Manchester Reads 2024 - Manchester-by-the-Sea's yearly community reading celebration. This year we were inspired by the April 8 eclipse and will be reading and holding programming all May focused on space.

Meet one of the authors of our keynote book, A City on Mars: Can we Settle Space, Should we Settle Space, and Have we Really Thought this Through?. Kelly Weinersmith will be discussing her newest book at the annual meeting of the Friends of the Library. Come to meet Kelly, stay to meet the Friends of the library who will provide snacks and beverages. This event will be held at the FPC Community Hall behind Santander Bank. Please register below so we know how much food and drinks to provide.

About Kelly Weinersmith: Dr. Kelly Weinersmith received her PhD in Ecology at the University of California Davis, and is an adjunct faculty member in the BioSciences Department at Rice University. Kelly studies parasites that manipulate the behavior of their hosts, and her research has been featured in The Atlantic, National Geographic, BBC World, Science, and Nature. When she isn’t studying Nature’s creepiest wonders, Kelly is writing books with her husband, Zach Weinersmith (creator of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Comics). Their books, Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Improve and/or Ruin Everything and A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?" are New York Times Bestsellers.

About A City on Mars: Earth is not well. The promise of starting life anew somewhere far, far away—no climate change, no war, no Twitter—beckons, and settling the stars finally seems within our grasp. Or is it? Kelly and Zach Weinersmith set out to write the essential guide to a glorious future of space settlements, but after years of research, they aren’t so sure it’s a good idea. "A City on Mars" investigates perhaps the biggest questions humanity will ever ask itself—whether and how to become multiplanetary.

This program was made possible through the support of the Friends of the MBTS Library. Connect with them on Facebook and Instagram.