What we’re about
The City of Menlo Park's libraries offer a variety of programs, including art events, author talks, info sessions, craft sessions, music events, and more. To make the most of our programming efforts and this meetup page, we’d love for you to get involved. If you come to a program, say hi and let us know you saw it on meetup. If you have an idea for something you’d like to see at the library, send us a message. The library is a great space for community meetups and we’d love to play a role in making those connections!
See more events at our calendar, and check our hours and holiday closures.
Upcoming events (4+)
See all- Melanated Women Read: Angela Davis: An AutobiographyLink visible for attendees
Melanated Women Read is a book discussion group by and especially for Black women. This month we discuss Angela Davis: An Autobiography, by Angela Davis.
Told with warmth, brilliance, humor and conviction, the book is a classic account of a life in struggle with echoes in our own time. First published and edited by Toni Morrison in 1974, Davis’s autobiography describes her journey from a childhood in Birmingham, Alabama, to one of the most significant political trials of the century; from her political activity in high school to her work with the U.S. Communist Party, the Black Panther Party, and the Soledad Brothers; and from the faculty of the Philosophy Department at UCLA to the FBI's list of the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives.
About Melanated Women Read:
Melanated Women Read is a virtual book group that is by and especially for Black women. The purpose and focus are on inspiring, uplifting reads, and providing a safe space for Black women to speak, vent and enjoy honest and open conversation.
The group chooses from books written by Black authors. The goal of this community-based group is to introduce a variety of Black writers who will help build a love of reading in a positive environment while meeting new people and gaining new perspectives.
Melanated Women Read meets virtually on the first Monday of each month. This month’s meeting is on a special date, due to the Labor Day holiday.
Monday, September 08, 2025 | 06:30 PM - 08:00 PM
Zoom webinar (register for link)More free events with Menlo Park Library
Menlo Park Library on social media:
@menloparklibrary on Instagram & Facebook
@menlolibrary on Twitter/X - Book Discussion: Absolution, by Alice McDermottLink visible for attendees
Join our Fiction Book Group online to discuss Absolution, by Alice McDermott.
American women—American wives—have been mostly minor characters in the literature of the Vietnam War, but in Absolution they take center stage. Tricia is a shy newlywed, married to a rising attorney on loan to navy intelligence. Charlene is a practiced corporate spouse and mother of three, a beauty and a bully.
In Saigon in 1963, the two women form a wary alliance as they balance the era’s mandate to be “helpmeets” to their ambitious husbands with their own inchoate impulse to “do good” for the people of Vietnam.
Menlo Park’s Fiction Book Group meets virtually on the second Tuesday of each month.
Tuesday, September 09, 2025 | 06:30 PM - 07:45 PM
Zoom webinarMore free events with Menlo Park Library
Menlo Park Library on social media:
@menloparklibrary on Instagram & Facebook
@menlolibrary on Twitter/X - Teen Media WednesdaysBelle Haven Library, Belle Haven Community Campus, Menlo Park, CA
Teens: we are now watching movies AND playing video games at the library! Join us for Teen Media Wednesdays, where we will either be watching a film or playing video games in the Teen Zone.
All films are rated PG-13 or lower and all video games are rated E10 or lower. Drop in and find out what the movie or game of the week is, and use the suggestion box in the Teen Zone to request future movies and games. Snacks are provided.
https://menlopark.gov/Government/Departments/Library-and-Community-Services/Events/Events-for-adults/202501-05-teen-media-wednesdays
This free event received funding support from the Friends of the Menlo Park Library.
More free events with Menlo Park Library:
https://menlopark.gov/programsMenlo Park Library on social media:
@menloparklibrary on Instagram & Facebook
@menlolibrary on Twitter - CA History: How Small Towns Transformed California into an American PlaceMenlo Park Library, Menlo Park, CA
California is celebrating 175 years of statehood! Our guest will share how small towns transformed this place from “Feathered Kingdoms” to “Cities of Homes.”
Historian Kyle Livie, Ph.D. will explain the role of small towns and rural places in making California an American place. Over the past 175 years, people in California’s small towns—through campaigns, festivals, pageants, and parades—have built cultures that shaped our economy and ordered the world around them in complex ways, ways that continue to impact our ideas about the Golden State and its people today.
Learn more about this memory making and its lasting impact on our sense of place and understanding of California’s rich history.
About Kyle Lyvie:
Dr. Kyle Livie is Professor of History and Co-Director of the Lytton Center for History and the Public Good at Ohlone College.
Kyle’s research explores community development and cultural formation in California’s metropolitan spaces in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries resulting from transnational migration, with special interest paid to how migrant groups in small towns and rural places shaped shared identity, collective memory, and economic production.
This free event received funding support from the Friends of the Menlo Park Library.
Wednesday, September 10, 2025 | 06:00 PM - 07:00 PM
Menlo Park Library, 800 Alma St., Menlo Park, CA, 94025More free events with Menlo Park Library
Menlo Park Library on social media:
@menloparklibrary on Instagram & Facebook
@menlolibrary on Twitter/X
