Calendar
Check here for all of the upcoming events at UCPL. If you have questions about any of them, give us a call at 314-727-3150.
Join us online for a special conversation between award-winning journalist Shoshana Walter and bestselling and award-winning author Barbara Kingsolver as they chat about Walter’s book Rehab: An American Scandal. In this work, Walter, a Pulitzer finalist, exposes the country’s failed response to the opioid crisis, and the malfeasance, corruption, and snake oil which blight the drug rehabilitation industry.
Today, more people have access to treatment than ever before. So why isn’t it working? The answer is that in America—where anyone can get addicted—only certain people get a real chance to recover. Despite record numbers of overdose deaths, our default response is still to punish, while rehabs across the United States fail to incorporate scientifically proven strategies and exploit patients.
In this book, you’ll find the stories of four people who represent the failures of the rehab-industrial complex, and the ways our treatment system often prevents recovery. April is a black mom in Philadelphia, who witnessed firsthand how the government’s punitive response to the crack epidemic impeded her mother’s recovery—and then her own. Chris, a young middle-class white man from Louisiana, received more opportunities in his addiction than April, including the chance to go to treatment instead of prison. Yet the only program the judge permitted was one that forced him to perform unpaid back-breaking labor at for-profit companies. Wendy is a mother from a wealthy suburb of Los Angeles, whose son died in a sober living home. She began investigating for-profit treatment programs—yet law enforcement and regulators routinely ignored her warnings, allowing rehab patients to die, again and again. Larry is a surgeon who himself struggled with addiction, and would eventually become one of the first Suboxone prescribers in the nation, drawing the scrutiny of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Join us at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 31 in the UCPL auditorium for an in-person visit from local author Alan Kretchmar, who will discuss his new book, Restoring the Glory: Forest Park from 1986 to 2026.
Coming out just in time for the park’s 150th anniversary this year, the book details the last 40 years of Forest Park as it rose from its run-down condition in the 1980s to a beloved regional destination today.
Alan Kretchmar spent 35 years in St. Louis as a practicing ophthalmologist. As he slowed down in his profession, he began living his dream of world travel, visiting 40 countries on 5 continents. Many of his experiences were on a bicycle with his wife, Karen. These experiences inspired his first book, A Leisurely Ride Across France, which told of the misadventures of two inexperienced, middle-aged travelers as they crossed the French countryside on two wheels.
Since retirement in 2011, Alan has volunteered in Forest Park. He knows the love and admiration the people of St. Louis have for our Forest Park and has seen first-hand the effect our park has on visitors to our city.
This program is intended for adults, but free and open to all. Copies of Restoring the Glory will be available for purchase and signing at the event.
Join us online for an exhilarating journey through the history of US women astronauts with Valerie Neal, emerita curator from the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum and expert on human spaceflight.
Sally Ride became a household name as the first American woman in space, but scores of equally impressive women have also left their mark in space. On a Mission: The Smithsonian History of US Women Astronauts spans 45 years and 61 astronauts to share the epic journeys of women who made space for themselves in a male-dominated field.
Valerie Neal interviewed many of the US women astronauts to bring their experiences to life. She offers a culturally insightful history of their achievements, the challenges they’ve faced, and their distinctive stories. Collectively, they’ve completed more than 100 space shuttle missions, and more than 30 long-duration stays on the International Space Station and Russian Space Station Mir, and they continue to prove themselves in present-day space exploration efforts.
The book includes 50 black-and-white photographs to complement the historical account. With its sweeping look from the first women astronauts to Christina Hammock Koch, assigned to the first crewed Artemis mission around the Moon, there is no comparably thorough book on America’s women astronauts. On a Mission is an inspiring tribute to unsung women’s history.
Register now to take part in this inspirational discussion!
Join us in conversation with acclaimed author Brad Taylor on his latest work, Shadow Strike, book 20 (yes, you read that right!) of the bestselling Pike Logan series.
After its proxies are devastated and its offensive capability pummeled in the latest war in the Middle East, a rogue group of Iranian regime officials create a brazen plot to strike back at their hated enemies once and for all. They envision a series of operational dominos culminating in a devastating attack, and the first step is the assassination of the Israeli prime minister. And there’s only one assassin with the skills to pull it off: Abdul Rahman, known in the shadows as the Ghost.
When a routine prison transfer is ambushed, the Ghost escapes and is given the assignment. The only Operator who can hunt him down is the man who stopped him before: Pike Logan.
Pike and his team soon learn that the mission involves something bigger than just the escape of his old enemy. Working with Mossad agents, the pursuit leads the Taskforce to Argentina. They work to unravel the scope of the attack, and the chase leads them through the tempestuous waterfalls of Iguazu and the Triple Frontier, to the vibrant streets of Buenos Aires, and the tiny village of Ushuaia at the “End of the World.”
As the team races against the clock, Pike learns the stakes are much greater than a single life – the consequences extend into the heartland of America itself. The Ghost may hold the key to an escalation that will upend the worldwide balance of power, and if Pike fails, the fallout won’t just be personal – it’ll be global.
The Friends of University City Public Library will welcome best-selling author Sarah Kendzior to discuss her latest book, The Last American Road Trip. The free program will take place at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 15 in the UCPL auditorium.
The Last American Road Trip is part memoir, part travel adventure, and a prescient and alarming political critique of the decline of America. Written with both anger and deep affection for her beloved country, the book chronicles the trips she, her husband, and their two children took to National Parks and historic sites; along Route 66; and to obscure and weird roadside attractions, like the giant praying hands sculpture in Webb City, Missouri. Beginning in 2016, through the pandemic years, and as the children grew into teenagers, they continued exploring America with a sense of seeing it before it was too late. She has a PhD. in Anthropology from Washington University and lives and works in University City. She will be interviewed by STLPR’s Rod Milam.
This program is intended for adults, but is free and open to all. Refreshments and book signing after the presentation. Book sales courtesy of Subterranean Books.
Join us for an online discussion with Thalia Ho, creator of the award-winning blog Butter and Brioche and author of Wild Sweetness. In her new book, Bittersweet, she explores the five tastes of dessert and beyond.
In Bittersweet: The Five Tastes of Dessert and Beyond, Thalia Ho explores the five tastes and distills their ability to transform desserts into something memorable. Bitter brings deep complexity, sweet tempers and comforts, sour surprises and brings things to life with citrus or tang, salt can offset or enhance, umami is strong and satisfies.
This lyrical and visually stunning cookbook offers more than 100 enthralling dessert recipes. With gripping prose, deep reflection, and hauntingly beautiful photographs, Thalia shares inspired and inventive recipes to elevate what your last bite can be—adventurous, otherworldly, and unforgettable.
Register today and learn how to take your sense of taste to the next level.
Join us in an online conversation with bestselling author Jason Reynolds as we discuss his latest work, Coach, the fifth–and last–entry in the highly popular Track series. Following the immersive stories of Ghost, Lu, Patina, and Sunny, it’s finally time for Coach to shine in his own book as we discover: Who was Coach before he became an inspiring leader?
Before Coach was the man who gave caring yet firm-handed guidance to Ghost, Lu, Patina, and Sunny on the Defenders track team, he was little Otie Brody, who was obsessed with Mr. 9.99 (a.k.a. Carl Lewis) and Marty McFly from Back to the Future. Like Mr. 9.99—and his own dad—Otie is a sprinter. Sprint free or die is practically his motto.
Then his dad, who is always away on business trips, comes home with a pair of Jordans. JORDANS. Fine as fine can be. Otie puts them on and feels like he can leap to the moon…maybe even leap like Mr. 9.99 when he won the Olympic gold medal in the long jump. But one morning he wakes up to find his brand-new secret weapon kicks are missing—right off his feet! And Otie just might have a fuzzy memory of his dad easing them off as Otie was sleeping, but that can’t be right, can it?
Unless all the reasons for his dad’s “gone’s” are very different from what he’s been told… Because now, not only are the Jordans missing, but so is his father.
