Gwinnett County Public Library Adult Programs

4.7

107 ratings

Lawrenceville, GA, US

1,633 members · Public group

Organized by Gwinnett County Public Library

What we’re about

Each month Gwinnett County Public Library-Adult Services brings bestselling and award-winning authors from a variety of genres to the library, offering readers exclusive opportunities to meet in person or virtually and engage with their favorite writers. In addition, Adult Services offers a variety of programs, writing workshops, community and book discussion groups, and community outreach services.

Visit GCPL Adult Services website to see a list of all the upcoming adult programs.

Featured event

Thu, Jul 24, 2025, 6:00 PM EDTAuthor Talk | Jane Austen's Bookshelf

Gwinnett County Public Library - Duluth Branch, Duluth, GA

Author Talk | Jane Austen's Bookshelf cover photo

Join author and History Channel's Pawn Stars rare books specialist, Rebecca Romney, as she discusses her book Jane Austen's Bookshelf.

Jane Austen’s Bookshelf investigates the disappearance of Austen’s heroes—women writers who were erased from the Western canon—to reveal who they were, what they meant to Austen, and how they were forgotten. Each chapter profiles a different writer including Frances Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Lennox, Charlotte Smith, Hannah More, Elizabeth Inchbald, Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi, and Maria Edgeworth—and recounts Romney’s experience reading them, finding rare copies of their works, and drawing on connections between their words and Austen’s. Romney collects the once-famed works of these forgotten writers, physically recreating Austen’s bookshelf and making a convincing case for why these books should be placed back on the to-be-read pile of all book lovers today. Jane Austen’s Bookshelf will encourage you to look beyond assigned reading lists, question who decides what belongs there, and build your very own collection of favorite novels.
Books will be available for sale and signing.

Rebecca Romney is a rare book dealer and the cofounder of Type Punch Matrix, a rare book company based in Washington, DC. She is the rare books specialist on the History Channel’s show Pawn Stars, and the co-founder of the Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize. She is a generalist rare book dealer, handling works in all fields, from first editions of Jane Austen to science fiction paperbacks. Romney is the author of Printer’s Error: Irreverent Stories from Book History (with JP Romney) and The Romance Novel in English: A Survey in Rare Books, 1769–1999. Her work as a bookseller or writer has been featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Forbes, Variety, The Paris Review, and more. In 2019, she was featured in the documentary on the rare book trade, The Booksellers. She is on the Board of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America (ABAA) and the faculty of the Antiquarian Book Seminar (CABS-Minnesota).

Moderating the talk will be Judith A. Miller, a professor of history at Emory University, and was a founding co-director of the Emory University’s interdisciplinary European Studies Project. Miller’s present book project is "After the Terror: Passion, Politics and Violence in the Late French Revolution.”