Greer's OC

The 20^th annual Witte Lectures, a high profile series from the Newport Beach Public Library Foundation (NBPLF), will be kicking off this month with Lynsey Addario on Oct. 29 at 7 p.m. Other renowned speakers on a variety of compelling topics will include Jon Meacham, Joe Nocera, Dr. Wade Davis and Isabel Wilkerson appearing through April 2017.

The lineup includes three Pulitzer-Prize winners, a respected columnist from The New York Times and a hailed ‘Explorer of the Millennium’.

The NBPLF encourages you to reserve your seat for a chance to hear from the following renowned speakers:

October 29 at 7 p.m. – Lynsey Addario will speak about her memoir It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War. Addario is a photojournalist born in Connecticut who has built her career focusing on humanitarian and human rights issues, capturing powerful images in dangerous environments around the world. Despite death threats and kidnappings, she continues photographing pivotal subjects for National Geographic, The New York Times and Time Magazine. Join this Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist as she chronicles her harrowing work and explains what drives her – despite having a family – to keep going back.

February 10 at 7 p.m. – Jon Meacham will share “The Art of Leadership” and other “Lessons from the American Presidency.” A Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential historian, Meacham explores what 21st-century leaders in different fields of endeavor can learn from the greatest moments of our common past. His latest presidential biography, Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush, debuted at #1 on the New York Times best seller list in November 2015. Meacham’s American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, garnered him the Pulitzer Prize in 2009. Meacham is Executive Vice President and Executive Editor at the Random House Publishing Group. He is also a contributing editor at Time Magazine and a regular on Morning Joe. 

March 3 at 7 p.m. and March 4 at 2 p.m. – Joe Nocera, op-ed columnist for The New York Times, has written numerous columns about the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and its corruption. Nocera examines the massive following and media draw of the world of college sports - a world that makes millionaires of coaches, athletic directors and conference commissioners, while the players themselves receive only scholarships for their talents - scholarships that don't necessarily guarantee an education or a diploma. He will speak on his latest book, Indentured: The Inside Story of the Rebellion Against the NCAA.

April 7 at 7 p.m. and April 8 at 2 p.m. – Dr. Wade Davis was named by the national Geographic Society as one of the Explorers for the Millennium, and has been described as “a rare combination of scientist, scholar, poet and passionate defender of all of life’s diversity.” His lecture “The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World” will explore the world’s indigenous cultures to answer a fundamental question: What does it mean to be human and alive?  Davis is Professor of Anthropology and the BC Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk at the University of British Columbia Author of 19 books, including The Serpent and the Rainbow, One River, The Wayfinders and The Sacred Headwaters, he holds degrees in anthropology and biology and received his Ph.D. in ethnobotany, all from Harvard University.

April 28 at 7 p.m. and April 29 at 2 p.m. – Isabel Wilkerson will address the persistence of racial injustice as a national challenge and what history can teach us as we work to resolve it in her timely lecture “Our Racial Moment of Truth”. Wilkerson won the Pulitzer Prize for her work as Chicago Bureau Chief of The New York Times, making her the first black woman in the history of American journalism to win a Pulitzer Prize and the first African-American to win for individual reporting. Most recently, she appeared at the White House to receive the 2015 National Humanities Medal from President Obama.

For information on tickets visit here, or contact events@nbplfoundation.org or 949.548.2411.