable future? May Joseph of the Pratt Institute shows us Fluid New York: Cosmopolitan Urbanism and the Green Imagination.

Wednesday, October 29: Can our cities be the force that will lead us into a new era of progressive and prosperous stewardship of our nation? Vishaan Chakrabart of Columbia University and SHoP Architects makes a case for A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for an Urban America.

Thursday, October 30: How might anyone live a fulfilling life without the support of religious beliefs? Philip Kitcher of Columbia University presents Life After Faith: The Case for Secular Humanism.

If you'd like to read any of the books presented at our past author talks, you can find book lists from our January 2013 - October 2014 Author @ the Library programs in the BiblioCommons catalog.

The Author @ the Library posts include authors discussing their recent non-fiction works at the Mid-Manhattan Library. Don't miss the many other interesting classes, films, readings and talks on our program calendar. Enjoy art lectures and artist conversations, monthly panel discussions featuring authors from the Mystery Writers of America, New York Chapter, and short story readings at Story Time for Grown-ups. And did I mention that all of our programs and classes are free?