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Harvard Book Store, the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and the Cambridge Public Library welcome Kenneth Roth—former executive director of Human Rights Watch—for a discussion of his new book Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments. Registration is required.

Join Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui to celebrate the winners of the 2026 Cambridge City Nature Art Challenge and view their art on display. We will have food and nature art activities for all ages. This event is presented as a part of the Cambridge Public Library Nature Club.

Participants design, build, test, and play with chain reactions and creative contraptions, like Rube Goldberg Machines, paper constructions, domino towers, exploding popsicle-stick snakes, and other awesome engineering explorations. This event is recommended for children ages 4 and up. 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.

Learn how to restore biodiversity and help slow climate change — while creating a beautiful garden! Join Amy Meltzer as we discuss the following: The current biodiversity crisis The shared evolutionary history among native birds, insects and plants How your support of those relationships are necessary for the species' survival How your garden can support biodiversity How you can help our Cambridge public plantings thrive This is a hybrid event. A Zoom link will be sent to all registered participants 1 hour before the event. The in-person event will take place in the Learning Lab.

This event was rescheduled from May 22 and will now take place on May 28. The new king Charles II sent royal commissioners to New England in 1664 in order to pressure colonists into compliance with his metropolitan agenda. When these royal commissioners tried to claim full authority over local courts and militias, Cambridge inhabitants were among the first to act in defiance. Their grassroots petition campaign drew on the experience of the English civil wars and pointed the way forward to the American Revolution. Adrian Chastain Weimer is a Professor of History at Providence College and is currently a Long-term Fellow at the John Carter Brown Library. She is the author of A Constitutional Culture: New England and the Struggle against Arbitrary Rule in the Restoration Empire (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023) and Martyrs' Mirror: Persecution and Holiness in Early New England (Oxford University Press, 2011).

Join Professors Daniela Melo and Timothy Walker, the co-editors of a new scholarly edition of legendary Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett’s writing on the Portuguese “Carnation” Revolution, in a discussion of this new edition-- published in English for the first-time (Verso Books, UK). Melo and Walker will discuss how Burchett’s reporting sought to demonstrate the power and strength of popular mobilizations during the Revolution, shifting the focus away from political elites toward mobilized citizens. Burchett's analysis on the roles of political elites, economic elites, and mobilization provides rich insights, revealing the types of networks and interactions between these actors, and the roles that narrative, storytelling, and emotions played in the making of the Portuguese Revolution. This event is cosponsored by the Consul General of Portugal in Boston and the Cambridge Public Library. Registration is required.

What happens when mental illness meets homelessness and there’s nowhere to turn? What does healthcare look like when you’re sleeping outside, alone, and invisible? Join NAMI Cambridge/Middlesex and the Cambridge Public Library for an unflinching look at healthcare on the margins as Dr. Jim O’Connell, founding physician and President of Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program (BHCHP) shares stories, insights, and hard truths from a lifetime spent caring for patients—not in pristine clinics but in shelters, on sidewalks, and under bridges. Moderated by Dr. Rich Parker, this one-night event will explore the barriers so many in our community face when mental illness goes untreated, housing is out of reach, and support feels out of sight. Cosponsored by Cambridge Public Library. Registration is required.

Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library welcome Thomas Levenson—professor of science writing at MIT and author of several books, including So Very Small and Einstein in Berlin—for a discussion of his new book, A Pox on Fools: The True Believers, Grifters, and Cynics Who Convinced Us to Reject Vaccines. Registration is required.

Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library welcome Peter Guralnick—Grammy Award-winner for his liner notes for Sam Cooke Live at the Harlem Square Club, and prize-winning author of the two-volume biography of Elvis Presley, Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love—for a discussion of his new book The Colonel and the King: Tom Parker, Elvis Presley, and the Partnership that Rocked the World. He will be joined in conversation by Peter Wolf—Boston-based rock ’n’ roll legend and former front man of the legendary J. Geils Band. Registration is required.

Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library welcome Robert J. Sampson—Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor at Harvard University, Affiliated Research Professor at the American Bar Foundation, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences—for a discussion of his new book Marked by Time: How Social Change Has Transformed Crime and the Life Trajectories of Young Americans. He will be joined in conversation by Robert D. Putnam—Malkin Research Professor of Public Policy, Emeritus at Harvard University and recipient of the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama. Registration is required.