Tickets on Sale Now for Library Fundraiser: Big Name Authors Gather for NRPL Foundation’s CelebriTea

Stimulating conversation with noted authors over a sumptuous buffet of savories and sweets – it’s the return of the “CelebriTea,” the New Rochelle Public Library Foundation fundraiser.

This year’s CelebriTea will take place on Sunday, November 14th at 3:30 pm in the New Rochelle Public Library’s newly refurbished lobby, a project underwritten by the NRPLF. The featured writers will be New York Times editor Joseph Berger, author of The World in a City: Traveling the Globe Through the Neighborhoods of the New New York, and Jonathan Tropper, author of Everything Changes: A Novel, How to Talk to a Widower: A Novel (Bantam Discovery) and This Is Where I Leave You (currently being made into a motion picture).

The moderator will be Nicholas Lemann, Dean of the Columbia School of Journalism and himself a frequent contributor to The New Yorker. Special guest Arlen Gargagliano, author of the cocktail and appetizer books Mambo Mixers: Recipes for 50 Luscious Latin Cocktails and 20 Tantalizing Tapas
and Calypso Coolers: Recipes for 50 Caribbean Cocktails and 20 Tropical Treats
, will also be providing a taste of something special.

Tickets cost $85 (with premium tickets for $125 and VIP tickets with reserved seating for $250) and are available by calling the New Rochelle Public Library Foundation office at 813-3726 or emailing NRPLF@yahoo.com. Space is limited so early reservations are encouraged. The New Rochelle Public Library Foundation will use the CelebriTea to unveil the lobby “refresh” that has taken place over the last few months: The NRPLF paid for design services as well as new carpeting, paint and lighting in both the lobby and the adjacent community room.

“The lobby refresh was long overdue,” noted NRPLF co-president Leslie Demus, “and we are pleased to have contributed to a more welcoming and efficient lobby with an improved traffic flow.”

Fund raised by the CelebriTea will help support continuing improvements. As part of the lobby refresh the NRPLF worked with the New Rochelle Council on the Arts to invite local artists to create banners to be hung in the lobby. The winning designs were submitted by Dale Zheutlin, and the fabric banners created from her designs will be on view at the CelebriTea. Co-chairs of the CelebriTea event are Leslie Demus and Judith Factor; the committee for the event includes NRPLF members Lynn Green, Alisa Teddy Kesten, Theresa Kump Leghorn, and Haina Just-Michael.

The New Rochelle Public Library Foundation, a volunteer fundraising and advocacy organization, undertakes varied activities to ensure the future well being of the library and provides support for initiatives that enhance opportunities for learning, exploration and public discourse.

About the Authors

Joseph Berger has been a New York Times reporter, columnist, and editor for a quarter century, writing about education, religion, and the vivid kaleidoscope that is New York City as well chronicling many of the events that have shaken Israel and the Middle East. He is the author of three books, the latest, The World in a City: Traveling the Globe Through the Neighborhoods of the New New York, an intimate insider’s tour of a New York City transformed by immigration, gentrification and other forces. His previous book, Displaced Persons: Growing Up American After the Holocaust, is a memoir about his family’s experience as refugees in New York in the 1950s and 1960s and was chosen as a notable book of the year by The New York Times. His first book was The Young Scientists: America’s Future and the Winning of the Westinghouse an upbeat portrait of America’s best schools and the way they educate the nation’s most scientifically talented youngsters. The book inspired many high schools to launch programs that train students to do research, not just learn basic science.

Jonathan Tropper is the author of Everything Changes: A Novel, How to Talk to a Widower: A Novel (Bantam Discovery) and This Is Where I Leave You, The Book of Joe: A Novel, and Plan B. He lives with his family in Westchester, New York, where he teaches writing at Manhattanville College. Four of his five books have been optioned for films; he is currently adapting This Is Where I Leave You as a feature film for Warner Brothers Studios.

Nicholas Lemann was born, raised and educated in New Orleans. He began his journalism career as a 17-year-old writer for an alternative weekly newspaper there, the Vieux Carre Courier. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1976, where he concentrated in American history and literature and was president of the Harvard Crimson. After graduation, he worked at The Washington Monthly, as an associate editor and then managing editor; at Texas Monthly, as an associate editor and then executive editor; at The Washington Post, as a member of the national staff; at The Atlantic Monthly, as national correspondent; and at The New Yorker, as staff writer and then Washington correspondent. In 2003 he became dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. During Lemann’s time as dean, the Journalism School has launched significant new initiatives in investigative reporting, digital journalism, executive leadership for news organizations, and other areas. Lemann continues to contribute to The New Yorker as a staff writer. He has published five books, most recently Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War (2006); The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy (1999), which helped lead to a major reform of the SAT; and The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America (1991), which won several prizes. He has written widely for such publications as The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The New Republic, and Slate; worked in documentary television (Frontline, the Discovery Channel, and the BBC); and lectured at many universities. He was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in April, 2010.