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Hartford Library Celebration Launching ‘Hartford Through Time’

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A free celebration at the Hartford Public Library will launch “Hartford Through Time” ($22.95), a book published by the library’s Hartford History Center. The launch party will be held Wednesday, Dec. 3 at 5:30 p.m. at the Center, 500 Main St., Hartford.

The book offers street scenes of early 20th-century Hartford, made from glass plate negatives in the center’s collection, and matching contemporary color photographs by Hartford News editor Andy Hart. Hartford historian Wilson H. Faude provided captions. Proceeds from book sales will benefit center programs and events. Information: 860-695-6297.

Finding Ourselves in Biblical Narratives

Rabbi Stephen Fuchs, formerly senior rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel in West Hartford, a leader of Interfaith Fellowship for Universal Health Care and a past president of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, will give a free talk Thursday, Dec. 4, at 7 p.m., at Charter Oak Cultural Center, 21 Charter Oak Ave., Hartford. He will discuss his new book, “What’s In It for Me: Finding Ourselves in Biblical Narratives” (ECKO Publishing, $17.95). Information: www.charteroakcenter.org or 860-310-2580.

WordForge Reading Series

Poets Doug Anderson and Leslie McGrath will read at a free WordForge Reading Series program on Monday, Dec. 1, at 7 p.m., followed by an open mike at The Studio @ Billings Forge, 563 Broad St., Hartford.

Anderson’s collections include “The Moon Reflected Fire” and “Blues for Unemployed Secret Police.” He has taught at Smith College, Emerson College and Joiner Center for the Study of War and Its Social Consequences at UMASS Boston. His latest collection, “Horse Medicine,” is forthcoming.

Leslie McGrath won the 2004 Pablo Neruda Prize for poetry and published the collection “Opulent Hunger, Opulent Rage.” Her satiric novella in verse, “Out From the Pleiades,” is forthcoming. McGrath teaches creative writing and literature at Central Connecticut State University. Information: 860-508-2810 or wfreadings.blogspot.com.

Writing at Wesleyan

Poet Thomas Sayers Ellis and novelist Hirsh Sawhney will give a free talk at Wesleyan University’s Russell House Series, held at 350 High St., Middletown, on Wednesday, Dec. 3, at 8 p.m.

Ellis is award-winning author of several collections and a chapbook whose poems and photographs have appeared in Callaloo, Grand Street, Tin House, Poetry and The Nation. Sawhney is the author of the forthcoming novel “South Haven” and a regular contributor to The Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian, and The New York Times Book Review.

Both have been published widely in journals and anthologies and are visiting assistant professors of English at Wesleyan. Information: 860-685-3448 or www.wesleyan.edu/writingevents.

Songfest and Poetry Evening

A free holiday program featuring Christian, Jewish and Muslim poetry and song will be held Tuesday, Dec. 2, at 7:30 p.m., in Mali II Auditorium at the University of Hartford, 200 Bloomfield Ave., West Hartford. A reception in the Museum of Jewish Civilization will follow.

Poet Joan Seliger Sidney will read from her new collection. “Bereft and Blessed” (Antrim House, $18) and other work. Sidney is writer-in-residence at the University of Connecticut’s Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life.

David Hoff will read recent poems by his mother, Muriel Hoff, and the Greenberg Center, which sponsors an annual poetry completion, will announce the 2015 Muriel Hoff American Jewish Poetry prize theme.

The program will include liturgical singing and readings of Arabic poetry and the Quran by university student Faris Alshammari; the singing of traditional Jewish liturgy and songs by Cantor Sandford Cohn of Emanuel Congregation, West Hartford and the “Hillelites,” with Hartt School student Jacob Greenberg and students Kokhva Krieger and Adara Brookler; and the singing of “Hosana” and a Christmas worship medley by the Rehobot Church of God singers from Bloomfield and their director, K. Stephen Wilson.

Reservations are required: 860-768-5018 or mgcjs@hartford.edu.

Authors At R.J. Julia

Former President Jimmy Carter will sign copies of his new book, “A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence and Power” (Simon & Schuster, $28) on Tuesday, Dec. 2 at 4:30 p.m., at the New Haven Lawn Club, 193 Whitney Ave., New Haven, an event hosted by R.J. Julia Booksellers, of Madison. Carter’s book says that worldwide discrimination and violence against women and girls is the most serious and ignored violation of basic human rights and must be fought. Tickets are $28 plus tax and include a copy of the book and admission to the signing line. No tickets will be sold online, and no memorabilia will be permitted at the event. To check ticket availability, call the bookstore at 203-245-3959.

On Saturday, Dec. 6, at 7 p.m., at the bookstore, 768 Boston Post Road., Madison, Dana Cowin, author of “Mistakes in the Kitchen: Learning to Cook with 65 Great Chefs and Over 100 Delicious Recipes” (Ecco, $34.99) and special guest Jacques Pépin will give a free talk. The book describes how Cowin, an inept cook but a fine cookbook author and Food & Wine’s editor-in-chief, learned techniques from famous chefs. Reservations required: 203-245-3959 or www.rjjulia.com.

Wood At Westminster

Author, journalist and playwright Monica Wood will give a free reading at Westminster School, 995 Hopmeadow St., Simsbury, on Friday, Dec. 5, at 7 p.m. in Armour Academic Center.

Wood’s “When We Were the Kennedys: A Memoir from Mexico, Maine,” was a New England best-seller and winner of the May Sarton Memoir Award and the Maine Literary Award. She is also the author of the novels “Any Bitter Thing,” “My Only Story,” “Secret Language” and “Ernie’s Ark.” Her next novel “The Wakening World,” will be published in 2016.

Seniors Hadley Smith, Megan Richard and Aaron Poston will be the student readers. Information: 860-408-3053.

O’Brien In Tolland

Young adult author Caragh M. O’Brien, creator of the “Birthmarked” series, will give a free talk at Tolland Town Hall, 21 Tolland Green, on Saturday, Dec. 6, at 11 a.m., as part of the Eaton-Dimock-King Authors Series.

O’Brien lives in Mansfield and was an English teacher at Tolland High School. Sinister doings and hidden secrets at a prestigious arts school where student’s lives are televised make up the plot of O’Brien’s latest novel, “The Vault of Dreamers” (Roaring Brook Press, $17.99). Her “Birthmarked” trilogy is a series of dystopian novels. Registration: Tolland Public Library, 860-871-3620.

Authors At Avon Library

Avon Public Library, 281 Country Club Road, Avon, will present several free author talks.

On Tuesday, Dec. 2,at 7 p.m., Philip A. Goduti, Jr., a writer, history teacher at Quinnipiac University and Somers High School, and Kennedy family expert will discuss Kennedy and civil rights. His books include “Kennedy’s Kitchen Cabinet and the Pursuit of Peace: The Shaping of American Foreign Policy, 1961-1963” and “Robert F. Kennedy and the Shaping of Civil Rights, 1960-1964.”

On Saturday, Dec. 6, at 1 p.m., State Sen. Donald E. Williams, Jr., author of “Prudence Crandall’s Legacy: The Fight for Equality in the 1830s, Dred Scott, and Brown v. Board of Education” (Wesleyan University Press, $35), will speak. Crandall was the 19th century Canterbury teacher and early proponent of civil rights who integrated her school for girls, was jailed and became a national figure in the fight against slavery.

Also on Saturday, Dec. 6, at 3:30 p.m., Billy Mitchell will discuss the history of the Apollo Theater in Harlem, N.Y., where he began as an errand boy, met many great entertainers and became one of the people who run the famous theater. He is the author of the self-published memoir, “They Call Me Mr. Apollo” (Blurb, $20). Information: 860-673-9712.

Connecticut And Slavery

Anne Farrow, a scholar of Connecticut’s history of slave trading and a former Courant reporter and editor, will give a free talk about her new book on the connection between a famous Connecticut family and the slave trade on Thursday, Dec. 4, at 7 p.m. at Congregation Adath Israel, 8 Broad St., Middletown. The program is sponsored by the Middlesex County Historical Society

“The Logbooks: Connecticut’s Slave Ships and Human Memory” (Wesleyan, $27.95) traces the life of the logbooks’ author, Dudley Saltonstall, a controversial figure in Connecticut history who was the brother-in-law of Wethersfield’s Silas Deane. The book also explores how history and memory are connected, insights acquired through the experience of coping with Farrow’s mother’s Alzheimer’s disease. Information: 860-346-0746.

More Cool Justice

Connecticut author, journalist and Freedom of Information advocate Andy Thibault will be joined by Bonnie Foreshaw, who was freed from prison after being unjustly convicted and serving more than 27 years for a murder she did not commit, to discuss his book, “More Cool Justice” (Icebox, $20), at a forum on Tuesday, Dec. 2, at 11 a.m.with students and faculty in the Gateway Community College Library and Learning Commons, 20 Church St., New Haven.

Copies of “More Cool Justice” will be available for $15 at the event. Information: 203-285-2065.

“Wishin’ And Hopin”

Author Wally Lamb, whose best-selling 2010 comic Christmas novel, “Wishin’ and Hopin,’ has become a film starring Molly Ringwald, Annabella Sciorra, Meat Loaf, Conchata Ferrell, Cheri Oteri and Chevy Chase, will be at Southern Connecticut State University’s Lyman Center, 501 Crescent St., New Haven, on Thursday, Dec. 4 at 7 p.m. for a special screening with its producer, Andrew Gernhard and its screenwriter, John Doolan, both alumni of SCSU.

The heart-warming and hilarious story is set in 1964 at a parochial school in the fictional Connecticut town of Three Rivers, where Felix Funicello, a fifth-grader, is a distant relative of famous Mouseketeer Annette Funicello.

Lamb is a New York Times best-selling author of “She’s Come Undone,” “I Know This Much is True,” “The Hour I First Believed,” and “We Are Water.”

Tickets: $10 adults; $5 children 16 and under; $25 for premium seating, an autographed book and a post-show meeting with Lamb. Proceeds will benefit the SCSU Scholarship Fund.

Information and tickets: 203-392-6154 or tickets.southernct.edu.