Bookstore boasts stellar lineup for November
By Arroyo Staff
The renowned bookstore Vroman’s is hosting more top-notch virtual and in-person programs throughout November.
All in-person events will all be held at Vroman’s located at 695 E. Colorado Boulevard, Pasadena, unless otherwise noted.
Register through vromansbookstore.com. Anyone with questions is asked to email email@vromansbookstore.com.
Margo Price discusses “Maybe We’ll Make It: A Memoir”
7 p.m. Thursday, November 3
When Margo Price was 19 years old, she dropped out of college and moved to Nashville to become a musician. She busked on the street, played open mics, and even threw out her television so that she would do nothing but write songs. She met Jeremy Ivey, a fellow musician who would become her closest collaborator and her husband. But after working on their craft for more than a decade, Price and Ivey had no label, no band, and plenty of heartache.
“Maybe We’ll Make It” is a memoir of loss, motherhood, and the search for artistic freedom in the midst of the agony experienced by so many aspiring musicians: bad gigs and long tours, rejection and sexual harassment, too much drinking, and barely enough money to live on. Now a Grammy-nominated Best New Artist, Price tells a love story of music, collaboration, and the struggle to build a career while trying to maintain her singular voice and style.
Fierce Reads Fall Tour: Featuring Judy I. Lin and Joan He
7 p.m. Friday, November 4
Authors Judy I. Lin and Joan He present their latest, “A Venom Dark and Sweet” and “Strike the Zither.”
Robert Crais discusses “Racing the Light”
4 p.m. Saturday, November 5
Private investigator Elvis Cole and his partner, Joe Pike, are back on the case in this new thriller from No. 1 New York Times bestselling author Robert Crais.
Adele Schumacher isn’t a typical worried mom. When she hires Elvis to find her missing son, a controversial podcaster named Josh Shoe, she brings a bag filled with cash, bizarre tales of government conspiracies, and a squad of professional bodyguards. Finding Josh should be simple, but Elvis quickly learns he isn’t alone in the hunt — a deadly team of mysterious strangers are determined to find Josh and his adult film star girlfriend first.
Liz Climo presents “I’m So Happy You’re Here: A Little Book about Why You’re Great”
5 p.m. Wednesday, November 9
International bestselling author Liz Climo’s little book lets someone know how important they are to you or a thoughtful gift you can give to yourself.
Sheldon Epps discusses “My Own Directions: A Black Man’s Journey in the American Theatre”
7 p.m. Thursday, November 10
The author’s journey in the American theater has been amplified by his experience as a Black man who has frequently been one of the few, the first or even the only. His directing career has been full of rewards and opportunities as well as huge challenges and frustrations, along with the anger that has come from being chased by race for so many years.
Much of the author’s experience comes from two decades artistic director of Pasadena Playhouse, one of the oldest and well-known theaters in America.
This is the story of how the author came into leadership at Pasadena Playhouse after a successful career directing on Broadway, in London and all over the world.
Vroman’s presents Michael Connelly discussing “Desert Star”
7 p.m. Friday, November 11
LAPD detective Renée Ballard and Harry Bosch team up to hunt the brutal killer who is Bosch’s “white whale” — a man responsible for the murder of an entire family.
A year has passed since Ballard quit the force in the face of misogyny, demoralization and endless red tape. But after the chief of police himself tells her she can write her own ticket within the department, Ballard takes back her badge, leaving “the Late Show” to rebuild and lead the cold case unit at the elite robbery-homicide division.
For years, Bosch has been working a case that haunts him — the murder of an entire family by a psychopath who still walks free. Ballard makes Bosch an offer: Come volunteer as an investigator in her new open-unsolved unit, and he can pursue his “white whale” with the resources of the LAPD behind him.
Priority for Ballard is to clear the unsolved rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl. The decades-old case is essential to the councilman who supported reforming the unit and who could shutter it again — the victim was his sister. When Ballard gets a “cold hit” connecting the killing to a similar crime, proving that a serial predator has been at work in the city for years, the political pressure has never been higher. To keep momentum going, she must pull Bosch off his all-consuming investigation, the case that is the consummation of his lifelong mission.
The two must put aside old resentments and new tensions to run to ground not one but two dangerous killers who have operated with brash impunity.
This ticketed event will take place at Pasadena Presbyterian Church located at 585 E. Colorado Boulevard, Pasadena. Tickets will include a copy of Desert Star to be handed out at check-in.
Tickets are available at https://bit.ly/MichaelConnellyBosch.
Rabia Chaudry presents “Fatty Fatty Boom Boom: A Memoir of Food, Fat, and Family”
7 p.m. Monday, November 14
According to family lore, when Rabia Chaudry’s family returned to Pakistan for their first visit since moving to the United States, 2-year-old Rabia was more than just a pudgy toddler.
Dada Abu, her fit and sprightly grandfather, attempted to pick her up but had to put her straight back down, demanding of her mother: “What have you done to her?” The answer was two full bottles of half-and-half per day, frozen butter sticks to gnaw on, and lots and lots of American processed foods.
Despite her parents plying her with all the wrong foods as they discovered Burger King and Dairy Queen, they were highly concerned for the future for their large-size daughter. How would she ever find a suitable husband? Soon she would leave behind fast food and come to love the Pakistani foods of her heritage, learning to cook them with wholesome ingredients and eat them in moderation. At once a love letter (with recipes) to fresh roti, chaat, chicken biryani, ghee, pakoras, shorba, parathay and an often-hilarious dissection of life in a Muslim immigrant family, “Fatty Fatty Boom Boom” is also a searingly honest portrait of a woman grappling with a body that gets the job done but that refuses to meet the expectations of others.
Jules Blaine Davis discusses “The Kitchen Healer: The Journey to Becoming You”
7 p.m. Wednesday, November 16
All the ways you live and love begin in your kitchen. And it’s in the kitchen where you’ll find the way to your true self. A place to nourish your being and heal with the freedom, beauty and permission you have always longed for.
With “The Kitchen Healer,” Jules Blaine Davis invites you into the messy beauty of her healing kitchen and asks, “What are you really hungry for?”
Though this book contains recipes — with ingredients both traditional and emotional — this isn’t your typical cookbook. This is a book that will shine a light on how to cook up the life you deeply long to live with food you love to make.
Matt Coyle discusses “Doomed Legacy: Volume 9”
7 p.m. Thursday, November 17
Private investigator Rick Cahill has been running from his past and chasing the truth his whole life. But his past is relentless — and so is his CTE, a disease caused by repeated head traumas that has attacked his body and his mind. As his CTE progresses, he realizes that the disease not only threatens his life but also endangers his family’s well-being.
As Cahill struggles to keep his family together, he does a favor for Sara Bhandari, a business contact. Then, Bhandari is murdered, and the police believe her to be yet another victim of a serial rapist who has been terrorizing greater San Diego. But Cahill has reason to question their theory. Determined to find the truth at any cost, and against his wife’s warnings, he investigates on his own.
Along the way, he bumps up against a sinister private investigative agency and a shady shell corporation that may be hiding more than company secrets. As Cahill digs for the truth about Bhandari’s death, he risks his own life and the lives of countless innocents caught in his relentless crusade. Ultimately, Cahill must decide if his quest is worth the risk of losing his family forever.
Neal Shusterman discusses “Gleanings: Stories from the Arc of a Scythe”
2 p.m. Sunday, November 20
There are still countless tales of the Scythedom to tell. Centuries passed between the Thunderhead cradling humanity and Scythe Goddard trying to turn it upside down. For years humans lived in a world without hunger, disease or death with Scythes as the living instruments of population control.
Neal Shusterman — along with collaborators David Yoon, Jarrod Shusterman, Sofía Lapuente, Michael H. Payne, Michelle Knowlden and Joelle Shusterman — returns to the world throughout the timeline of the Arc of a Scythe series. Discover secrets and histories of characters you’ve followed for three volumes and meet new heroes, new foes, and some figures in between.
Evelyn Alsultany discusses “Broken: The Failed Promise of Muslim Inclusion”
7 p.m. Tuesday, November 29
One of Donald Trump’s first actions as president was to sign an executive order to limit Muslim immigration to the United States, a step toward the “complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” he had campaigned on.
This act of Islamophobia provoked unprecedented opposition: Hollywood movies and mainstream television shows began to feature more Muslim characters in contexts other than terrorism, universities and private businesses included Muslims in their diversity initiatives, and the criminal justice system took hate crimes against Muslims more seriously. Yet “Broken” argues that, even amid this challenge to institutionalized Islamophobia, diversity initiatives fail on their promise by only focusing on crisis moments.
Ed Humes discusses “The Forever Witness: How DNA and Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double Murder”
7 p.m. Wednesday, November 30
In November 1987, a young couple on an overnight trip to Seattle vanished without a trace. A week later, the bodies of Tanya Van Cuylenborg and her boyfriend, Jay Cook, were found in rural Washington. It was a brutal crime, and it was the perfect crime: With few clues and no witnesses, an international manhunt turned up empty, and the sensational case that shocked the Pacific Northwest gradually slipped from the headlines.