Category: General

What’s on our Reading List this March

Posted on by Ashley Barnes

Here are some new releases that members of the Pratt staff are excited to read next. We hope fiction readers will enjoy!

The Night Visitors Cover
The Night Visitors
By Carol Goodman

Don’t miss this thrilling story of mistaken identities, missed chances, forgiveness, and vengeance.
Find out more here.
Daisy Jones & the Six Cover
Daisy Jones & The Six
 By Tara Jenkins Reid

The making of a legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies.
Find out more here.
The Bird King
By G. Willow Wilson

Follow this epic journey set during the reign of the last sultan in the Iberian peninsula at the height of the Spanish Inquisition.
Find out more here.
Yor Pastor My Husband Cover
Your Pastor, My Husband
By B.M. Hardin

What’s a woman to do when she learns that the one man that she thought was “praying” for her…had all along been “preying” on her?
Find out more here.

Don’t forget to check out these books too.

Blood Orange
By Harriet Tyce
Read here.

The Island of Sea Women Cover
The Island of Sea Women
By Lisa See
Read here.
99 Percent Mine Cover
99 Percent Mine
By Sally Thorne
Read here.

Delve into Race Relations with Nonfiction Works

Posted on by Ashley Barnes

This month, new books to the Pratt help start a dialog about race relations in our community. With a diverse group of authors, these books are sure to offer different and unique perspectives.

Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland
By Jonathan Metzl

Physician Jonathan Metzl’s explores the health implications of “backlash governance” across America’s heartland. Named one of the most anticipated books of 2019 by Esquire and The Boston Globe.

Check it out here.

Good Kids, Bad City: A Story of Race and Wrongful Conviction in America
By Kyle Swenson

Learn about the case of three African-American men wrongly convicted of a brutal crime and how their exoneration may have ended one of American history’s most disgraceful miscarriages of justice.

Check it out here.

Black is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother’s Time, My Mother’s Time, And Mine
By Emily Bernard

This collection of personal essays explores the complexities and experiences of growing up black in the South with a white surname as well as the author’s experiences with interracial marriage, international adoption, and teaching at a Northern white college.

Find out more here.

Movies for Women’s History Month

Posted on by Meghan McCorkell

Check out these free movies to watch on Kanopy.

All you need is a Pratt Library card.

Killing Us Softly 4

In this new, highly anticipated update of her pioneering Killing Us Softly series, the first in more than a decade, Jean Kilbourne takes a fresh look at how advertising traffics in distorted and destructive ideals of femininity. 

Women’s March

Shot on location in five U.S. cities, Women’s March is a story about democracy, human rights, and what it means to stand up for your values in today’s America.

Miss Representation

Written and directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom. The film exposes how mainstream media contribute to the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America.

Have you checked out our Podcast?

Posted on by Meghan McCorkell

The Free to Bmore podcast is a new initiative of the Enoch Pratt Free Library. But it goes well beyond library services. We’re engaging leaders and innovators who are making a difference in Baltimore City.

Our latest podcast guest was UMBC President Dr. Freeman Hrawboski, who discussed how his experience as a child marching with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. impacted his life.

Ceasefire Baltimore founder Erricka Bridgeford also joined the podcast to discuss how the non-violence movement began and how it’s spread far beyond the city of Baltimore.

Stay tuned for the next guests to the Free to Bmore podcast March episode as we celebrate Women’s History Month with two strong female leaders.

Calling All Maryland Poets!

Posted on by Meghan McCorkell

The Pratt Library’s Free Poetry Contest

Put poetry, the Pratt, and free opportunity for artists together, and what do you get? The Pratt Library’s Poetry Contest, now accepting entries through March 1.

Word POETRY formed by wood alphabet blocks. On old wooden table.

The Pratt has offered this free contest, open to Maryland residents age 18 and older, for eight years. At least 250 entries usually flow in from at least 18 counties. A local journal judges the entries anonymously and publishes the winning poem. This year we’re collaborating with Little Patuxent Review.

The 2019 winner will also enjoy the spotlight at Baltimore’s CityLit Festival, on Saturday, April 27, and at a special library celebration of the finalists one evening this summer.

Poems are like windows—ways of seeing new things—so how great is it that a window sparked the idea for the Poetry Contest? The Poetry Programming Work Group, a team of Central Library staff who coordinate the Poetry & Conversation series and other events, were looking for ways to showcase poetry. “We should have a contest and put the winning poem in the window!” someone said, referring to the Central Library’s huge show windows. The contest that developed makes waves through Maryland and beyond.

To learn the rules for the contest and read winning poems from earlier years, please visit our Poetry Contest page. The person who wins the 2019 contest could be you!