Port Washington’s Friends of the Library (FOL) reports that more than half the seating has already been reserved for its 45th Annual Richard Dodge Whittemore Book & Author Luncheon on Friday May 16, at 11 a.m. at the North Hills Country Club, Manhasset.
The featured speakers will be Delia Ephron, author of Sister Mother Husband Dog (etc.), a book of autobiographical essays about life, love, movies and family. Ephron will be joined by writer Kevin Baker whose historical novel, The Big Crowd, is based on a true unsolved murder in post-World War II New York. Port’s own best-selling novelist Susan Isaacs returns as moderator.
Reservation brochures are available in the Port Washington Library and printable from the FOL website at www.pwpl.org/fol.
The cost of the luncheon is $75. Those interested should respond promptly, a spokeswoman said. For further information call the Port Washington Library’s community relations office at 883-4400, ext. 130; or contact event registrar Tinu Thakore at 767-1142; or FOLBANDA@gmail.com.
“We are proud to present a well-balanced program with authors of fiction and non-fiction, and of course, the participation of Susan Isaacs as moderator makes the luncheon extra special,” said FOL president Amy Bass.
“As our only fundraising event of the year, our Book & Author Luncheon is an opportunity for our community to come together to celebrate and support our library and its friends,” Bass said.
Delia Ephron is a bestselling author and screenwriter. Her movies include The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, You’ve Got Mail, Hanging Up (based on her novel), and Michael. She has written novels for adults and teenagers, books of humor, including How to Eat Like a Child, and essays. Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times, O: The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, More, and The Huffington Post. She collaborated with her sister Nora Ephron on a play, Love, Loss, and What I Wore. Ephron lives and works in New York.
The New York Times described Sister Mother Husband Dog as a “valentine, sometime frilly but more memorably about love, loss and all that is irreplaceable.”
Kevin Baker is the author of the New York-based City of Fire trilogy of historical novels: Dreamland, Paradise Alley, and Strivers Row.
He is also the author or co-author of five other works of fiction, history, and biography. He is a contributing editor at Harper’s Magazine, a frequent contributor to The New York Times, and has written for many other periodicals, including The Washington Post, The New York Observer and Military History.
Baker lives in New York with his wife, Ellen. Booklist said of The Big Crowd that, “Baker takes another juicy bit out of the Big Apple, demonstrating once again that nobody does old New York—in all its glamour and its grit—better.”
The Friends of the Library seeks individual and business sponsors of the luncheon at levels beginning at $250. For more information on becoming a sponsor of this literary event, contact FOL vice president Ellen Zimmerman at ellengzimm@yahoo.com.
