Consider these recommendations for upcoming virtual talks, readings and more in and around New York City:
David Hill: The Vapors
Tuesday, July 7, 7 p.m.
The Strand
Live stream only
www.strandbooks.com
Before there was Vegas there was Hot Springs. Hear some gritty Arkansas history from David Hill, author of the new book The Vapors: A Southern Family, the New York Mob, and the Rise and Fall of Hot Springs, America’s Forgotten Capital of Vice. Hill will be in conversation, relating his three main characters: Cotton Club owner Owney Madden, who resettled in Hot Springs; local boss gambler Dane Harris; and the author’s own grandmother, who worked for Harris at his casino (free).
It Was a Heck of a Year! Green-Wood Residents in 1872
Wednesday, July 8, 5 p.m.
Green-Wood Cemetery
Live stream only
www.green-wood.com
Meet up with the final resting places of many of the luminaries in Bill Greer’s new book, A Dirty Year: Sex, Suffrage, and Scandal in Gilded Age New York, looking at another action-packed era in city life ($5).
Robert J. Shiller: Economics, Narrative, and Pandemics
Thursday, July 9, 7 p.m.
92nd Street Y
Live stream only
www.92y.org
The dismal science has a tendency to favor rational thinking. Unfortunately, if the current pandemic is teaching us anything, it’s that we shouldn’t put too much stock in the horse sense of our fellow humans. Nobel Laureate and Yale economist Robert J. Shiller will explain the way we underestimate the power of stories to affect markets as he presents his latest book, Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events ($20).
For more information about lectures, readings and other intellectually stimulating events throughout NYC, sign up for the weekly Thought Gallery newsletter at thoughtgallery.org.
