A virtual series featuring author talks with Q&A and conversational book club meetups

Discussions will focus on works that explore a sense of place, our built environment, cultural heritage, New York, and other issues that intersect with historic preservation. The aim of Preservation Book Club is to center diverse voices and perspectives as a way to drive dialogue around important issues that have not necessarily been part of traditional preservation conversations.

If having a sign language interpreter present for any of our Book Club programs would facilitate your participation, please let us know at least one week in advance of the particular program: kpeace@preservenys.org

Upcoming Author Talks

Preservation Book Club Author Talk with Alyssa Cole
Thursday, January 16, 2025, 12:00 p.m. | Click here for register for the webinar

Join us to hear from New York Times Bestselling author Alyssa Cole about her recent thrillers, When No One is Watching and One of Us Knows. Following her presentation, Alyssa will be joined in conversation by k. kennedy Whiters, RA, whose initiative Black in Historic Preservation is co-host for this event.

Spiritualism’s Place Author Talk
Wednesday, January 22, 2025, 12:00 p.m. | Click here for register for the webinar | Click here to buy the book

In Spiritualism's Place, four friends and scholars who produce the acclaimed Dig: A History Podcast, share their curiosity and enthusiasm for uncovering stories from the past as they explore the history of Lily Dale. Located in western New York State, the world's largest center for Spiritualism was founded in 1879. Lily Dale has been a home for Spiritualists attempting to make contact with the dead, as well as a gathering place for reformers, a refuge for seekers looking for alternatives to established paths of knowledge, and a target for skeptics.

In this webinar we will be joined by two of the book’s authors, Averill Earls and Elizabeth Garner Masarik.

The Slip: Author Talk with Prudence Peiffer
Tuesday January 28, 2025, 6:00 p.m. | Click here for register for the webinar
Click here to buy the book

Join us on January 28 to hear from author Prudence Peiffer, whose book The Slip: The New York City Street That Changed American Art Forever, details the story of an obscure little street at the lower tip of Manhattan and the remarkable artists who got their start there. An ambitious and singular account of a time, a place, and a group of extraordinary people, The Slip investigates the importance of community, and makes an argument for how we are shaped by it, and how it in turns shapes our work.

Language City: Author Talk with Ross Perlin
Tuesday February 11, 2025, 2:00 p.m. | Click here for register for the webinar
Click here to buy the book

Join us on February 11 to hear from author Ross Perlin, co-director of the Endangered Language Alliance. His book Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York, is a portrait of contemporary New York City through six speakers of little-known and overlooked languages, diving into the incredible history of the most linguistically diverse place ever to have existed on the planet.

Past Picks

• AUTHOR TALK | Stand In My Window: Meditations on Home and How We Make It by LaTonya Yvette

• AUTHOR TALK | A Vanishing New York: Ruins Across the Empire State by John Lazzaro

• AUTHOR TALK | Louise Blanchard Bethune: Every Woman Her Own Architect by Kelly Hayes McAlonie

• AUTHOR TALK | For the Love of Renovating: Tips, Tricks & Inspiration for Creating Your Dream Home by Barry Bordelon and Jordan Slocum

• AUTHOR TALK | The Borscht Belt: Revisiting the Remains of America's Jewish Vacationland by Marisa Scheinfeld

• AUTHOR TALK | Cheap Old Houses: An Unconventional Guide to Loving and Restoring a Forgotten Home by Elizabeth and Ethan Finkelstein

• AUTHOR TALK | Sleeping with the Ancestors: How I Followed the Footprints of Slavery by Joseph McGill Jr. & Herb Frazier

• AUTHOR TALK | America Redux: Visual Stories from Our Dynamic History by Ariel Aberg-Riger (May 2023)

• American Chinatown: A People’s History of Five Neighborhoods by Bonnie Tsui (April 2023)

• Gentrification is Inevitable and Other Lies by Leslie Kern (March 2023)

• AUTHOR TALK | Mid-Century Modernism and the American Body: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Power in Design by Kristina Wilson (February 2023)

• The World We Make by N.K. Jemisin (January 2023)

• AUTHOR TALK | Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange (December 2022)

• Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore by Elizabeth Rush (September 2022)

• Zabar’s: A Family Story, With Recipes by Lori Zabar (August 2022)

• When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole (July 2022)

• The Colossus of New York by Colson Whitehead (June 2022)

• AUTHOR TALK | Historic Real Estate: Market Morality and the Politics of Preservation in the Early United States by Whitney Martinko (May 2022)

• AUTHOR TALK | Olmsted & Yosemite: Civil War, Abolition, and the National Park Idea by Rolf Diamant and Ethan Carr (April 2022)

• Wayward by Dana Spiotta (March 2022)

• AUTHOR TALK | The Sustainers: Being, Building and Doing Good through Activism in the Sacred Spaces of Civil Rights, Human Rights and Social Movements by Catherine Fleming Bruce (February 2022)

• How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith (January 2022)

• Oak Flat: A Fight for Sacred Land in the American West by Lauren Redniss (October 2021)

• AUTHOR TALK | A Queer New York: Geographies of Lesbians, Dykes, and Queers, 1983-2008 by Jen Jack Gieseking (September 2021)

• The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom (August 2021)

• AUTHOR TALK | A Wild Idea: How the Environmental Movement Tamed the Adirondacks by Brad Edmondson (July 2021)

• Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin (June 2021)

• Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer (May 2021)

• Evicted: Poverty & Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond (April 2021)

• Whose Story is This? Old Conflicts, New Chapters by Rebecca Solnit (March 2021)

• AUTHOR TALK | It’s a Helluva Town: Joan K. Davidson, the J. M. Kaplan Fund, and the Fight for a Better New York, by Roberta Brandes Gratz (March 2021)

• The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson (February 2021)

• AUTHOR TALK | The Architecture of Downtown Troy: An Illustrated History by Diana S. Waite (January 2021)

• AUTHOR TALK | Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights by Gretchen Sorin (December 2020)

• The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein (November 2020)

• The Aesthetics of Equity: Notes on Race, Space, Architecture, and Music by Craig L. Wilkins (October 2020)

• The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin (September 2020)

• Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead (August 2020)

Thank you to our sponsor: Peggy N. & Roger G. Gerry Charitable Trust

Continuing Education Credits

We are pleased to offer 1.0 CE credits for architects who attend Author Talks, offered through the New York State Education Department.

Please note: The League does not report to NYSED the way that other credit programs (ex., AIA) would. Certificates of completion are for each architect's individual records and reporting procedures for maintaining licensure.

Currently Reading

Visit our Bookshop.org Page to stock up on all our past picks and recommendations! The League receives an affiliate commission when you shop through this link.

Have a suggestion for a future Preservation Book Club Pick?