Crossing the transom at The New York Sun this week is the advance fall lineup of activities at the New York Public Library. The schedule of exhibitions, talks, and programs is alluring. The Knickerbocker can mention only a fraction of the schedule in this column.

The New York Library for the Performing Arts will host a series of events commemorating the centennial of a controversial festival of the works of George Bernard Shaw, presented in autumn 1905 by actor and producer Arnold Daly. Daly produced the New York premiere of Shaw’s “Mrs. Warren’s Profession,” which closed after one night, since its depiction of prostitution was considered indecent.

The library will host a reading of “Mrs. Warren’s Profession” on October 24, a panel exploring why Shaw still matters October 22, and an interview with noted critic and translator Eric Bentley on September 17. Hal Prince will discuss his work and career on September 15.

An anniversary celebration takes place September 12 at the NYPL main branch in Midtown as literary critic Harold Bloom turns 75 and discusses Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass,” which turns twice that age.

Other noteworthy public programs include a conversation between Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone on September 20. They will debate the renewal of the USA Patriot Act.

Two compelling events that are set for October but whose dates are still to be announced are a panel consisting of Elie Wiesel and others honoring the memory of American writer Henry Roth (“Call It Sleep”) on the 10th anniversary of his death; and a program in which renowned scholar and black historian John Hope Franklin will discuss “Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin” (Farrar Straus and Giroux).

At the Science, Industry & Business Library on September 20, Wilmot Murdock, a former engineering professor, will discuss the history of African-Americans in technology and their future role. A number of other programs this season will address the subject of advertising, coinciding with an exhibition opening September 27.

If one likes mystery, a program on sleuth Nancy Drew on September 14 is co-presented with the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. A man of mystery, Harry Houdini, along with Fanny Brice and Bert Lahr, are among the performers who were part of vaudeville, the subject of an intriguing exhibition called “Vaudeville Nation” opening at the NYPL for the Performing Arts on November 8.

If one is less interested in the traveling troupes of vaudeville and more interested in traveling the world oneself, then head to the exhibition “Treasured Maps,” which opens September 9 and celebrates the renovation and reopening of the map division at the main research library in Midtown.

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ROASTS, ETC. A Friars Club reception was held the other night for Alan Zweibel, author of “The Other Shulman: A Novel” (Villard). The former “Saturday Night Live” writer took a notion bandied about by dieters, that they’ve lost and regained so much weight that there could be another person out there made up of what they’ve lost. The protagonist, Shulman, talks to the “other Shulman” while running the New York Marathon.

Freddie Roman told how Mr. Zweibel’s parents helped launch their son’s career as a comedy writer. They were once at a resort in the Catskills and met the actor Morty Gunty. “Our son is a great comedy writer,” they told him. “Yeah?” he said. “Who does he write for? Where does he work?” “He works in a deli right now, but he’s great.” The son submitted jokes to him and was on his way to success.

Seen in the audience were comedian Mickey Freeman and many others.

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BOMB CALLED LITTLE BOY Stephen Walker, a filmmaker by trade, can hold an audience’s attention with the actor-like cadence of his voice.The author of “Shockwave: Countdown to Hiroshima” (HarperCollins) spoke at Barnes & Noble Upper West Side last week, marking the solemn 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

Mr. Walker recalled how a physicist went alone into a small tin shed during electrical storms in Los Alamos, N.M., with a phone to “baby-sit” the bomb, which was described by names such as “the beast,” “the gadget,” “the thing,” “It,” and called “Little Boy” by the Enola Gay crew. There had been concern over lightning detonating the bomb. The physicist wondered what good the phone would have been had lightning struck and detonated the bomb.

The shock wave after the blast hit the Enola Gay plane like an earthquake in the air. The command pilot, Paul Tibbets Jr. reported feeling the blast in his teeth: It was later judged to be his fillings interacting with the radiation. On the ground, the destruction was indescribable.

Mr. Walker gave one particularly harrowing image of that day in August 1945: A doctor who lived outside Hiroshima thinks, after the blast, that he has to go into the city. He hops on his bicycle and peddles furiously. He gets to the outskirts, turns a corner, and sees someone staggering toward him in the distance. His bike skids as a not dead figure, charred, eyes bulging from pressure to its skull, falls and dies. Overcoming his shock, the doctor holds this being’s hand.

Mr. Walker answered many audience questions about the politics and the history of the decision to drop the atomic bombs. He told about his surprising discovery of a list dated 1945, before the war ended, of the 66 most populous cities in Russia, the population of each, and the number of atomic bombs it would take to destroy them.

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RISING STAR Library of America publisher Max Rudin spoke at St. Peter’s Church in Midtown Manhattan at a Walt Whitman reading co-sponsored with the nonprofit Toward International Peace Through the Arts. He told how Whitman’s former teacher in Brooklyn, upon learning that Whitman had become a famous poet, remarked, “We need never be discouraged over anyone.”