Listen Here! -- April 21
2026-04-21 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | The Institute LIbrary, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT, 06510
Short stories read by members of the New Haven Theater Company, with talkback afterwards led by Bennett Lovett-Graff. Tea and cookies available for those who need caloric sustenance and warmth; stories and dialogue takes care of warming heart and soul. This event is free and open to the public; donations to the Institute Library are, however, welcomed.

The Institute Library Goes to Kansas?: A Special Event at the Institute Library
2026-04-09 19:00 - 21:00 | The Institute LIbrary, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT, 06510
A free, open to the public talk about one of the most unlikely-sounding chapters in the history of The Institute Library: the chapter in which a group of members of this place (which was then known as The Young Mens’ Institute Library) decamped for Kansas to do their part to support the abolitionist movement in the developing American Midwest.
A man named Baldwin deeded land in Wabaunsee, Kansas, to the Library. No, really. And then a bunch of Library members went out to settle the land and… yeah. History happened.
Come to the Library on Thursday, April 9th and hear volunteers Frank Cochran and MT Taylor deliver a talk on their findings, which are the result of astonishing research efforts on their part. Scouring archives here in New Haven and in Kansas, Frank and MT made some astounding discoveries.

Listen Here!
2025-11-18 18:30 - 21:00 | The Institute LIbrary, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT, 06510

Outwitted and Outplayed? Inside the 2024 election: A Talk with Chris Whipple, author of Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History
2025-07-15 19:00 - 20:30 | CT
A relaxed conversation with Chris Whipple

Chris Whipple’s new book, “Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History” exposes how ambition, conviction, corruption, and luck drove the most consequential election in modern history. Hear Chris relate never-told-before stories from inside both the Trump and Harris campaigns by way of political heavyweights such as Paul Manafort, Jared and Ivanka Kushner, Kellyanne Conway, Leon Panetta, and Biden chiefs-of-staff Ron Klain and Jeffrey Zients. Chris Whipple is a New York Times bestselling author and widely acclaimed documentary filmmaker, speaker, and Peabody and Emmy Award-winning journalist. A former producer at 60 Minutes, he now contributes to The New York Times and The Washington Post, and has written for Vanity Fair, Politico, and the Daily Beast, among other outlets. He is the author of numerous groundbreaking political books, including “The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency” and “The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House.”
Free for those who are currently members of the Institute Library; non-members $10 (suggested contribution).
Limited Seating, please click here to RSVP or use the QR code below.

Listen Here: Short Stories Read Aloud
2025-06-17 19:00 - 21:00, 2025-05-20 19:00 - 21:00, 2025-04-15 19:00 - 21:00, 2025-03-11 19:00 - 21:00, 2025-02-18 19:00 - 21:00, 2025-01-21 19:00 - 21:00 | The Institute LIbrary, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT, 06510
Storytelling for grownups! Captivating short stories read aloud by actors from the New Haven Theater Company with a talk-back session to follow. Tea and cookies served.
Free and open to the public!

The Charter Oak Pen Club Meets The Institute Library
2025-03-29 13:00 - 15:00 | CT
None of us can have as many virtues as the fountain-pen, or half its cussedness; but we can try.” — Mark Twain.
Join us on Saturday March 29th, from 1 to 3 pm, for a gathering of New England fountain pen lovers. Jonathan Weinberg, artist and curator of the Maurice Sendak Foundation, will lead a discussion and demonstration of the wonders of fountain pens for writing and drawing. Some of his fellow members of the Charter Oak Pen Club will talk about collecting vintage pens and the differences between old and new pens. If you share the fountain pen addiction, you are welcome to bring some of your own favorites. For those new to the world of pen collecting, there will be plenty of advice on how to get started and the opportunity to try out new and old pens. Everyone is welcome!

This Ain’t No Book Club
2025-03-20 17:30 - 19:30 | The Institute LIbrary, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT, 06510
A free, open to the public opportunity for readers who can’t seem to find time to just sit and read. It’s a book club minus the assigned reading, minus the literary peacocking, minus the interpersonal drama. Come sit in one of our chairs, and focus on whatever book you choose — either Bring Your Own Book or pluck one off our shelves! This program is free and open to the public; we do want to remind people who’ve never been here before that the Institute Library can only be reached by walking up a flight of stairs, and the Library is not ADA-compliant. Feel like you need a cup of tea? That can be arranged. Questions: Email the Operations Manager: Eva@InstituteLibrary.org

Spinning Poetry: The Spoken Word
2024-10-23 18:30 - 20:00 | The Institute LIbrary, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT, 06510
We now delve further into the Caedmon catalog for another major modernist poet reading her work, Marianne Moore, and then feature work of John Ashbery (who admired Moore’s work) reading his sometimes moving, sometimes funny, and often challenging poems that benefit from his upstate New York voice and from his droll, understated delivery.
Rounding out the evening are selections from Caedmon’s own “big hits” disc, its Treasury of Modern Poets, including Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Frost, and many other possibilities. We’ll start a little later this time to help people get to the Institute Library’s music listening room from work or other daily responsibilities.

Listen Here!
2024-10-15 18:30 - 20:30 | The Institute LIbrary, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT, 06510
Bennett Lovett-Graff returns to shepherd you through an evening of classic short fiction, read aloud by actors from the New Haven Theater Company. This evening, we will hear two stories by Raymond Carver: “Cathedral” and “Fat”.
This event is free and open to the public, but donations to the Institute Library are deeply appreciated.

Poet Joan Kwon Glass reading from her new collection of poetry, Daughter of Three Gone Kingdoms (Perugia Press, 2024)
2024-09-21 12:00 - 14:00 | The Institute LIbrary, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT, 06510
Doors open at 4:00
Tea/reading concludes by 6:00

Winner of the 2024 Perugia Press Poetry Prize, Daughter of Three Gone Kingdoms explores themes familiar to those who know Kwon’s work: it’s described as part lamentation and part hymn—an illumination of diasporic hungers, hauntings, absence, and resilience. This collection “explores colonialism and “postcolonialism” through disordered eating, suicide loss, religious damage, familial estrangement, addiction, motherhood, and recovery. These poems ask urgent questions: What does it mean to be a mixed-race survivor of generational traumas in a world that often insists on binaries and singular narratives? What role does “hunger” play in navigating life in the diaspora? And, ultimately, what is required to raise an American daughter while forging a path forward?” Joan Kwon Glass, Milford Poet Laureate, is known for her searching, thoughtful earlier works, Night Swim (2023), Pancakes for a Dead Boy (2022), and If Rust Can Grow on the Moon (2022). She is the editor of Harbor Review, and the winner of numerous awards and prizes for her work. This event is free and open to the public.
View event on Facebook.

Spinning Poetry
2024-09-18 13:00 - 15:00 | The Institute LIbrary, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT, 06510
A little chance to relax and think and absorb noted works of poetry as read by its authors. This month, we continue our tour of Caedmon recordings from the 20th century, and visit the 1950s recordings of Pound, Eliot, and Sitwell: Masters of Irony, Collage, and Innovation? Or Complicated Fops and Poseurs? Our tour guide, Phillip Beard, will explore with you and guide you through the high modernist wackiness.

Spinning Poetry: Quality Recordings of Quality Work.
2024-06-12 13:00 - 15:00 | The Institute LIbrary, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT, 06510
Spinning Poetry: Quality Recordings of Quality Work. Mid-20th century, Caedmon Records began to release LP recordings of famous poets reading their own work, giving the listener a special kind of access to poetry by some of the best writers of the time.
At the Institute Library, we’ll be taking some time to delve into these records and give them a chance to speak to us today. Prof. Phillip Beard will be your tour guide; we’ll listen to writers such as Edna St. Vincent Millay, Conrad Aiken, Theodore Roethke, and Wallace Stevens.
This event is free and open to all; $5.00 donation encouraged.
Questions? Email Eva@InstituteLibrary.org.

An Evening of Fashion & Fascism
2024-04-25 14:00 - 16:00 | The Institute LIbrary, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT, 06510
Fashion & Fascism: A Dialogue between Gioia Dliberto, Becky Conekin, and Debby Applegate

Join us at the Institute Library on Thursday, April 25th for a special event indeed, one of the Gallery events held in conjunction with : authors Gioia Diliberto, Becky Conekin, and Debby Applegate will discuss the connections between fashion, and the people who make it, and fascism, and the people who make that happen, with a particular focus on personages of the early 20th century.
This is the kind of hidden history where we think we know what we’re looking at, but the true story is more weird and complex than we can guess at — and what could be better than having learned, eloquent, elegant people discuss such matters?
Gioia Diliberto is the author of several books about noteworthy women in history. Her most recent title, Coco at the Ritz, is a novel about Coco Chanel’s involvement with members of the Nazi party during World War II, and the impact her personal decisions had on her life and work. Becky Conekin, currently teaching at Yale University, is the author of many books on the subject of history and fashion, including works on Lee Miller (Monacelli, 2013) and Vernier (Univ. of Chicago, 2012). Debby Applegate is the author of The Most Famous Man in the World, and more recently, a biography of Polly Adler, Madam (Random House, 2021).
These three women visiting us on the 25th collectively know more about brazen women in the 20th century than most of us can imagine. Come hear their presentations and conversation, and ask questions during the Q&A session to follow. We will be convening in the Music Suite on the third floor of the Institute Library, and this will be an intimate evening: please click to RSVP for seating.
While this event is free and open to the public, there is a $10 suggested donation for this event; we will be so grateful to those who make a gift to the Institute Library online by clicking here or who’ll fling some moolah/spondulicks/dosh/cabbage into a donation box on-site on April 25th.

Use this QR code to purchase Lee Miller in Fashion by Becky Conekin. At check-out, enter promo code PHAIDON20 to get 20% off the retail price of the book.

CHRIS MOLANPHY, Music and Culture Critic, Visits to Discuss New Book about Lil Nas X’s OLD TOWN ROAD
2023-11-17 12:30 - 14:00 | The Institute LIbrary, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT, 06510
Chris Molanphy, columnist for Slate and writer for publications including Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, New York Magazine, NPR Music, and the Village Voice, visits the Institute Library to celebrate the publication of his new book, from the Duke University Press Singles series, about the Lil Nas X song Old Town Road. Critical acclaim from Emily Lordi: “Chris Molanphy provides a (typical for him) master class in understanding ‘Old Town Road’ as well as the interaction between race, the charts, and country music. A fascinating, rigorous, and joyful book.” Copies of Old Town Road will be for sale courtesy of New Haven’s own Possible Futures. This event is free and open to the public.

DAVID OTTENSTEIN and ROBERT LISAK, Connecticut Photographers, discuss their recently published book, CAPITOL AMERICA: A Photographic Portrait of the 50 State Capitols
2023-11-04 12:00 - 14:00 | The Institute LIbrary, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT, 06510
Robert Lisak and David Ottenstein, master photographers, have seen their project of over a decade find fruition now in 2023 with the publication of this glorious collection of photographs. Hear them discuss their work, the process, and the beauty of the state capitols. This event is free and open to the public.

RANDALL BEACH, Local Chronicler of the Hyperlocal, on Connecticut Characters
2023-11-04 09:00 - 11:00 | The Institute LIbrary, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT, 06510
Longtime New Haven journalist Randall Beach visits to talk about his recently published collection of profiles of New Haven area personalities, Connecticut Characters: Rascals and Renegades. Copies of the book, published by Globe Pequot, will be available for purchase. This event is free and open to the public.

Listen Here!
2023-10-10 14:00 - 16:00 | The Institute LIbrary, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT, 06510

Book Launch & Reading: My Search for Meaning, The Myron Stories by Hank Paper
2023-05-06 12:00 - 14:00 | The Institute LIbrary, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT, 06510
Local Luminary Hank Paper visits the Institute Library
Saturday, May 6, 2023 from 4:00-6:00pm
Paper‘s new book, My Search for Meaning, The Myron Stories is a collection of comic short stories.
Whether fighting an interloping bear in his basement, leading his irascible grandmother on a hair-raising tour of Old Jerusalem, or dreaming of alien body snatchers who may or may not be real, Hank Paper’s new book, My Search for Meaning, The Myron Stories, confronts the unexpected contingencies of life with humor, pathos, and, yes, even some speculative meanings for the reader.
Come hear more about Myron’s adventures at a Book Launch & Reading event on Saturday, May 6th. Paper will be reading some of his favorite stories, signing books, and charming the audience with his wit and good humor.
This event is free and open to all. Light refreshments will be served.

Join Writer Calvin Ramsey in our Biography Room
2023-01-28 09:00 - 11:00 | The Institute LIbrary, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT, 06510
Saturday, January 28th, 2023 from 2:00-4:00
Mr. Ramsey will be discussing the subject of his next work, and his writing process.
Light refreshments will be served at this casual event. NO RSVP is required, and this event is free and open to all.
Mr. Ramsey has become a familiar face to many at the Institute Library in the last year or so. While we often chat with him about jazz, and books others have written, we are pleased to give him a venue to speak with you about his latest work-in-progress, a biography of Edward Bouchet.
Edward Alexander Bouchet (1852-1918) was born in New Haven and lived here as a child with his parents and siblings. He is recognized today for being the first Black man to earn a Ph.D from an American university, in Physics; the degree was awarded by Yale University in 1876. Bouchet left New Haven and taught until he stepped down from teaching in 1913 due to poor health. Upon retirement he returned to his hometown, New Haven, and he stayed here until the end of his life in 1918.
Calvin Ramsay turned to writing as a second career and found success writing plays and books for children, among them Ruth and the Green Book (Candlewick Press), which you can purchase at your local bookstore –including Possible Futures, 318 Edgewood Avenue, New Haven CT @ corner of Edgewood & Hotchkiss

Rachel Kauder Nalebuff & Friends: OUR RED BOOK
2022-11-05 09:00 - 11:00 | The Institute LIbrary, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT, 06510
Rachel Nalebuff Kauder comes to celebrate the publication of Our Red Book, a collection of essays, oral histories, and artworks about periods across all stages of life, gathered by the editor of the New York Times bestselling anthology My Little Red Book.

Our Red Book takes us through stories of first periods, last periods, missing periods, and everything about bleeding that people wish they had been told. Weaving together powerful voices—from teenagers, midwives, Indigenous scholars, Olympic athletes, incarcerated writers, disoriented fathers, elected leaders who fought to make period products free, friends transitioning genders, grandmothers, and lovers—the book invites us on a collective journey of growth and change, with Rachel’s own voice as a guide.

Copies of Our Red Book will be available for purchase thanks to New Haven’s newest indie bookstore, Possible Futures.

Readers will include: Nina Bentley, Mindi Englart, Nadia Gaskins, Axel Gay, Somah Haaland, Nina Kauder, Kica Matos, Sofiya Moorem Amira Pierotti, & Piper Zschack!

Spend an Evening with Author Debby Applegate
2022-05-10 14:00 - 16:00 | The Institute LIbrary, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT, 06510
Join us at The Institute Library for an evening with the brilliant and engaging DEBBY APPLEGATE while she discusses her latest book Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age.
TUESDAY, MAY 10, 2022 6:00-8:00 p.m.
Debby Applegate is a historian whose first book, The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher, won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 2007. The book was also a finalist for the Los Angeles Book Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for biography, and was named one of the best books of the year by the New York Times Book Review, NPR’s Fresh Air, the Washington Post, Seattle Times, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle and American Heritage Magazine.
With her second book, Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age, she plunged from ministers to madams, from the world of virtue to the underbelly of vice. Madam was published in November, 2021, to widespread acclaim and was awarded a New York Society Library Book Award for literature that best evoke the spirit of New York City.
Born and raised in Oregon, Debby moved back east to attend Amherst College, where she met her husband, the management writer Bruce Tulgan. She was a Sterling Fellow at Yale University, where she earned her Ph.D. in American Studies, and now lives in New Haven, Connecticut.
RVSP not required for this event, but if you’d like to read more and participate in online dialogue about this upcoming event, please visit our Facebook event page Questions? Email us: Home@InstituteLibrary.org or telephone: 203-562-4045

A Gathering of Poets | Why on This Longest Night Do We Read Poems?
2021-12-21 14:00 - 15:00 | Institute Library via Zoom
Live, in-person poetry reading at the Institute Library, featuring Dan Alter, Lynn Melnick, and Elizabeth Powell.

This event will also be live-streamed via Zoom; please register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYtcemhqDMrG9wiqk6srhGXVYwc5jbx-8Ye

On December 21, the longest night of the year, poets Dan Alter from California, Lynn Melnick from New York City, and Elizabeth Powell from Vermont shall join us at the Institute Library, at 847 Chapel Street, to read poems of theirs that shall explore matters Jewish and otherwise. And perhaps answer this very important question: Why do we read poems on the longest night of the year?

Dan Alter will read selections from his recent poetry collection My Little Book of Exiles from Eyewear Press. A fellow of the Arad Arts Project and a member of the Community of Writers at Olympic Valley, he lives with his wife and daughter in Berkeley and makes his living as an IBEW electrician. His poems and reviews have been published in journals, including Field, Fourteen Hills, Pank, and Zyzzyva.

Lynn Melnick is the author of the poetry collections If I Should Say I Have Hope (2012), Landscape with Sex and Violence (2017), and the forthcoming Refusenik (2022), as well as co-editor of Please Excuse This Poem: 100 Poets for the Next Generation (Viking, 2015). Her memoir, I’ve Had to Think Up a Way to Survive: On Trauma, Persistence, and Dolly Parton, is forthcoming from University of Texas Press’s American Music Series in 2022. Her poetry has appeared in APR, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Poetry, and A Public Space.

Elizabeth Powell, professor of Creative Writing at Northern Vermont University, is the author of three books of poems, most recently Atomizer (2020) and the novel Concerning the Holy Ghost’s Interpretation of J. Crew Catalogues (2019). Some of her more recent poems have appeared in The New Republic, American Poetry Review, and Women’s Review of Books.

Selected titles available for sale from the authors. Masks required for in-person attendance. If you have any questions about this event, please email Bennett_Lovett_Graff@hotmail.com
