Playhouse Village Association

Vroman's Bookstore: Daniel A. Olivas discusses Chicano Frankenstein
2024-03-06 19:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
An unnamed paralegal, brought back to life through a controversial process, maneuvers through a near-future world that both needs and resents him. As the United States president spouts anti-reanimation rhetoric and giant pharmaceutical companies rake in profits, the man falls in love with lawyer Faustina Godínez. His world expands as he meets her network of family and friends, setting him on a course to discover his first life history, which the reanimation process erased. With elements of science fiction, horror, political satire, and romance, Chicano Frankenstein confronts our nation’s bigotries and the question of what it truly means to be human.

Vroman's Bookstore: Soyoung Park discusses Snowglobe
2024-03-02 15:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
Enclosed under a vast dome, Snowglobe is the last place on Earth that’s warm. Outside Snowglobe is a frozen wasteland, and every day, citizens face the icy world to get to their jobs at the power plant, where they produce the energy Snowglobe needs. Their only solace comes in the form of twenty-four-hour television programming streamed directly from the domed city.
The residents of Snowglobe have everything: fame, fortune, and above all, safety from the desolation outside their walls. In exchange, their lives are broadcast to the less fortunate outside, who watch eagerly, hoping for the chance to one day become actors themselves.
Chobahm lives for the time she spends watching the shows produced inside Snowglobe. Her favorite? Goh Around, starring Goh Haeri, Snowglobe’s biggest star–and, it turns out, the key to getting Chobahm her dream life.
Because Haeri is dead, and Chobahm has been chosen to take her place. Only, life inside Snowglobe is nothing like what you see on television. Reality is a lie, and truth seems to be forever out of reach.
Translated for the first time into English from the original Korean, Snowglobe is a groundbreaking exploration of personal identity, and the future of the world as we know it. It is the winner of the Changbi X Kakaopage Young Adult Novel Award. (Delacorte Press)
Dedicated to Expanding Knowledge of Korea, the Korean Cultural Center is the axis of Korean heritage in Los Angeles. The Korean Cultural Center welcomes the general public to experience the rich traditions and history of Korea through specialized programs, sponsored events, and multiple learning resources. Operated by the Korean government’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Korean Cultural Center is dedicated to providing insights into the rich cultural heritage of Korea.
Soyoung Park majored in communication and media at university. She is a winner of the Original Story Award and the Changbi X Kakaopage Young Adult Novel Award. She is the author of the Snowglobe duology.
Joungmin Lee Comfort is a Korean-English translator. Her translations have appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine and Best of World SF. Her recent cotranslation of Kim Bo-young’s On the Origin of Species and Other Stories was longlisted for the National Book Award for translated literature

Vroman's Bookstore: Gian Sardar discusses When the World Goes Quiet
2024-03-01 19:00 | Ice House Comedy Club, 24 N Mentor Ave, Pasadena, CA, 91106
In the final days of World War I, an aspiring artist’s courageous journey is just beginning in a powerful novel about love, danger, and survival by the author of Take What You Can Carry.
It’s 1918 in German-occupied Bruges, Belgium. With luck, Evelien will make it to the end of the war and be given what she was promised: a prized painting in exchange for safeguarding her employer’s possessions. Until then, Evelien knows to keep her head down and stay out of trouble. But life never goes to plan, especially in war.
A member of the Resistance approaches Evelien: steal a list of names hidden in her employer’s home. In return, she’ll get a letter from her long-missing husband, Emiel. She’d lost hope of Emiel’s survival, but the promised letter puts her certainty of his death in question. Evelien begins her mission and soon forms a friendship with a soldier who is struggling with the devastating demands of battle. Their shared passion for art deepens the bond, and Evelien faces a heart-wrenching truth: she longs for Emiel’s safe return…but not necessarily to her.
As the final days of the war loom closer, Evelien has never been in more danger. And should she survive the war’s bitter end, what choices will she make for a life beyond liberation?

Vroman's Bookstore: Jeffrey Siger discusses At Any Cost
2024-02-29 19:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
Chief Inspector Kaldis is initially dismayed to be asked to investigate a series of suspicious forest fires that took place last summer. In Greece, forest fires are an inevitability, and he fears he and his team are being set up to take the political blame for this year’s blazes.
He quickly becomes suspicious, though, that the forests were torched for profit – and for a project on a far grander scale than the usual low-level business corruption. There are whispers on the wind that shadowy foreign powers intend to establish a surreptitious mega-internet presence on the island of Syros, with the intent to weaponize the digital world to their own dark ends.
Can Kaldis and his team stop the hostile foreign takeover of the idyllic island – or will the rise of the metaverse set not just Greece, but the whole world, on fire?

Vroman's Bookstore: Fiction Reading Group
2024-02-28 19:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
The Vroman’s Fiction Reading Group meets on the 4th Wednesday of every month at 7pm.
This event is free and open to the public.
February’s pick is The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Vroman's Bookstore: Kate Anthony discusses The D Word
2024-02-28 19:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
From the host of the critically acclaimed The Divorce Survival Guide Podcast comes a book that provides the clarity, peace, and answers women need to make empowered decisions about their marriages, break unhealthy patterns, and build the life they truly want.
Every year, close to a million women struggle to decide whether to divorce their partners. Some are in relationships they know to be unsalvageable, yet they’re terrified that divorce will hurt their kids. Others feel guilt-ridden and confused over their unhappiness with a spouse who seems, to the outside world at least, to be perfectly fine. And then there are those in between, restless and aware of problems that may or may not be fixable, with no idea how to tell the difference.
The D Word is the definitive yet accessible guide for everyone who wants to take control of their lives, either by ending or repairing their marriage. Written in Kate Anthony’s signature straight-talking, empowering style, The D Word is more than a practical handbook for those considering divorce. It also reveals how cultural and societal influences negatively affect our relationships and expectations, stacking the odds against women.

Vroman's Bookstore: Phillip B. Williams discusses Ours
2024-02-26 19:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
In this ingenious, sweeping novel, Phillip B. Williams introduces us to an enigmatic woman named Saint, a fearsome conjuror who, in the 1830s, annihilates plantations all over Arkansas to rescue the people enslaved there. She brings those she has freed to a haven of her own creation: a town just north of St. Louis, magically concealed from outsiders, named Ours.
It is in this miraculous place that Saint’s grand experiment–a truly secluded community where her people may flourish–takes root. But although Saint does her best to protect the inhabitants of Ours, over time, her conjuring and memories begin to betray her, leaving the town vulnerable to intrusions by newcomers with powers of their own. As the cracks in Saint’s creation are exposed, some begin to wonder whether the community’s safety might be yet another form of bondage.
Set over the course of four decades and steeped in a rich tradition of American literature informed by Black surrealism, mythology, and spirituality, Ours is a stunning exploration of the possibilities and limitations of love and freedom by a writer of capacious vision and talent.

Vroman's Bookstore: Cory Doctorow discusses The Bezzle: A Martin Hench Novel
2024-02-24 19:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
The year is 2006. Martin Hench is at the top of his game as a self-employed forensic accountant, a veteran of the long guerrilla war between people who want to hide money, and people who want to find it. He spends his downtime on Catalina Island, where scenic, imported bison wander the bluffs and frozen, reheated fast food burgers cost 25$. Wait, what? When Marty disrupts a seemingly innocuous scheme during a vacation on Catalina Island, he has no idea he’s kicked off a chain of events that will overtake the next decade of his life.
Martin has made his most dangerous mistake yet: trespassed into the playgrounds of the ultra-wealthy and spoiled their fun. To them, money is a tool, a game, and a way to keep score, and they’ve found their newest mark–California’s Department of Corrections. Secure in the knowledge that they’re living behind far too many firewalls of shell companies and investors ever to be identified, they are interested not in the lives they ruin, but only in how much money they can extract from the government and the hundreds of thousands of prisoners they have at their mercy.
A seething rebuke of the privatized prison system that delves deeply into the arcane and baroque financial chicanery involved in the 2008 financial crash, The Bezzle is a sizzling follow-up to Red Team Blues.

Vroman's Bookstore: Amanda R. Edwards
2024-02-22 19:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
A respected spirit medium, certified spiritual coach, and Reiki healer, Amanda R. Edwards helps people connect with spirits and find support, confidence, and peace of mind. In Quiet Voice, Awesome Power, Amanda reveals how spirit isn’t an inaccessible world where deceased loved ones disappear, but a significant part of us and all life around us. She shares how to ready your mind-body-spirit ecosystem to welcome powerful daily guidance from spirit; how to invite new experiences, heal hurtful ones, and move beyond loss; how to engage your body’s physical form to receive and impart messages; and much more. This unique volume, a hands-on, practical guide with exercises throughout, will connect with readers who, like Amanda, found themselves the “weird kid” because of a quieted spiritual ability and those who are new to or practiced in spirit channeling.
Amanda’s guidance is imparted through compelling text, anecdotes, tools, activities, and prompts proven effective by her and her clients. For readers everywhere seeking growth, guidance, and connection but feeling stuck or afraid, this groundbreaking volume will relieve doubts and unleash an empowered new you on your spiritual journey.

Vroman's Bookstore: Alex Michaelides discusses The Fury
2024-02-21 19:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
A masterfully paced thriller about a reclusive ex–movie star and her famous friends whose spontaneous trip to a private Greek island is upended by a murder — from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Silent Patient.
This is a tale of murder.
Or maybe that’s not quite true. At its heart, it’s a love story, isn’t it?
Lana Farrar is a reclusive ex–movie star and one of the most famous women in the world. Every year, she invites her closest friends to escape the English weather and spend Easter on her idyllic private Greek island.
I tell you this because you may think you know this story. You probably read about it at the time ― it caused a real stir in the tabloids if you remember. It had all the necessary ingredients for a press sensation: a celebrity; a private island cut off by the wind…and a murder.
We found ourselves trapped there overnight. Our old friendships concealed hatred and a desire for revenge. What followed was a game of cat and mouse ― a battle of wits, full of twists and turns, building to an unforgettable climax. The night ended in violence and death, as one of us was found murdered.
But who am I?
My name is Elliot Chase, and I’m going to tell you a story unlike any you’ve ever heard. (Celadon Books)
Alex Michaelides was born and raised in Cyprus. He has an M.A. in English Literature from Trinity College, Cambridge University, and an M.A. in Screenwriting from the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. The Silent Patient was his first novel, debuting at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, and has sold more than 6.5 million copies worldwide. The rights have been sold in a record-breaking 51 countries, and the book has been optioned for film by Plan B. His second novel, The Maidens, was an instant New York Times bestseller and has been optioned for television by Miramax Television and Stone Village.
This is a ticketed in-store event. Tickets include one seat/entry and one copy of The Fury which will be handed out at check-in. A book signing will follow the conversation.

Vroman's Bookstore: Laurie R. King discusses The Lantern’s Dance
2024-02-20 19:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, hoping for a respite in the French countryside, are instead caught up in a case that turns both bewildering and intensely personal.
After their recent adventures in Transylvania, Russell and Holmes look forward to spending time with Holmes’ son, the famous artist Damian Adler, and his family. But when they arrive at Damian’s house, they discover that the Adlers have fled from a mysterious threat.
Holmes rushes after Damian while Russell, slowed down by a recent injury, stays behind to search the empty house. In Damian’s studio, she discovers four crates packed with memorabilia related to Holmes’ granduncle, the artist Horace Vernet. It’s an odd mix of treasures and clutter, including a tarnished silver lamp with a rotating shade: an antique yet sophisticated form of zoetrope, fitted with strips of paper whose images dance with the lantern’s spin.
In the same crate is an old journal written in a nearly impenetrable code. Intrigued, Russell sets about deciphering the intricate cryptograph, slowly realizing that each entry is built around an image–the first of which is a child, bundled into a carriage by an abductor, watching her mother recede from view.
Russell is troubled, then entranced, but each entry she decodes brings more questions. Who is the young Indian woman who created this elaborate puzzle? What does she have to do with Damian, or the Vernets–or the threat hovering over the house?
The secrets of the past appear to be reaching into the present. And it seems increasingly urgent that Russell figure out how the journal and lantern are related to Damian–and possibly to Sherlock Holmes himself.

Vroman's Bookstore: Morgan Matson discusses Promchanted
2024-02-18 18:00 | CA
Stella Griffin doesn’t believe in fairy tales. Ever since her boyfriend dumped her three weeks before the prom– not ideal timing–she’s convinced every love story is a lie.
She’s ready to skip the prom entirely. But she and her best friend, Nisha, have been planning for years to celebrate at Disneyland before the prom . . . an OG OC tradition. But even being all dressed up at the Happiest Place on Earth isn’t salvaging Stella’s night. Nisha has brought along her friend Reece to join them, and he and Stella do not get along. They’re like oil and water. Cats and dogs. Aladdin and Jafar. And so what if Reece is, fine, kind of cute? Stella’s over it all. Happily-ever-afters, true love’s kisses, princes on white horses. It’s not real.
. . . Or is it?
Because when Stella and Reece push through a hidden door in Sleeping Beauty’s castle, they’re not in Anaheim anymore. They’re in the story. In Sleeping Beauty–with Aurora and Phillip, the fairies, Maleficent, and extremely intelligent woodland creatures.
Unfortunately, they’ve landed right in the middle of the story–which throws things off. Suddenly, Aurora and Phillip are meeting before they are supposed to. The fairies are suspicious of the interlopers, and even Maleficent gets word of their arrival.
Stella and Reece will have to put aside their differences, make sure Aurora and Phillip fall in love, and get the story back on track–because if things don’t end the way they’re supposed to . . . they might never get home.
Will they be able to pull off a fairy-tale ending? And will Stella and Reece get a happily-ever-after of their own?

Vroman's Bookstore: Storytime featuring Mauricio Abril presenting Programmed to Paint
2024-02-17 11:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
Join Pintro the robot’s journey as he learns how to create art!
Pintro is a robot who is practically perfect. He knows all there is to know about how to garden, how to bake, and especially everything about math. But the one thing Pintro does not know how to do? Make art! Whenever he tries, he just produces a perfect copy of the subject. While that’s not a bad thing, he knows there’s more to art than that. Can Pintro connect with his creativity and overcome his programming so he can finally paint the way he wants to?

Vroman's Bookstore: Eilish Quin discusses Medea
2024-02-16 19:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
Among the women of Greek mythology, the witch Medea may be the most despised. Known for the brutal act of killing her own children to exact vengeance on her deceitful husband, the Argonauts leader Jason, Medea has carved out a singularly infamous niche in our histories.
But what if that isn’t the full story?
The daughter of a sea nymph and the granddaughter of a Titan, Medea is a paradox. She is at once rendered compelling by virtue of the divinity that flows through her bloodline and made powerless by the fact of her being a woman. As a child, she intuitively submerges herself in witchcraft and sorcery, but soon finds it may not be a match for the prophecies that hang over her entire family like a shroud.
As Medea comes into her own as a woman and a witch, she also faces the arrival of the hero Jason, preordained by the gods to be not only her husband, but also her lifeline to escape her isolated existence. Medea travels the treacherous seas with the Argonauts, battles demons she had never conceived of, and falls in love with the man who may ultimately be her downfall.
In this propulsive, beautifully written debut, readers will finally hear Medea’s side of the story through a fresh and feminist lens.

Vroman's Bookstore: Kiley Reid discussing Come and Get It
2024-02-15 19:00 | All Saints Church, 132 North Euclid Avenue, Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
rom the celebrated New York Times bestselling author of Such a Fun Age comes a fresh and provocative story about a residential assistant and her messy entanglement with a professor and three unruly students.
It’s 2017 at the University of Arkansas. Millie Cousins, a senior resident assistant, wants to graduate, get a job, and buy a house. So when Agatha Paul, a visiting professor and writer, offers Millie an easy yet unusual opportunity, she jumps at the chance. But Millie’s starry-eyed hustle becomes jeopardized by odd new friends, vengeful dorm pranks, and illicit intrigue.
A fresh and intimate portrait of desire, consumption, and reckless abandon, Come and Get It is a tension-filled story about money, indiscretion, and bad behavior–and the highly anticipated new novel by acclaimed and award-winning author Kiley Reid. (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
This ticketed event will take place at All Saints Church located at 132 N Euclid Ave, Pasadena.
Tickets include one copy of Come and Get It which will be handed out at check-in.
A book signing will follow the discussion.

Vroman's Bookstore: Naomi Hirahara, discusses Village in the Dark
2024-02-13 19:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
On a frigid February day, Anchorage Detective Cara Kennedy stands by the graves of her husband and son, watching as their caskets are raised from the earth. It feels sacrilegious, but she has no choice. Aaron and Dylan disappeared on a hike a year ago, their bones eventually found and buried. But shocking clues have emerged that foul play was involved, potentially connecting them to a string of other deaths and disappearances.
Somehow tied to the mystery is Mia Upash, who grew up in an isolated village called Unity, a community of women and children in hiding from abusive men. Mia never imagined the trouble she would find herself in when she left home to live in Man’s World. Although she remains haunted by the tragedy of what happened to the man and the boy in the woods, she has her own reasons for keeping quiet.
Aided by police officer Joe Barkowski and other residents of Point Mettier, Cara’s investigation will lead them on a dangerous path that puts their lives and the lives of everyone around them in mortal jeopardy.

Vroman's Bookstore: Special Storytime featuring Ruth Spiro presenting Love Grows
2024-02-10 11:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
A delightful celebration of family, plants, and the boundlessness of love told in lively, poetic letters from aunt to niece with bright, irresistible illustrations!
Every month, an aunt mails a letter and a houseplant to her niece and . . . LOVE GROWS!
I’m sending this pothos, so while we’re apart, you’ll look at its leaves and know you’re in my heart.
We Are the Gardeners and Dear Girl, this beautiful story is the perfect gift for Valentine’s Day, birthdays, graduation, and more! Young readers and gardeners will also love the sidebars on each spread with fun and informative facts about the plants. (Harper Collins)
Ruth will also be presenting her book How to Explain Coding to a Grown-Up.

Vroman's Bookstore: Alison Dundes Renteln discusses International Human Rights
2024-02-09 19:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
This book provides an interdisciplinary overview of international human rights issues, offering truly international coverage including the Global South. Considering the philosophical foundations of human rights, Chen and Renteln explore the interpretive difficulties associated with identifying what constitutes human rights abuses and evaluate various perspectives on human rights. This book goes on to analyze institutions that strive to promote and enforce human rights standards, including the United Nations system, regional human rights bodies, and domestic courts. It also discusses a wide variety of substantive human rights including genocide, torture, capital punishment, and other cruel and unusual punishments. In particular, the book offers an accessible introduction to key understudied topics within human rights, such as socioeconomic rights, cultural rights, and environmental rights. It also focuses on the rights of marginalized groups, including children’s rights, rights of persons with disabilities, women’s rights, labor rights, indigenous rights, and LGBTQ+ rights, making this an engaging and invaluable resource for the contemporary student.

Vroman's Bookstore: Frank C. Girardot discusses Becoming Clark Rockefeller
2024-02-08 19:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
BECOMING CLARK ROCKEFELLER: Murder, Love, Deception, and the Con Man Behind It All delves into the life of a young immigrant entangled in a multi-generational murder investigation ensnaring some of the wealthiest Americans. Posing as bogus aristocrat Clark Rockefeller, he duped the affluent, leaving a trail of deception and national headlines in his wake.
Yet the story would grow even more sinister. In 1985, Linda Sohus, a talented, outgoing artist, and her husband John, a computer geek with dreams of space, mysteriously vanished from their quiet San Marino, California life. But why? Were they on a secret government mission, chasing elusive dreams, or had something terrible happened to them? The police investigated while the public and media speculated. But all leads came to a dead end, and eventually, the mystery faded into the shadows.
Then, in 1994, a shocking backyard discovery reignited the case. Bones were unearthed, revealing a convoluted tale of murder, lust, and trickery. At its center, the same audacious grifter, whose real name was Christian Gerhartsreiter, who had conned his way into high society as Clark Rockefeller.
In this thrilling true crime masterpiece, tenacious investigative journalist and bestselling author Frank C. Girardot unveils this transcontinental, decades-long mystery with interviews from witnesses, court documents, and exclusive insights from the con man himself.

Vroman's Bookstore: Kemper Donovan discusses The Busy Body
2024-02-07 19:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
“I tell other people’s stories for a living. . . . I nip and tuck their excesses, soften their hard edges, polish whatever an armada of editors and publicists deem unsightly till it sparkles.”
It’s a dream assignment. Former Senator Dorothy Gibson, aka that woman, is the most talked-about person in the country right now, though largely for the wrong reasons. As an independent candidate for President of the United States, Dorothy split the vote and is being blamed for the shocking result. After her very public defeat, she’s retreated to her home in rural Maine, inviting her ghostwriter to join her.
Her collaborator is impressed by Dorothy’s work ethic and steel-trap mind, not to mention the stunning surroundings (and one particularly gorgeous bodyguard). But when a neighbor dies under suspicious circumstances, Dorothy is determined to find the killer in their midst. And when Dorothy Gibson asks if you want to team up for a top secret, possibly dangerous murder investigation, the only answer is: “Of course!”
The best ghostwriters are adept at asking questions and spinning stories . . . two talents, it turns out, that also comes in handy for sleuths. Dorothy’s political career, meanwhile, has made her an expert at recognizing lies and double-dealing. Working together, the two women are soon untangling motives and whittling down suspects, to the exasperation of local police. But this investigation–much like the election–may not unfold the way anyone expects.

Vroman's Bookstore: Gene Luen Yang and LeUyen Pham discuss Lunar New Year Love Story
2024-02-05 19:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
Graphic novel superstars Gene Luen Yang and LeUyen Pham join forces in this heartwarming rom-com about fate, family, and falling in love. She was destined for heartbreak. Then fate handed her love. Val is ready to give up on love. It’s led to nothing but secrets and heartbreak, and she’s pretty sure she’s cursed–no one in her family, for generations, has ever had any luck with love. But then a chance encounter with a pair of cute lion dancers sparks something in Val. Is it real love? Could this be her chance to break the family curse? Or is she destined to live with a broken heart forever?

Vroman's Bookstore: Special Storytime featuring Oliver Chin presenting The Year of the Dragon
2024-02-03 11:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
2024 is the Year of the Dragon! Dominic’s proud parents rule the sea and sky, advise the Emperor, and have high expectations for their son. Meanwhile Dom befriends the boy Bo and the other zodiac animals, who wish to paddle a boat in the village’s annual river race. But when other people and Dom’s parents disapprove, what will Dom do? Discover Dom’s ingenious solution in this enthusiastic tale!
When others tell him what to do, can Dominic eventually spread his own wings? Illustrating expressive characters and vibrant action, artist Jennifer Wood creates an inviting new world for readers to explore. Tales from the Chinese Zodiac is a popular annual children’s book series showcasing the twelve charming animals that embody the Chinese New Year. (Immedium)
Olive Chin will also be presenting his other newly released title, The Discovery of Chess.

Vroman's Bookstore: Duane Swierczynski discusses California Bear
2024-02-01 19:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
NONE OF YOU ARE SAFE
“KILLER” Jack Queen has been exonerated and freed from prison thanks to retired LAPD officer Cato Hightower. But when guilt gnaws at Jack, he admits: “I actually did it.” To which Hightower responds: “Yeah, no kidding.” You see, the ex-cop has a special job in mind for the ex-con…
THE GIRL DETECTIVE: Fifteen-year-old Matilda Finnerty has been handed a potential death sentence in the form of a leukemia diagnosis. But that’s not going to stop her from tackling the most important mystery of her life: Is her father guilty of murder?
GENE JEANIE: Jeanie Hightower mends family trees for a living, but the genealogist is unable to repair her marriage. And her soon-to-be ex may have entangled her in a scheme that has drawn the bloody wrath of…
THE BEAR: A prolific serial killer who disappeared forty years ago, who is only now emerging from hibernation when the conditions are just right. And this time, the California Bear is not content to hunt in the shadows…
From two-time Edgar nominee Duane Swierczynski, California Bear is clever, moving, and surprising as it aims at the true crime industry, Hollywood, justice, and the killers inside us all.

Vroman's: Graham Zimmerman, in conversation with Abbey Smith, discusses A Fine Line
2024-01-30 19:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
How do we reconcile our love of outdoor adventure with the inevitability of loss in high-risk sports? Still in his thirties, Graham Zimmerman has made first ascents from Alaska to Pakistan, and in 2020 he received the Piolet d’Or for his climb on Pakistan’s Link Sar with Steve Swenson. A sponsored athlete who is sought out as a climbing partner, Zimmerman knows that he must find a balance between his ambitions as an alpinist and his social responsibilities–as a husband, climate advocate, and community leader.
His generation has faced devastating grief in the mountains, including the deaths of Kyle Dempster, Hayden Kennedy, and Inge Perkins, and his cohort has witnessed firsthand the effects of climate change in the form of disappearing glaciers and increasingly erratic weather. Zimmerman writes of the exhilaration he feels while climbing but also the painful realization that summiting at all costs is an outdated model. As A Fine Line traces Graham’s journey, mountain lovers everywhere will see themselves in this coming-of-age story of adventure and personal reckoning.

Vroman's: Local Author Day featuring Chantal Donnelly, Roger Parham-Brown, and Marcia Arrieta
2024-01-28 16:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
Chantal Donnelly presents Settled: How to Find Calm in a Stress-Inducing World
Are you constantly on a stress rollercoaster, jumping from frantic to collapsed without ever finding a place of comfort?
In SETTLED, physical therapist Chantal Donnelly searches for ways to help her patients and ends up delving into the fascinating science behind stress. She discovers it’s not just a mental or emotional issue, but a physical one too.
Through personal anecdotes, case studies, research, and her professional expertise, Donnelly’s innovative guidebook offers you quick and easy tools for finding calm.
Learn to communicate with your body so you can reap the positive benefits of stress while minimizing its negative effects.
Regain the sense of vitality, ease, and connection you are longing for.
Whether you’re feeling overwhelmed, trying to improve your health and relationships, or wanting to relax enough to enjoy your successes, this book is for you.
Say goodbye to the stress rollercoaster and hello to a settled and balanced life.

Vroman’s: Special Storytime featuring Barney Saltzberg presenting Arlo Needs Glasses
2024-01-27 11:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
From the bestselling author of Beautiful Oops! comes an inspiring story for every child who needs or wears glasses.
One out of four kids either wears or needs glasses, and their parents will want their child to feel that glasses are awesome because they’re cool, fun, and enable us to do all the things we want to do. That’s where Arlo steps in. He’s a shaggy, free-spirited dog who loves to play catch, until one day he can’t see the ball anymore. He needs glasses!
Created by Barney Saltzberg, the bespectacled author of the bestselling title Beautiful Oops!, Arlo Needs Glasses is an inventive and reassuring story that gets it. Readers will follow along with Arlo as he does all the big firsts involved in getting glasses–visit a doctor, get tested on an eye chart, look through the phoropter. And then the fun part–choosing frames! What should Arlo get? Movie star glasses? Superhero glasses? Classic frames that never go out of style?

Vroman's: Becky Nicolaides, in conversation with Naomi Hirahara, The New Suburbia
2024-01-26 19:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore
America’s suburbs have been transforming. The conventional story of suburbs as bastions of white, middle-class homeowners no longer describes the suburbs of America’s cities. Today they house a more typical cross-section of the nation–rich, poor, Black American, Latino, Asian, immigrant, the unhoused, the lavishly housed, and everyone in between. Stories of everyday suburban life, in the process, have taken on new inflections.
Nowhere are these changes more vivid than in Los Angeles. In this suburban metropolis and global powerhouse, lily white suburbs have virtually disappeared, and over two-thirds of the County’s suburbs have become majority minority. Examining this vanguard of change from the postwar to the present, The New Suburbia follows the Asian Americans, Black Americans, and Latinos who moved into white neighborhoods that once barred them. They bought homes, enrolled their children in schools, and began navigating suburban life. They faced a choice: would they remake the suburbs, or would the suburbs remake them? In places like Pasadena, San Marino, South Gate, and Lakewood, suburbanites faced the challenges of living together in difference. Historian Becky Nicolaides explores a range of community experiences, from internal resegregation to suburban poverty, an embrace of law-and-order culture to police brutality, friendly neighbors to social withdrawal. In some communities, diverse residents continued longstanding habits of exclusion and perpetuated metropolitan inequality. In others, they embraced more inclusive, multicultural suburban ideals. Through it all, the common denominators of suburbia remained–low-slung landscapes of single-family homes and families seeking the good life.
An authoritative work based on a half-century of quantitative data and unpublished oral histories and interviews, The New Suburbia explores vital landscapes where the American dream has endured, even as the dreamers have changed.

Vroman's: Sherri L. Smith and Elizabeth Wein discuss American Wings
2024-01-24 19:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
From the acclaimed author of Flygirl and the bestselling author of Code Name Verity comes the thrilling and inspiring true story of the desegregation of the skies.
In the years between World War I and World War II, aviation fever was everywhere, including among Black Americans. But what hope did a Black person have of learning to fly in a country constricted by prejudice and Jim Crow laws, where some previous Black aviators like Bessie
Coleman had to move to France to earn their wings?
American Wings follows a group of determined Black Americans: Cornelius Coffey and Johnny Robinson, skilled auto mechanics; Janet Harmon Bragg, a nurse; and Willa Brown, a teacher and social worker. Together, they created a flying club and built their own airfield on Chicago’s South Side. As the U.S. hurtled toward World War II, they established a school to train new pilots, teaching both Black and white students together and proving, in a time when the U.S. military was still segregated, that successful integration was possible.
Complete with black-and-white photographs throughout, American Wings brings to light a hidden history of pioneering Black men and women who, with grit and resilience, battled powerful odds for an equal share of the sky. (G.P. Putnam’s Sons for Young Readers)
Sherri L. Smith is the author of several novels for young adults, including the critically acclaimed The Blossom and the Firefly, Flygirl, Orleans, and Pasadena, as well as the middle-grade novel The Toymaker’s Apprentice. Visit her online at sherrilsmith.com
Elizabeth Wein is a recreational pilot and the owner of about a thousand maps. She is the author of several young adult novels, including Code Name Verity, an Edgar Award winner and a #1 New York Times bestseller; Black Dove, White Raven, winner of the Children’s Africana Book Award; and most recently, Stateless. Her book A Thousand Sisters: The Heroic Airwomen of the Soviet Union in World War II was a finalist for YALSA’s Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Award. A dual American-British citizen, Elizabeth lives in Scotland. Learn more at ElizabethWein.com and follow her on Twitter @EWein2412

Vroman's: Mark Eaton discusses Historical Fiction Now
2024-01-23 19:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
Historical Fiction Now brings together prominent authors, scholars, and critics of historical fiction to explore the genre’s character, fortunes, and potential in the twenty-first century.
Gathering together the voices of novelists, critics, academics, and several authors writing across these categories, the volume explores the nature of reading, writing, and writing about historical fiction in the present moment while meditating on some of the myriad contexts of the genre.
What inspires writers to choose particular moments, events, and personalities as the subjects of their fictional imaginings, and with what implications for their readers’ understanding of the present? How do contemporary scholars approach the making and reception of historical fiction, and how do these approaches resonate with writers’ own preoccupations in the process of invention? What might scholars of a genre with a long and complex history learn from its contemporary practitioners? Conversely, how do novelists understand their own historical fictions (if at all) in relation to the theoretical and critical traditions shaping the work of their academic colleagues? (Oxford University Press, USA)

Vroman's: Nikki Vargas, in conversation with Jeremy Tarr, discusses Call You When I Land
2024-01-22 19:00 | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
At twenty-six years old, life looked a certain way for Nikki Vargas. She’d settled in New York City ready to join the ranks of the Carrie Bradshaw’s of the world, had landed in a promising advertising career, and was newly engaged to her college sweetheart. But between corporate happy hours and wedding dress fittings, she couldn’t shake a deep underlying sense of imposter syndrome, a voice telling her that she was rocketing towards a future that didn’t look like her. And so, she bought a plane ticket: first to Cartagena. Then to Panama. Then to Iguazú.
What begins with one freelance travel writing assignment escalates into a whirlwind, globe-spanning journey that would transform Nikki’s life. Taking her from the street food stalls of Vietnam to the cascading waterfalls of Argentina, Nikki uncovers shocking truths about her family, comes face to face with a new love interest – or two – and ultimately turns a no-name blog into the internationally celebrated venture of Unearth Women, the first major female-focused travel publication.
Told in transporting detail and candid reflections, Call You When I Land takes the familiar story of a woman going abroad to find herself and turns it on its head, as the act of traveling becomes, for Nikki, an exhilarating career path – and ultimately a tool to champion women’s voices across the world.
