Search

This month's book: Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah Reading Interests: The group concentrates on fiction and narrative nonfiction. Some past selections include: Colored Television by Danzy Senna, Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters, and Beautiful Country: A Memoir by Qian Julie Wang. How to get the print book: Copies of the print book are set aside at the Main Library. Visit the Main Library Q&A Desk at 449 Broadway during service hours and a staff member can help you check out a copy. How to get the e-book or digital audiobook: This month’s book is available as an e-book through OverDrive or the Libby app. Registration is not required. For more information, contact Brita (bzitin@cambridgema.gov).

Join the Cambridge Public Library in celebrating the winners and honorees of the 2025 Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards! First presented in 1967, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards celebrate excellence in children’s and young adult literature. The 2025 winners and honorees “represent such a wide range of what books for young people can be and say,” writes Elissa Gershowitz, Editor in Chief of The Horn Book, Inc. “Especially at a time when creative voices are being threatened and silenced, we are proud to recognize children’s book creators whose work is so uniquely their own.” A book signing will follow the Awards Ceremony. Books will be available for purchase on-site. Registration is required.

Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library welcome Ellen Pinsky and Michael Slevin, co-editors of the highly praised essay collection Driven to Write: 45 Writers on the Motives and Mysteries of their Craft. They will be joined for a panel discussion with several of the book's contributors including, Robert Pinsky, award-winning author of over twenty volumes of poetry, Stephen Greenblatt, Harvard professor and author of Dark Renaissance, Ha Jin, the William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor in English and Creative Writing at Boston University, and Sigrid Nunez, National Book Award-winning author of The Friend. This panel will be moderated by Rachel Dillon, poet and the managing editor of Ploughshares. Registration is required.

Join the Collins Branch Library in collaboration with the Cambridge Climate Leaders Initiative for a monthly discussion of a climate-related topic. Each month the group will discuss a book on the topic at hand then hear about a related local program or initiative and how you can take action. Topic: Decarbonizing the Future Book: Electrify: an optimist's playbook for our clean energy future by Saul Griffith This group will meet virtually and in person at the Collins Branch. Please register below if you would like to attend via Zoom. A Zoom link will be sent to all registered participants one hour before the event. For more information contact Jo at jpercell@cambridgema.gov.

The climate is changing, and we're all here on the planet together. Join us for a monthly community gathering and discussion of a variety of books about climate change. We will share thoughts, resources, and occasionally host special guests in a welcoming small-group environment. For our March meeting, we will discuss Human Nature: nine ways to feel about our changing planet by Kate Marvel (this book was originally our January read, but the discussion was cancelled due to weather). Copies of the print book are available at the Main Library Q&A Desk. The e-book and e-audiobook are available immediately on the Hoopla app. Registration is required. Please contact alengel@cambridgema.gov with questions.

This program shows how owls use their specialized powers of sight, hearing and flight to survive and thrive. A wealth of fact and folklore about these masters of the night explains the natural and unnatural history of owls. A variety of live North American owls provides the focus of this presentation. Recommended for children ages 6 and up and their caregivers. Space is limited, and we may not be able to accommodate late arrivals once the program begins. Thank you for understanding! Funding for Summer Reading has been generously provided by the City of Cambridge, Cambridge Public Library Foundation, Friends of the Cambridge Public Library and the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners.

Join the Cambridge Public Library in celebrating our Summer Reading theme—“Plant a seed, read!”—by gathering with us for a reading and talk with author and biologist, David George Haskell, author of How Flowers Made Our World: The Story of Nature's Revolutionaries, published just this past March. The recipient of mutliple starred reviews, How Flowers Made Our World has been described as “a work of real passion” (The New York Times) and “a seamless melding of poetry and science” (Wall Street Journal) and in it, David George Haskell, a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction, argues that flowers “belong at the center of the story of how our world came to be.” Registration is required.

Join us for a demonstration of capoeira, a unique Afro-Brazilian art form combining martial arts, dance, music and acrobatics. Following the performance, children will have the opportunity to learn basic capoeira movements. Recommended for children of all ages and their caregivers. This program will occur in the Cafeteria at King Open. Funding for Summer Reading has been generously provided by the City of Cambridge, Cambridge Public Library Foundation and Friends of the Cambridge Public Library.

This week's selection: Raymond Carver, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," "A Small, Good Thing," and " Cathedral." Reading Interests: We concentrate on Great Books in the following areas: a long novel over the summer, two sections of poetry and short stories, a book of the Bible, a Shakespeare play, an ancient and modern drama, a work of science, a smaller work of fiction, an even smaller work of fiction, and a rotating mix of politics, philosophy, and religion. Authors read in the past five years include Dickens, Keats and Yeats, O'Connor and Munro, Ecclesiastes, Sophocles and August Wilson, Darwin, Austen, Duras, The Federalist Papers, and Arendt. How to get the print book: Copies of the reading are set aside at the Main Library. Visit the Main Library at 449 Broadway during current service hours and a staff member can help you get a copy. How to register: Registration is required. Click the registration link below to register. This is a hybrid event. A Zoom link will be sent to all registered participants 1 hour before the event. For more information, contact Drew Griffin (dgriffin@cambridgema.gov)

This month, we're reading The Sellout by Paul Beatty. Copies will be available for pickup at the Branch. Questions? Contact Theresa (tmitchell@cambridgema.gov).