Open Book, Open Mind; Amanda Hess, "Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age"
Registration is closed but there are still seats available. Amanda Hess, an award-winning writer at large for The New York Times Styles section, will be talking to Sasha Weiss, a deputy editor of The New York Times Magazine, about Hess's debut book, "Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age." When Hess learned that her pregnancy might have an abnormality, naturally she went online, spiraling down digital rabbit holes she never wanted to know existed. Follow her through the first three months of her son’s life and find out about the choices she made. The event is co-presented by 1in6Support.
Doors open at 6 p.m. The discussion will be followed by an audience Q&A and book sales and signing with Watchung Booksellers.
“Hess trains her critic’s eye on her own life, probing both the effect of the internet on maternal guilt and anxiety (a nearly universal condition) and the more specific challenges of her own motherhood journey.…Smart, funny, and filled with love.”—The Boston Globe
Open Book / Open Mind is sponsored by Montclair Public Library Foundation, Watchung Booksellers, Anonymous, Dr. Alex and Doris Malaspina, David and Mary Lee Jones, and our individual Underwriters. We are also grateful for the generous support of our in-kind sponsors, First Congregational Church of Montclair, The George, and Amanti Vino. To support Open Book / Open Mind and other library programs, click here to donate.
- Date:
- Thursday, October 9, 2025
- Time:
- 6:30pm - 8:00pm
- Location:
- Montclair Main - Auditorium, Montclair Main - Conference Room
- BCCLS Library:
- Montclair Public Library
- Audience:
- Adults
- Categories:
- Author Talk Open Book / Open Mind
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Amanda Hess is a critic at large for The New York Times. She writes about Internet and pop culture for the Arts section and contributes regularly to The New York Times Magazine. She has also written for such publications as ESPN: The Magazine, Wired, and Pacific Standard, where her feature on the online harassment of women won a National Magazine Award for Public Interest.
ABOUT THE BOOK
"For more than a decade, Amanda Hess has documented the ways that social media and new technologies have upended our identities, living the contradictions of the internet even as she has tried to make sense of them. But when Hess discovered she was pregnant with her first child, she found herself unexpectedly rattled by a digital identity crisis of her own.
"In the summer of 2020, a routine ultrasound screening detected a mysterious abnormality in Hess’s baby. Without hesitation, she reached for her phone, looking for answers. But rather than allaying her anxieties, her search suddenly sucked her into the destabilizing world of the internet, and she was vulnerable—more than ever—to conspiracy, myth, judgment, commerce, and obsession."—Penguin Random House
ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER
Sasha Weiss is a deputy editor of The New York Times Magazine, where she covers film, television, books, fine art, theater, and music, and edits award-winning writers such as Wesley Morris, Teju Cole, Sam Anderson, and Carina del Valle Schorske. Weiss has written features for the Times on subjects such as the feminist artist Judy Chicago, the innovative theater director Sam Gold, and the ballet dancer and choreographer Justin Peck. Prior to joining the New York Times, Weiss was literary editor at the newyorker.com and an editor at The New York Review of Books.
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