Ongoing | Free
Join the South Street Seaport Museum for the recurring maritime-themed book club! Seaport Museum staff and special guests will stir up lively discussions informed by our shared love of literature, history, and preservation. Literary selections will be announced at least one month in advance. You can find information on upcoming book selections below.
The event is free. Preregistration is encouraged. You don’t have to read the full selection to enjoy the event; everyone is welcome!
March 29, 12pm: The Last Pirate of New York by Rich Cohen
In March, the Book Club will dive into the story of the handsome and charismatic Albert Hicks, a notorious underworld figure who drifted from crime to crime along the New York waterfront. Hicks worked aboard ships, slept in nickel-a-night lodging houses, and spent his time in barrooms where rough entertainments like rat-baiting and bear-baiting drew lively crowds.
Throughout the month we will read how his criminal career reached a dramatic turning point in 1860, when he was hired right here in the South Street Seaport as a hand on an oyster sloop. Planning to rob the vessel and vanish into the crowded streets of Lower Manhattan—as he had many times before—Hicks instead set in motion events that would lead to his final, desperate flight.
Join Museum staff and fellow readers at the end of the month to discuss Hicks’s story, the waterfront world he inhabited, and how his plan unraveled. Sign up below to take part in the conversation. Want to learn more about the scandalous, dubious, and sinister tales lurking in the cobblestone streets, historic buildings, and waterfront? Join one of the Museum’s Sinister Secrets of the Seaport walking tours!
April 26, 12pm: She-Wolves: The Untold History of Women on Wall Street by Paulina Bren
The April book selection will give a compelling look at the women who made their way into the male-dominated world of Wall Street from the swinging 1960s through 9/11.
From ambitious secretaries and pioneering business graduates to trailblazers like Muriel “Mickie” Siebert—the first woman to buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange—the engaging book explores determination, inequality, and the bold strategies women used to succeed in high-stakes finance.
At the end of the month, join Museum staff and fellow readers for a lively discussion. Claim your space below. Want to learn more about notable women who shaped Lower Manhattan? Join one of the Museum’s Women Who Wowed walking tours!
Enjoy More That the Museum Offers
Access to the historic ships and exhibitions on view is not included with your ticket to this event. If you would like to explore more that the Museum has to offer, book in advance or ask Museum staff about General Admission tickets when you check in.
General Admission is available Friday through Sunday, from 11am to 5pm and brings you aboard the 1885 tall ship Wavertree and 1908 lightship Ambrose at Pier 16, and into all current exhibitions on view in the first-floor Schermerhorn Row galleries at 12 Fulton Street. Your ticket also sets you on course to explore Maritime City, the Seaport Museum’s immersive, three-floor exhibition at A.A. Thomson & Co., located at 213 Water Street.
Previous Book Club Picks
February 2026: Written in the Waters A Memoir of History, Home, and Belonging by Tara Roberts
October 2025: Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica’s Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night by Julian Sancton
August 2025: The Doctors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women and Women to Medicine by Janice P. Nimura
June 2025: The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum: The Rise and Fall of an American Organized-Crime Boss by Margalit Fox
April 2025: When the Astors Owned New York: Blue Bloods and Grand Hotels in a Gilded Age by Justin Kaplan
March 2025: Nineteen Reservoirs: On Their Creation and the Promise of Water for New York City by Lucy Sante
February 2025: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
January 2025: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
November 2024: Native New Yorkers: The Legacy of the Algonquin People of New York by Evan T. Pritchard
October 2024: The Witch of New York: The Trials of Polly Bodine and the Cursed Birth of Tabloid Justice by Alex Hortis
August 2024: The Waterworks by E. L. Doctorow
July 2024: Remarkable Creatures: A Novel by Tracy Chevalier
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
April 2023:As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock by Dina Gilio-Whitaker
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
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.