Last Monday of the Month | McNally Jackson Seaport, 4 Fulton Street | Free
Join the South Street Seaport Museum for a recurring maritime-themed book club! You can find information on upcoming book selections below.
In partnership with McNally Jackson Books—located at 4 Fulton Street, just a few doors down from the Museum entrance—Seaport Museum staff and special guests will stir up lively discussions informed by our shared love of literature, history, and preservation. Our literary selections will be announced one month in advance.
The event is free, and advance registration is encouraged. You don’t have to read the full selection to enjoy the event; everyone is welcome!
July 29, 6:30pm: Remarkable Creatures: A Novel by Tracy Chevalier
Join the Seaport Museum for the July Book Club, where we will discuss Remarkable Creatures: A Novel. This history-inspired novel follows the story of Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot, two extraordinary 19th century fossil hunters who changed the scientific world forever.
Together, we will discuss how the poor and uneducated young girl, based on the real Mary Anning, learned that she has a unique gift to spot ammonites and other fossils no one else could see and went on to make a life-changing discovery. The July selection is from the author of At the Edge of the Orchard and Girl With a Pearl Earring.
We will also compare this novel to the real-life woman who, according to Stephen J. Gould, was “probably the most important unsung (or inadequately sung) collecting force in the history of paleontology.”
Remarkable Creatures: A Novel is available for purchase at most bookstores. Register for the July meeting of the Seaport Museum Book Club today to receive a 10% off discount code for online orders of the book at McNally Jackson Books.
August 26, 6:30pm: The Waterworks by E. L. Doctorow
Sign up today to join the Seaport Museum for the August session of the Seaport Museum Book Club. This month, we will be reading The Waterworks, dubbed “an elegant page-turner of nineteenth-century detective fiction” by The Washington Post Book World.
Independently, we will read this engaging novel set in 1871 Lower Manhattan and come together at the end of the month to share our thoughts. Layer by layer, we will explore how the main characters reveal a modern metropolis surging with primordial urges and sins, where the Tweed Ring operates the city for its own profit and a conspicuously self-satisfied nouveau riche ignores the poverty and squalor that surrounds them. In the author’s skilled hands, The Waterworks becomes, in the words of The New York Times, “a dark moral tale . . . an eloquently troubling evocation of our past.”
Join us for a deep dive into this captivating novel and a lively discussion with fellow book lovers. You don’t have to read the full book to enjoy the book club, all are welcome.
The Waterworks is available for purchase at most bookstores. Register for this meeting of the Seaport Museum Book Club today to receive a 10% off discount code for online orders of the book at McNally Jackson Books.
Enjoy More That the Museum Offers
This event occurs outside of the Seaport Museum’s regular open hours. Access to the Museum’s historical ships and introduction galleries is not included with this free event. To see more that the Museum has to offer, ask Museum staff about our Wednesday–Sunday, 11am–5pm, Pay What You Wish General Admission tickets when you check in.
Pay What You Wish General Admission tickets include access to all current exhibitions on view in the introduction gallery space at 12 Fulton Street and access to the 1885 tall ship Wavertree. Free timed tickets for a tour of the 1908 lightship Ambrose are available separately at no additional cost.
Tickets to sail New York Harbor on the 1885 schooner Pioneer and 1930 tugboat W.O. Decker are available separately and range from $15–$70.
Previous Book Club Picks
April 2024: Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America by Leila Philip
March 2024: The Mad Girls of New York: A Nellie Bly Novel by Maya Rodale
February 2024: Here is New York by E. B. White
January 2024: Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel
November 2023: Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
October 2023: Nothing Else But Miracles by Kate Albus
September 2023: Manhattan Beach: A Novel by Jennifer Egan
June 2023: The Engineer’s Wife: A Novel of the Brooklyn Bridge by Tracey Enerson Wood
March 2023: The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell by Mark Kurlansky
February 2023: Soldier, Sailor, Spy: The Story of a Black American Loyalist by Charles Hoffmire
January 2023: Rats: Observations on the History & Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants by Robert Sullivan
October 2022: Up in the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell
September 2022: Saved at the Seawall: Stories from the September 11 Boat Lift by Jessica DuLong
August 2022: Dactyl Hill Squad by Daniel José Older
July 2022: The Lost Endeavour by John Masefield
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Ready for more?
Head over to our Programs and Events page to see what else is happening at the Museum. Sign up for an upcoming talk, learn more about visiting Wavertree, or explore our virtual offerings.