This week's news coverage of all things Free Library:

More students cook as program grows
Philadelphia Inquirer
This fall, we also begin a partnership with the Free Library of Philadelphia, which recently built a sleek commercial kitchen for events and cookbook author demonstrations.

Drexel Students Will Help Project HOME Make and Jar Cranberry Sauce to Raise Money to End Homelessness
Drexel.edu
Just in time for the holidays, students from Drexel University’s Center for Hospitality and Sport Management will team up with Project HOME on Oct. 28 at the Free Library of Philadelphia to make and jar cranberry sauce. All of the proceeds from the sales of the sauce will support Project HOME’s initiatives to provide job training for formerly homeless individuals… The event will take place in the recently renovated, state-of-the-art demonstration kitchen on the fourth floor of the Main Branch the Free Library of Philadelphia, called the Culinary Literacy Center. The Free Library has been a long-term partner of Project HOME.

National screening day raises awareness of depression
Philadelphia Tribune
During the screening day, members of the community were offered the chance to take a screening questionnaire in person at a variety of locations around Philadelphia including the Municipal Services Building and the Free Library of Philadelphia Main Branch.

Mysterious Traveler - Michael Cemprola
Philadelphia Jazz Project
The Free Library, the Producer's Guild and PJP are teaming up to present a daring, new performance series. Entitled,  Mysterious Travelers Concert Series, it will feature FREE monthly concerts running through April 2015.

Cornel West visits city after arrest
The Philadelphia Tribune
Philadelphians are quite accustomed to seeing news makers, but several normally nonchalant denizens were surprised to see scholar and civil rights activist Cornel West strolling down Vine Street on Friday morning. West had just exited a cab arriving from Washington, D.C. and would be en route to New York after an afternoon engagement at the Free Library of Philadelphia to promote his latest book, “Black Prophetic Fire (Beacon Press, $25.95).”

Repertory Films Showing This Week
Philly.com
Free Library of Philadelphia - Northeast Regional Branch 2228 Cottman Ave.; 215-685-0522. http://www.freelibrary.org/. Muslim Voices of Philadelphia. 10/25.

Lila, a luminous, warming tale
Philadelphia Inquirer
Lila, Robinson's luminous new novel - short-listed for the National Book Award - is the third she has set in Gilead in the late 1940s and '50s with the Rev. Ames and his longtime friend and theological sparring partner, the Rev. Robert Boughton, the town's Presbyterian minister. (Appeared October 21)

The Avid Reader
WCHE
Event listing for Azar Nafisi (Appeared October 21)

Newsmaker: An Interview with Azar Nafisi
American Libraries Magazine
I remember when I was speaking at the Free Library of Philadelphia, and people were telling me how mostly children coming from the inner city, whose parents both worked and did not have enough money for a nanny or private school, took them to libraries. That’s just another world because children have access not only to books but to a community. And I think how libraries have been in the forefront of using the internet in the best way possible—showing us that it has uses other than tweeting what you’re wearing right now. (Appeared October 21)

Azar Nafisi on the importance of reading literature
WHYY/Radio Times
Interview with Nafasi, who appeared at the Library on 10/21.

Philadelphia Weekly Calendar
Philly Weekly
Listings include the Edgar Allan Poe event as well as the Valerie Plame and Richard Blanco Author Events.