Longtime New York Times contributor and bestselling author Perry Garfinkel moved with his family from Queens, N.Y., to West Orange in 1954 when he was 6 years old. He moved away in the early 1970s after graduating from Rutgers and following his first newspaper job at the Newark Star Ledger. Since then, he has traveled to 35 countries as a working journalist, interviewing everyone from the Dalai Lama to Clint Eastwood.

Publishers Weekly included his most recent book among the top 10 of 2024 in the spirituality genre: Becoming Gandhi: My Experiment Living the Mahatma's 6 Moral Truths in Immoral Times (Sounds True Publishing), with a foreword by the Dalai Lama. The research took him to India, the UK, and South Africa; it's now published in 5 countries. His previous book, Buddha or Bust: In Search of Truth, Meaning, Happiness, and the Man Who Found Them All (Crown Harmony, 2006-7), was a national bestseller.

But his “origin story” begins in his hometown, and he often comes back to West Orange to visit his old haunts. Over the last years he has witnessed demographic shifts in town that he sees as a microcosm of many suburban metro areas. In this entertaining and informative talk, he shares insights and stories of fascinating people and places around the world...and good old’ WO.

A lively Q&A and book signing to follow. https://perrygarfinkel.com