Author Visit Kicks Off New Lyceum Lecture Series Season

The Batavia Public Library is pleased to announce the first lecture of its New Lyceum Lecture Series 2015–16 season. “Pirate Hunters” will be presented at 7 p.m. on September 21 at the library, 10 S. Batavia Ave.

Guest speaker is Chicago author Robert Kurson, who will discuss his new book, Pirate Hunters.

In Pirate Hunters, Kurson tells the story of John Chatterton and John Mattera, who are willing to risk everything to find the ship of the infamous pirate Joseph Bannister. Though Bannister’s exploits were more notorious than Blackbeard’s, his story and his ship have been lost to time. In their search, Chatterton and Mattera traveled the globe looking for historic documents, confronting dangerous rivals, and battling the tides of governments and experts. It was only when they learned to think and act like pirates that they were able to go where no pirate hunters had gone before.

Robert Kurson is an award-winning writer who has worked for the Chicago Sun-Times, Esquire, and Chicago Magazine, and whose articles have appeared in Rolling Stone, the New York Times, and other publications. Kurson’s first book, Shadow Divers (2004), the true story of two Americans who discover a World War II German U-boat sunk 60 miles off the coast of New Jersey, was a New York Times best seller. Kurson also wrote Crashing Through (2007), the true story of a man blind since age three who has the opportunity to regain sight after years of living the life of a successful athlete, entrepreneur, and family man.

The lecture is sponsored by the Batavia Public Library Foundation. Registration is required. Register online at www.BataviaPublicLibrary.org, or call the library Reference Desk, (630) 879-1393, ext. 200.

The lecture is the 31st of the series and kicks off the series’ eighth season. Since February 2008, the library has offered approximately four lectures per season by experts in the fields of science, politics, history, and the arts. Lectures have included contemporary subjects ranging from national issues such as Guantanamo Bay and Presidential elections to Illinois subjects such as George Halas and the Chicago Bears, movie making in Chicago, and crooked Illinois politicians. Some lectures have been historical and have focused on matters closer to home, such as “The American Windmill Story.”

For more information about the New Lyceum Lecture Series, visit www.BataviaPublicLibrary.org.

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