Last Monday of the Month | 6:30pm | McNally Jackson | Free
Join the South Street Seaport Museum for a maritime-themed book club that meets monthly!
Presented in partnership with McNally Jackson Books, located at 4 Fulton Street, just a few doors down from the Seaport Museum, our literary selections will be announced one month in advance. Seaport Museum staff and special guests will stir up lively discussions on the last Monday of each month, informed by our shared love of literature, history, and preservation.
The event is FREE, and advance registration is encouraged.
January 2023: Rats: Observations on the History & Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants by Robert Sullivan
This month, Robert Sullivan’s New York Times bestseller, Rats: Observations on the History & Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants, gives us a rat’s-eye-view of Manhattan. In this book, Sullivan manages to turn the lowly rat into the star of this most intriguing and unexpectedly elegant publication.
Love them or loathe them, rats are here to stay-they are city dwellers as much as (or more than) we are, surviving on the effluvia of our society. After a year investigating a rat-infested alley just a few blocks away from Wall Street, Sullivan gets to know not just the beast but its friends and foes: the exterminators, the sanitation workers, the agitators and activists who have played their part in the centuries-old war between human city dweller and wild city rat.
Sullivan looks deep into the largely unrecorded history of the city and its masses-its herds-of-rats-like mob. Funny, wise, sometimes disgusting but always compulsively readable, Rats earns its unlikely place alongside the great classics of nature writing.
Rats: Observations on the History & Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants is available for purchase at most bookstores. Register for the January meeting of the Seaport Museum Book Club today to receive a 10% off discount code for online orders of Rats at McNally Jackson Books.
February 2023: Soldier, Sailor, Spy: The Story of a Black American Loyalist by Charles Hoffmire
The Book Club caps Black History Month with Charles Hoffmire’s riveting publication Soldier, Sailor, Spy: The Story of a Black American Loyalist. This book is based on the unbelievable true story of Benjamin Whitecuff, a free Black farmer from Long Island who became an American spy in the British Army in 1776. Together, we’ll be captivated by the many twists, turns, and espionage missions that led to Whitecuff being rescued by a British privateer and joining the British Navy before retiring in 1783.
Soldier, Sailor, Spy: The Story of a Black American Loyalist is available for purchase at most bookstores. Register for the February meeting of the Seaport Museum Book Club today to receive a 10% off discount code for online orders of the book McNally Jackson Books.
Previous Book Club Picks
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
Collections Chronicles
Check out our bi-monthly blog where our collections team takes you behind the scenes and shares some of their work, inspiration, and more while highlighting hidden gems of history, the seaport, and our collection