LIBRARY SPEAKER SERIES In 2014, the Mt. Lebanon Public Library began its Speaker Series, hosting a bestselling author each year for a talk in the Mellon Middle School auditorium, including Alexander McCall Smith, Joyce Carol Oates, Lisa See, Erik Larson and Colson Whitehead.
The library expanded the series in 2018 to include free author talks throughout the year, and the success of those talks have led to a further tweak.
“Rather than having a single, large event, we’re thinking of having a few bigger authors and a series of local or regional writers,” said librarian Eric Meisberger, who has been working on bringing some of the authors to the library.
In June, Kim Kelly, whose 2022 book Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor was edited for younger readers this year as Fight to Win!, spoke in June, followed in September by Nate Powell, the first cartoonist to receive a National Book Award and Andrew Moore, whose book PawPaw: In Serach of America’s Forgotten Fruit, was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Book Award.
On deck for December are three author events: On December 1, in conjunction with World AIDS Day, poet Silas Maxwell Switzer will read from his chapbook, Nine Parts Water, One Part Bleach, a collection of poems about the AIDS crisis in Allegheny County. The next day, Mt. Lebanon resident and University of Pittsburgh professor Josh Cannon will discuss his book, Fatal Second Helen: A Modern Veteran’s Iliad, based on his experiences in Iraq as a Marine Corps Arabic translator. Tyler McAndrew, a creative writing instructor at the University of Pittsburgh who just published his first short story collection, My Prisoner and Other Stories, will speak on December 4.
Looking ahead to 2026, in January Meisberger is bringing in Pitt professor Shannon Reed, whose collection of essays, Why We Read: On Bookworms, Libraries and Just One More Page Before Lights Out, was a Good Housekeeping Book Selection and an American Library Association pick. More to come. Stay tuned.
NOIR-VEMBER: The Mt. Lebanon Public Library celebrates all things noir all month long with its Noir-vember Film Fest. All screenings begin at 6:30 p.m.
Monday, Nov 3
They Live by Night (1948) Directed by Nicholas Ray in his directorial debut and starring Cathy O’Donnell and Farley Granger.
Wrongly convicted for murder as a teen, Bowie Bowers breaks out of prison with two other inmates, Chickamaw and T-Dub. While hiding out, Bowie meets Chickamaw’s niece, Keechie, and they fall in love. As Bowie gets drawn further into crime, he contemplates running away with Keechie and starting over.
Monday, Nov 10
Touch of Evil (1958) Written, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Cast includes Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh and Marlene Dietrich.
Mexican drug enforcement agent Miguel Vargas suspects American police captain Hank Quinlan of planting evidence in investigating a
car bombing.
Monday, Nov 17
The Asphalt Jungle (1950) Directed and cowritten by John Huston and starring Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern and Marilyn Monroe in one of her earliest roles. Based on the 1949 novel by W.R. Burnett, it tells the story of a jewel heist gone wrong when a stray bullet kills one of the crew.
Monday, Nov 24
The Big Sleep (1946) Directed by Howard Hawks. William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett and Jules Furtham co-wrote the screenplay, which adapts Raymond Chandler’s 1939 novel of the same name. The film stars Humphrey Bogart as private detective Philip Marlowe and Lauren Bacall as Vivian Rutledge in a story that begins with blackmail and leads to multiple murders.
FUN TO SAY, FUN TO DO You can gear up for Jolabokaflod (yo-lah-BOH-khah-flawd), the Icelandic yuletide tradition of giving books as Christmas gifts and then wandering off to read them, on Saturday, November 22, inside and outside the library, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Along with the Friends of Mt. Lebanon Library’s annual holiday book sale, a dozen or more vendors will set up shop outside for a holiday market. Enjoy crafting booths, storytelling for all ages, cookies and hot drinks and live music by Klezlectic, a Klezmer fusion band.