Author Dalton Conley discusses his latest book Elsewhere, U.S.A.: How We Got from the Company Man, Family Dinners, and the Affluent Society to the Home Office, BlackBerry Moms, and Economic Anxiety on Thursday, April 23, at 6:30 p.m. at the Central Library, 14 W. 10th St.

Elsewhere, U.S.A describes the social and emotional purgatory where most Americans agonize about the difficulty of connecting with friends and family even as technology continues to produce more ways to stay in touch.

A social scientist and researcher, Conley offers an essential understanding of how the technological, social, and economic changes that have reshaped our world are also reshaping our individual lives. His latest book details the new American social reality as exemplified by the blurring boundaries between leisure and work, public space and private space, and the home and office.

Elsewhere, U.S.A. connects contemporary lifestyles with occasionally overlooked sociological changes: the increasing participation of women in the labor force; the rising economic inequality that generates anxiety among successful professionals; the erosion of modern individualism as society pressures people to play a different role in every social realm.

Conley is director of the Center for Advanced Social Science Research and professor of sociology and public policy at New York University. His essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and Salon. His previous books include Honky and Being Black, Living in the Red: Race, Wealth, and Social Policy in America.