Have you ever wondered what happens when a ghetto is unmade? Or what the future of Saudi Arabia means to the rest of the world? Or how overachievers do it? Do you think you know what real New Yorkers look like? Do you want to believe that love can endure across time and space?

Are you interested in what drives a character to commit murder? Are you a fan of Allan Sherman’s comedy? Do you want to be a perfect 21st century balaboosta? Would you like to know who Norman Bel Geddes was and how he saw the future? Are you enthralled by Gene Kelly's footwork or mesmerized by Busby Berkeley's dance extravaganzas? Do you sing "La donna è mobile" in the shower? Do you agree that "there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor?"

If you answered, "Yes," to any of these questions, then we have a program for you this December at the Mid-Manhattan Library!

Please join us for one of our stimulating Author @ the Library talks, where prominent non-fiction authors in many fields discuss their recent work. We also have some lively fiction readings, conversations and multimedia presentations planned, which are listed at the end of the post. Programs take place at 6:30 p.m. on the 6th floor unless otherwise noted. No reservations are required, and all of our programs are free!

Monday, December 2: MacArthur fellow and National Humanities award winner Camilo José Vergara gives a visual talk on Harlem: The Unmaking of a Ghetto, which will include the photographer's own experience of living and working in Harlem.

Tuesday, December 3: Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and editor Karen Elliott House, author of Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines--and Future, looks deeply at the many changes facing Saudi Arabia and reflects on what its future means for the rest of the world.

Wednesday, December 4: Journalist Camille Sweeney and artist and illustrator Josh Gosfield share what they learned from dozens of extraordinary people, including celebrities, businessmen, artists and iconoclastic achievers, in The Art of Doing: How Superachievers Do What They Do and How They Do It So Well.

Thursday, December 5: In Robert Herman:The New Yorkers, street photographer Robert Herman features an astounding collection of photographs of New York City, shot between 1978-2005 on Kodachrome. These photos immortalize the transformation of Soho, Little Italy, Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side and document our ever changing city.

Monday, December 9: In Serenade: A Memoir of Music and Love from Vienna and Prague to Los Angeles - 1927 to World War II to 2012, author, critic and actress Carol Jean Delmar presents an operatic love story and Holocaust memoir about her parents’ immigration from Vienna and Prague to Los Angeles.

Thursday, December 12: Mark Cohen, author of Overweight Sensation: The Life and Comedy of Allan Sherman, offers us an opportunity to hear recordings of some of Sherman’s famous song parodies, as well as some lost gems, when he presents "Allan Sherman: The Hits, the Life, and the Lost Lyrics."

Monday, December 16: Film historian Max Alvarez, whose essay on Shadow of a Doubt appears in the recent collection Thornton Wilder: New Perspectives, analyzes the impact of Wilder's screenplay on the final version of Hitchcock's celebrated film.

Wednesday, December 18: Einat Admony, chef-owner of New York City’s Balaboosta and Taïm restaurants and author of Balaboosta: Bold Mediterranean Recipes to Feed the People You Love, and Leah Koenig, author of The Hadassah Everyday Cookbook: Daily Meals for the Contemporary Jewish Kitchen, explore the connections between food and life stories and discuss what makes a 21st century balaboosta (Yiddish for “perfect housewife.”)

Thursday, December 19: Donald Albrecht, curator of architecture and design at the Museum of the City of New York and author of Norman Bel Geddes Designs America, explores Bel Geddes’s dynamic vision of America’s future, showcasing innovative, streamlined designs for everything from household appliances to airplanes. The exhibition, “I Have Seen the Future: Norman Bel Geddes Designs America," is on view at the Museum of the City of New York through February 10, 2014.

Would you like to read some of the books presented at our author talks? You can find book lists this from year's Author @ the Library programs in the BiblioCommons catalog.

The Friends of Dickens New York are coming to Mid-Manhattan! For fiction lovers we have a panel of Mystery Writers of America discussing the great motivators in crime fiction on Wednesday, December 11. We are also pleased to welcome back the Friends of Dickens New York, who will present dramatic readings from selected Dickens works on Wednesday, December 4 and Wednesday, December 11. The December 4th program features excerpts from The Pickwick Papers, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities and A Christmas Carol. On December 11, the readers will perform A Christmas Carol in its entirety. No humbug here! The Dickens readings will begin at 7 p.m. in the Corner Room on the 1st floor. We also have several readings of classic holiday short stories at Story Time for Grown-ups scheduled in December.

In addition to our nonfiction author talks and other book related programs this month, we are hosting an artist dialogue between Annette Cords, whose work is currently on display on the Art Wall on the third floor, in the Corner Room and in our 5th Avenue windows, and the poet Jeremy Sigler. This program will be held on Saturday, December 7 at 2:30 p.m. in the Corner Room on the first floor. 

We also have some musical programs this month that you might enjoy: 

“All Singing! All Dancing! The Golden Age of Hollywood Musicals” on Monday, December 23: Film scholar Max Alvarez returns and unearths the most electrifying and entertaining musical clips of Hollywood’s golden musical age for us, from the showstopping dances of Kelly and the Nicholas Brothers to the mind-boggling kaleidoscopic visions of choreographer Busby Berkeley. 

"Happy Birthday, Maestro Giuseppe Verdi!" on Monday, December 30. Cesare Civetta, music director of the Beethoven Festival Orchestra in New York City, returns to Mid-Manhattan to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth with a multi-media presentation featuring excerpts from Verdi's operas Nabucco, La Traviata, Rigoletto, Macbeth, Don Carlo, Otello and La Forza del Destino. Buon ascolto!

Here's to a happy and healthy holiday season for all! We hope to see you soon at the Mid-Manhattan Library.