To kick off our Fall Authors’ Week, we are honored to host National Book Award winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist, historian NATHANIEL PHILBRICK, celebrating the release of his important new book, THE RUSH: California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making of the Modern World. It’s sweeping, brilliantly researched, and offers a new way to look at how the Gold Rush lit the long fuse to the Civil War. 

Join us on Monday, October 12th, 2026, at 7 PM. Nathaniel Philbrick will be in conversation with esteemed journalist and commentator, SCOTT LAMAR.

Advance purchase tickets recommended. General Admission tickets include a SIGNED 1st Edition Hardcover copy of THE RUSH. Doors open at 6 PM for the 7 PM program, on the Midtown Scholar Bookstore’s MainStage. An audience Q&A will follow the speakers’ presentation.

About the Book

In January 1848, a carpenter spotted flecks of gold in a shallow stream at Sutter’s Mill in California—triggering the greatest voluntary migration in U.S. history and jolting a fragile republic already sliding toward crisis. In The Rush, Nathaniel Philbrick transforms the Gold Rush from a tale of sudden riches into the origin story of America’s modern contradictions: capital consolidated at dizzying speed, democracy in thrall to private power, xenophobia weaponized in the name of liberty—and a stubborn belief in the American experiment that refuses to die. This is the story of a nation tearing at the seams—a republic tested by its own ideals.

From the feverish gold-mining camps of the Sierra Nevada mountains to the wharves and vigilance committees of San Francisco, Philbrick renders a combustible, all-world society: Chilean brothers reinventing themselves to outrun prejudice; Native communities navigating dispossession and violence; the merchant-showman Samuel Brannan, drawn into the center of early vigilantism; and the politicians vying for control of California’s future—the ambitious free-soil political boss David Broderick, who squared off against William Gwin, the Southern power broker intent on tilting the state toward slavery and the Confederacy. Not until a year after the outbreak of the Civil War, when President Lincoln signed legislation that would unite the nation east to west by building a transcontinental railroad, was California’s loyalty secured.

Philbrick follows the gold as it moves from riverbed to countinghouse to the halls of power, revealing how vigilantism hardened into law and how debates over slavery in the West tipped the balance in Washington. The result is a clear, human story of how a scramble for wealth reshaped ideas of freedom, labor, and belonging—and how California's rise helped push a fractured nation toward war. The Rush is alive with characters whose choices still reverberate: a searing, panoramic epic that captures both the fury and the promise of America.

About the Author

Nathaniel Philbrick is the author of In the Heart of the Sea, winner of the National Book Award; Mayflower, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; Valiant Ambition, winner of the George Washington Prize; Bunker Hill, winner of the New England Book Award; Travels with George; Away Off Shore; Second Wind; Sea of Glory; and The Last Stand.

About the Interviewer

Scott LaMar retired in 2025 after working in radio and television broadcasting for 45 plus years, as a talk show host, on-air anchor/report, and producer. He was the first Host and Executive Producer of The Spark program on WITF-FM, 89.5 & 93.3 in Harrisburg, PA. Previously, he was WITF TV’s Sr. Public Affairs producer and produced the station’s award-winning weekly public affairs TV program, Smart Talk.

In addition to on-air duties, LaMar has moderated political candidate debates, including those for candidates running for Pennsylvania governor and the U.S. Senate, and he was a regular contributor to BBC World News TV before and after the 2020 U.S. Presidential election. The American Society of Civil Engineers honored LaMar with their national Excellence in Journalism award in 2020. He has been nominated for five Mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards.

LaMar and The Spark have been lauded throughout the Central Pennsylvania community, receiving ADVOZ Lancaster’s “Dignity in Dialogue Award” and the South-Central Assembly’s “Regional Citizen Award,” and LaMar has been named a “Humanitarian Hero” by The Humane Society of the United States/Pennsylvania.

Part of our America’s 250th Literary Celebrations Series, and our Fall 2026 Authors’ Week.

We are delighted to welcome RICHARD CHIZMAR back to the Midtown Scholar, to celebrate the October release of KILLING THE BOOGEYMAN, the thrilling conclusion to his horror trilogy. Chizmar will be in conversation with author ALAINA URQUHART, who recently published THE BUTCHER LEGACY, a Dr. Wren Muller Novel.

Join us during Fall Authors’ Week for this thrilling evening, Tuesday, October 13th, 2026. Doors will open at 6 PM for the 7 PM program on the Midtown Scholar Bookstore’s MainStage. Advance purchase tickets encouraged. General Admission. Entry for 1-2 people is included with your PRE-SIGNED Book/Ticket purchase.

About the BooK, Killing the Boogeyman

The terrifying horror trilogy finale to the New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling series that includes Chasing the Boogeyman and Becoming the Boogeyman from “one of horror’s indispensable writers” (Paste).

Notorious serial killer Joshua Gallagher—dubbed “the Boogeyman” by the media—has vanished from prison. One moment, he was locked inside a maximum-security cell; the next, he was gone, leaving behind on the wall a crude hangman puzzle and two chilling words: IT’S TIME.

Now, days later, the world is coming apart again. Bodies are turning up near writer and Gallagher confidante Richard Chizmar’s home, echoing the Boogeyman’s signature horrors. The news frenzy reignites while the police chase shadows...even as Gallagher’s twisted true crime fanbase celebrates online, acknowledging that he’s something more than human now.

To everyone else, it’s a desperate hunt for answers. To Chizmar, it’s more like destiny closing in. The evidence, the sightings, the voices in the dark all point to one unthinkable conclusion: the Boogeyman never left. And very soon, Chizmar must come face-to-face with the thing wearing Gallagher’s skin, and learns all too quickly that some nightmares don’t return—they evolve.

“Richard Chizmar delves deep into our worst fears and touches the darkness that lives there.” —S. A. Cosby

About the Author, Richard Chizmar

Richard Chizmar is the author of New York Times bestselling novels Chasing the Boogeyman, Becoming the Boogeyman, Memorials, and Widow’s Point: The Complete Haunting (cowritten with son, W.H. Chizmar), and coauthor (with Stephen King) of the New York Times bestselling novella Gwendy’s Button Box, the novel Gwendy’s Final Task, and the solo novella Gwendy’s Magic Feather. His short fiction has appeared in dozens of publications, most recently, the bestselling anthology, The End of The World as We Know It: New Stories of Stephen King’s The Stand. He is the founder and publisher of the specialty press publisher of horror and dark suspense, Cemetery Dance. He has won two World Fantasy awards, four International Horror Guild awards, and the HWA’s Board of Trustees award. Chizmar’s work has been translated into more than fifteen languages throughout the world, and he has appeared at numerous conferences as a writing instructor, speaker, panelist, and guest of honor. Follow him on X, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky: @RichardChizmar, or visit his website at RichardChizmar.com.

About the InterviEwer, Alaina Urquhart

Alaina Urquhart is the instant #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Dr. Wren Muller series which has been published internationally in over twenty languages. When she isn’t writing, she is also the cohost of the chart-topping podcast Morbid, and an autopsy technician by trade. Alaina hails from Boston, where she lives with her husband and their three daughters.

Part of our America’s 250th Literary Celebrations Series, and our Fall 2026 Authors’ Week.

Join us on Wednesday, October 14, 2026, at 7 PM to hear Pulitzer Winning historian, University of Pennsylvania Professor MARCIA CHATELAIN, discuss her exciting new book, HOW BRIGHT THE PATH GROWS.

This event is FREE and open to the public. RSVP today or preorder a SIGNED book for VIP Reserved Seating.

Part of our America’s 250th Literary Celebrations Series, and our Fall 2026 Authors’ Week.

About the Book

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Franchise comes the untold story of the pioneering Black women artists and activists who were seen, but barely heard, at the 1963 March on Washington

There is no shortage of footage immortalizing the men who spoke at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, when 250,000 Americans gathered beneath the Lincoln Memorial to call for an end to segregation. There were reverends and rabbis, activists and Rat-Pack icons—and of course the day’s headliner, whose prophetic dream of a post-Jim Crow world has forever defined the Civil Rights Movement. But there is no “class photo” of the Black women who helped organize the march, performed on its main stage, or were honored during its Tribute to Negro Women Fighters for Freedom.

In How Bright the Path Grows, Marcia Chatelain weaves a gleaming group portrait of these singular women. Among this cohort were several household names: vaudeville icon Josephine Baker, civil rights activist Rosa Parks, gospel legend Mahalia Jackson, and Daisy Bates, champion of the Little Rock Nine. But many were relative unknowns, including Eva Jessye, the choir director who designed the day’s musical program; and Anna Hedgeman, the coordinator who pushed in the eleventh hour for a tribute to Black women’s work.

How Bright the Path Grows is a scintillating group biography, rendering the lives of thirteen Black women visionaries—some famous, others soon to be—in novelistic detail and like never seen before.

About the Author

MARCIA CHATELAIN is a Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of South Side Girls (Duke University Press, 2015) and Franchise (Liveright, 2020), which won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in History, the James Beard Foundation Book Award, the Hagley Medal for Business History, and the Lawrence Levine Award from the Organization of American Historians. An active public speaker and educational consultant, Chatelain has received awards and honors from the Ford Foundation, the American Association of University Women, and the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

On Friday, October 16th, at 7pm, we welcome Dr. Raj Panjabi, author of SAFER: A Playbook—Turning Fear into Action and Crisis into Community, for a free book talk and important discussion on public health and civic life. Dr. Panjabi is globally recognized as a distinguished authority in health care, biotechnology, entrepreneurship, and public health policy.

FREE RSVP at the link here -or- Preorder a SIGNED book for VIP Reserved Seating.

When crisis strikes — a diagnosis, a natural disaster, a sudden upheaval at work or at home — our instinct is to pull inward. But as Dr. Raj Panjabi argues in his new book, isolation is the wrong instinct. Connection is the real protection.

Dr. Panjabi has spent his career on the front lines of crisis: fleeing civil war in Liberia as a child, building community health systems as founding CEO of Last Mile Health, and steering the nation's pandemic response as White House Senior Director for Global Health Security. In Safer, he distills that experience into a practical roadmap — eight "plays" for navigating fear, cutting through misinformation, and rebuilding trust in divided times.

Joining Dr. Panjabi in conversation is a leading voice in global and community public health from Penn State College of Medicine whose own work embodies the book's central idea — that community, not isolation, is what keeps us safe. Dr. N. Benjamin Fredrick, Penn State University Professor of family and community medicine, public health sciences, and humanities, and Director of the Global Health Scholars program, launched Thriving Villages International to address issues of poverty and development in Pestel, Haiti.

Together, our speakers will explore what it really takes to turn fear into action and crisis into community, both in our health systems and in our daily lives.

About the Book

The essential guide for navigating crisis and uncertainty from the acclaimed physician who led the White House response to the world’s most dangerous health emergencies.

In reading SAFER, you will learn how to:

• Navigate Fear and Denial: Use Situation Room insights to take decisive action without falling into paralysis.

• Cut Through the Noise: Use science to assess your risk and protect those you love amidst the flood of misinformation.

• Build Trust in Divided Times: Move from isolation to connection and find common ground.

• Gain Control Despite Chaos: Adapt to change and transform vulnerability into your greatest strength.

In an era of uncertainty, you don’t have to live in fear. You just need a better playbook. Safer gives us the tools for emerging from any crisis more connected than ever before.

Praise for SAFER

"Raj Panjabi is a brilliant thinker and writer...This is a necessary book." - John Green, New York Times bestselling author of Everything is Tuberculosis 

"Raj Panjabi is one of the smartest people around on health issues...and one of the best-placed people to guide us through this terrain and keep us safe." - Nicholas Kristof, Pulitzer Prize winning writer

"Dr. Panjabi makes the compelling case that preparedness is not enough—trust and community resilience are the core of our defense. A crucial call to action." - Anthony Fauci, MD,  Former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

"SAFER makes the compelling case that only by coming together, both within and across borders, can we create a safer, healthier world." - Ambassador Susan E. Rice, Former U.S. National Security Advisor 

"Dr. Raj Panjabi shows that true resilience is about community, empathy, and connection. SAFER is an inspiring road map for a healthier, more connected future." - Arianna Huffington, Founder & CEO, Thrive Global

About the Author

Dr. Raj Panjabi, MD, served as Senior Director for Global Health Security and Biodefense at the White House National Security Council (2022-2023) where he co-led the largest vaccination campaign in history against COVID-19 and U.S. responses to other public health crises, including mpox, influenza and Ebola. A Harvard Medical School physician, he is the co-founder and former CEO of Last Mile Health, which has trained thousands of community health workers to bring care to communities beyond the reach of any health system. One of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the World and TIME’s 50 Most Influential People in Healthcare, twice named to the FORTUNE World’s 50 Greatest Leaders list, and to FORBES 250 Most Successful Immigrants, Raj has received the TED Prize, Clinton Global Citizen Award, and World Economic Forum’s Social Entrepreneur of the Year award. He was born in Liberia to Indian parents and came to the United States as a child refugee. He lives with his family in the Washington, D.C. area. Safer is his first book.

About the Interviewer

Dr. Ben Fredrick, MD, is Professor of Family and Community Medicine, and of Public Health Sciences, at Penn State University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Humanities. He graduated from Messiah University in 1995 and Penn State College of Medicine in 2000. He then completed a family residency at York Hospital in York, PA. After residency, Dr. Fredrick returned to Hershey and joined the Family and Community Medicine Department as a faculty member. Dr. Fredrick serves as Global Health Center Director and has developed a nationally unique Global Health Scholars Pathway program for Penn State College of Medicine’s students. The program includes activities in Peru, Ecuador, Senegal, and Sierra Leone. Since 2007, Dr. Fredrick and his family have been involved in supporting a rural area in Haiti called Pestel. To expand their impact, Dr. Fredrick and his wife established a non-profit organization called Thriving Villages International in order to better assist the health and development needs of Pestel.

Part of our America’s 250th Literary Celebrations Series, and our Fall 2026 Authors’ Week.

Join us on Saturday morning, October 17, 2026, for a very special visit by the classic children’s book author/illustrator MARK ALAN STAMATY, presenting a new edition of WHO NEEDS DONUTS? This was one of our own favorite childhood stories, and our children’s, too. Now, this lovely new edition is ready to welcome the next generation of readers! Meet and greet Mark Alan Stamaty, have your book signed/personalized, and enjoy a unique storytime presentation!

About the Book

Celebrating the 1973 cult classic kids book in all its resplendent absurdity and subversiveness.

Sam’s love of donuts takes him to the Big City where he makes friends with Mr. Bikferd, a world class collector of donuts. But when Mr. Bikferd falls in love with Pretzel Annie, the prophecy of an old woman comes true: “Who needs donuts when you’ve got love?” Mr. Bikferd bequeaths his donut collection to Sam, who uses it to save the old woman from drowning in a basement flooded with coffee. 

This is a reissue of Mark Alan Stamaty’s masterpiece of the absurd, first published 50 years ago. With an illustration style that mixes a benign Hieronymus Bosch with an urban Where’s Waldo?, Stamaty’s off-the-wall humor is on target for little kids and big kids today.

About the Author

Mark Alan Stamaty is a cartoonist, illustrator, and children’s author, whose work has appeared in the New Yorker, GQ, Newsweek, Time, Slate, and the New York Times Book Review. His comic strip “Washingtoon” ran regularly in the Village Voice, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and over 40 newspapers between 1981 and 1994. He’s also the illustrator of the classic children’s book Yellow Yellow, written by Frank Asch, and published with Drawn & Quarterly in 2019. Mark lives in New Jersey with his wife Lynn.

Join us on at 5 PM on Sunday, October 18, 2026, during our Fall 2026 Authors’ Week, to hear from one of our favorite authors, JACKSON TAYLOR, about the second novel in his Harrisburg trilogy: THE GREEN PEAR. Many will have read his first novel in this series, THE BLUE ORCHARD, and heard him speak at past events at the Midtown Scholar Bookstore.

This special program is FREE and open to the public - or order a SIGNED Paperback or Hardcover for VIP Reserved Seating. Jackson will be joined in conversation by an eminent Harrisburg historian and an accomplished Pennsylvania journalist.

About the Book

From the mid-century glamour of New York to a quiet village on the Italian Riviera, this beautifully written literary novel follows a man who searches for the truth of his own identity in a world of beautiful, broken things.

In the late 1950s, Peggy Drexler-Leighton is a well-known face in high fashion. But as the decade turns, she finds herself sidelined by an industry that has little room for maturing women. Following a sudden tragedy, she and her young son, Walker, retreat to their Pennsylvania roots—only to find that 'home' is a place of shifting expectations and difficult truths.

Decades later, we follow Walker to Italy, living as an ex-pat on the Riviera, where he finally seeks to define himself to himself, navigating a life of unusual pairings and hard-won independence. His quiet existence is disrupted by the arrival of his cousin, Lydia, whose presence brings more than just a conflicted memory of home.

As Walker witnesses the increasing strain on Lydia’s marriage—dragged into the personal and professional drama of their lives and those around them—the tension reaches a fever pitch. Private resentments become public tragedies. When the local peace is shattered by a series of shocking media events, the ensuing news coverage turns an intimate family struggle into a spectacle that predicts the onset of global witness that the world-wide internet will soon deliver. Walker is forced into a life-altering reckoning, finally confronting the cost of acceptance and the reality of a planetary view that make it almost impossible to look away.

About the Author

Jackson Taylor is a celebrated novelist and educator. His debut, The Blue Orchard, earned widespread praise for its painstaking research and powerful narrative. Beyond the page, Jackson has spent his work-life fostering a new generation of writers—directing the PEN Prison Writing Program and helping to launch & develop MFA programs at The New School and The Writer’s Foundry.

Part of our America’s 250th Literary Celebrations Series, and our Fall 2026 Authors’ Week.