Steven Pinker is an experimental cognitive scientist and one of the world’s foremost writers on language, mind, and human nature. He is Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. His latest book is Enlightenment Now:
The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. His earlier books include The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Better Angels of Our Nature, and The Sense of Style. He is an elected Member of the National Academy of Sciences, and has been named Humanist of the Year, Prospect magazine’s “The World’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals,” Foreign Policy’s “100 Global Thinkers,” and Time magazine’s “The 100 Most Influential People in the World Today.”

Sally Field is a two-time Academy Award and three-time Emmy Award winning actor who has portrayed dozens of iconic roles on both the large and small screens. In 2012, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2015 she was honored by President Obama with the National Medal of Arts. In her intimate memoir, “In Pieces,” she tells her story for the first time, and in her own gorgeous words–about a challenging and lonely childhood, the craft that helped her find her voice, and a powerful emotional legacy that shaped her journey as a daughter and a mother.

At age 52, after selling the company he founded and ran as CEO for 24 years, rebel boutique hotelier Chip Conley was looking at an open horizon in midlife. Then he received a call from the young founders of Airbnb, asking him to help grow their disruptive start-up into a global hospitality giant. He had the industry experience, but Conley was lacking in the digital fluency of his 20-something colleagues. He didn’t write code, or have an Uber or Lyft app on his phone, was twice the age of the average Airbnb employee, and would be reporting to a CEO young enough to be his son. Conley quickly discovered that while he’d been hired as a teacher and mentor, he was also in many ways a student and intern. What emerged is the secret to thriving as a mid-life worker: learning to marry wisdom and experience with curiosity, a beginner’s mind, and a willingness to evolve, all hallmarks of the “Modern Elder.”

Pharrell Williams is a multi-platinum recording artist, 11-time Grammy award recipient and a two-time Academy Award nominee. “A Fish Doesn’t Know It’s Wet” is the second book authored by Pharrell Williams. This definitive volume documents the artistic evolution of one of the biggest superstars of American popular culture. Lavishly illustrated with 250 photographs and illustrations, this book features Pharrell Williams’s prolific and ever-expanding body of work in a graphic language all his own. Straddling art, design, and hip-hop, Pharrell’s creative output is without peer or precedent. By playing off different disciplines—music, fashion, and contemporary art—Pharrell has redefined the role of the contemporary artist, blazing a trail for other musicians and cultural figures.  It is a visual celebration of Pharrell’s career and is complemented by contributions from an elite group of artistic partners and cultural figures.

Tom Hanks is an actor, screenwriter, director and producer.  His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker.  “Uncommon Type” is a collection of seventeen wonderful short stories showing that two-time Academy Award winner Tom Hanks is as talented a writer as he is an actor. 

Michael Connelly discusses his new novel, “Dark Sacred Night.” Connelly is the author of thirty-one previous novels, including New York Times bestsellers “Two Kinds of Truth,” “The Late Show,” and “The Wrong Side of Goodbye.” His books, which include the Harry Bosch series and the Lincoln Lawyer series, have sold more than seventy-four million copies worldwide. Connelly is a former newspaper reporter who has won numerous awards for his journalism and his novels and is the executive producer of Bosch, starring Titus Welliver.

This live event will feature readings, a conversation between Mike D, Ad-Rock and a special guest moderator, plus a Q&A – all with a live score provided by Mix Master Mike. Formed as a New York City hardcore band in 1981, Beastie Boys struck an unlikely path to global hip hop superstardom. The Beastie Boys Book is their story, told for the first time in the words of the band. Adam ADROCK Horovitz and Michael Mike D Diamond offer revealing and very funny accounts of their transition from teenage punks to budding rappers. With a style as distinctive and eclectic as a Beastie Boys album, Beastie Boys Book upends the typical music memoir. Alongside the band narrative you will find rare photos, original illustrations, a cookbook by chef Roy Choi, a graphic novel, a map of Beastie Boys New York, mixtape playlists, pieces by guest contributors, and many more surprises.

In “Carla Hall’s Soul Food,” the beloved chef and television celebrity takes us back to her own Nashville roots to offer a fresh, lip-smackin’ look at America’s favorite comfort cuisine and traces soul food’s history from Africa and the Caribbean to the American South. Carla shows us that soul food is more than barbecue and mac and cheese. Traditionally a plant-based cuisine, everyday soul food is full of veggie goodness that’s just as delicious as cornbread and fried chicken. From Black-Eyed Pea Salad with Hot Sauce Vinaigrette to Tomato Pie with Garlic Bread Crust, the recipes in Carla Hall’s Soul Food deliver her distinctive Southern flavors using farm-fresh ingredients. The results are light, healthy, seasonal dishes with big, satisfying tastes—the mouthwatering soul food everyone will want a taste of.

This event celebrates the publication of Jill’s explosive new book, She Wants It: Desire Power and Toppling the Patriarchy.  Soloway and “She Wants It” are uniquely positioned at the center of the current gender and consent conflagrations to offer new perspectives on dated and damaging “he said/she said” binaries. Jill’s recent transition from identifying as femme, female and straight — to queer, masculine-of-center and non-binary — brings a vital new perspective and radical feminist philosophy to this pivotal moment.

RuPaul produces and hosts the reality competition series RuPaul’s Drag Race, for which he received two Primetime Emmy Awards in 2016 and 2017. He also hosts the podcast RuPaul: What’s The Tee? with Michelle Visage. His book, “GuRu” is a timeless collection of philosophies from renaissance performer and the world’s most famous shape-shifter, whose sage outlook has created an unprecedented career for more than thirty-five years. With a foreword from Jane Fonda, GuRu is packed with more than 80 beautiful photographs that illustrate the concept of building the life you want from the outside in and the inside out.