Great Reads by South Pasadena Authors

Intense reader.  Happy Dog.

It's time for another round of Let's Read Books by South Pasadena Authors!  From children's books to political commentary, history to literary fiction (and even cookbooks!) the list of books written by South Pas writers is long and varied.  Here are my reader picks for Fall 2017:

Recommended Reading List of South Pasadena Authors

I'll bet most people in South Pasadena have no idea that they are living side by side with some pretty amazing authors.  From children's books to political commentary, history to literary fiction, the scope of books penned by South Pasadena writers is vast and wonderful.

From time to time, I will highlight a few of these published works.  Support your local writer! (And when I finally finish my first novel, you can bet I'll be asking you to support me.)

Here are a few of my picks for a well-rounded Fall 2016 reading list:

Author Night With Dr. Kevin Starr Tonight

Calling all history buffs!

Tonight, the Annual Meeting of the Friends of the South Pasadena Public Library will feature an Author Night with Dr. Kevin Starr, California's favorite historian. Dr. Starr is best known for his brilliant 7 volume series, Americans and the California Dream. His latest book is called Clio on the Coast: The Writing of California History, 1845-1945. The event will also serve as the SoCal Centennial Celebration of the Book Club of California.

South Pasadena's own singer/songwriter Brad Colerick will open the program with classic songs of the Golden State, as well as a few surprises.

Festivities start at 7:00PM in the library Community Room. The event is free, and no tickets or reservations are required. You can read more about the event here, and read my gushing fangirl praise of Dr. Starr here.

Starr Gazing

I know it's rather early to mention this, but history lovers need to mark their calendars now for an upcoming library event. On January 19 at 7:00 PM, the Friends of the South Pasadena Library will host Author Night with historian Kevin Starr at the library Community Room.

Those of you who know me well have undoubtedly listened to me wax with rhapsodic wonder about Dr. Starr's incredible books on California. Seriously, this man makes California's wild, mythical and outrageous past come alive in ways that most novelists can only dream of.

His Americans and the California Dream series is like a time machine ride through the grand-sweeping saga that created our state. (Embattled Dreams is my favorite in the series, covering the tumultuous 1940s.) Dr. Starr leaves nothing out of his narrative -- from big ideas to the smallest details of California's epic story. He's a scholarly historian to be sure, but he has the heart of a poet, not to mention the literary chops of a master storyteller. (Can you tell I'm a gushing fan?)

I'll mention this again as the date approaches, but make a note now! And for those of you who haven't already done so: go out and buy Dr. Starr's books. You'll thank me when I see you at the event.

You can read more about Author Night with Kevin Starr right here.

Author Night Tonight with Steve Hodel

Is it possible that South Pasadena was home to one of the most infamous killers of the 20th Century? Retired LAPD Homicide Detective and New York Times bestselling author Steve Hodel thinks so ... and his evidence is extremely compelling.

Tonight at 7:00PM, the South Pasadena Public Library Community Room hosts an encore Author Night with Hodel, author of Black Dahlia Avenger: A Genius for Murder. Hodel captivated a library audience back in 2008 when he revealed evidence that his very own father Dr. George Hodel was the 1947 Black Dahlia murderer.

On January 15, 1947, the body of 22 year old Elizabeth Short -- later nicknamed the Black Dahlia -- was found mutilated, bisected at the waist, drained of all blood and posed in a Los Angeles vacant lot. The crime made headlines for months as the killer taunted the police with numerous phone calls and cryptic notes. Despite a huge manhunt, the Black Dahlia case remained one of the most notorious and high-profile unsolved crimes of the 20th century.

Tonight, Hodel returns with his follow-up book Most Evil: Avenger, Zodiac, and the Further Serial Murders of Dr. George Hodel. Hodel has uncovered stunning forensic, visual and circumstantial evidence that his father was most likely "The Zodiac" serial killer who terrorized California in the late 60s and 70s with a bizarre series of murders.

George Hodel was born in 1907 and grew up in a house on South Pasadena's Monterey Road. As a child musical prodigy he was visited by Rachmaninoff. He was declared a child genius after scoring 186 on an IQ test. (Einstein himself scored 185.) At 14, George graduated from South Pasadena High School. He breezed through Cal Tech and became a notable Hollywood physician -- hobnobbing with the glitterati and making a name for himself among Los Angeles' upper crust.

In 1949, as the LAPD began investigating the Black Dahlia murder, Hodel abruptly moved to the Philippines. He returned to the United States in the late 60s, settling down in Northern California. He died in 1999.

Steve Hodel spent 24 years as a homicide detective with the LAPD. He earned one of the highest solve rates in the department. Suffice it to say, his shocking discovery is fascinating as well as horrifying.

Author Night is free to the public, presented by the library and Friends of the South Pasadena Public Library. The Community Room is located at 1115 El Centro Street and no tickets or reservations are necessary. Refreshments will be provided and signed hardback copies of Most Evil will be available for only $10.

(I continue my week of iPhone shots with this spooky one, processed with the Plastic Bullet app.)

(G)nomenclature

I've highlighted this striking little South Pas resident before, but I felt particularly compelled to bring him back to the blog. You see, he bears a striking resemblance to a character in a new book that everyone it talking about. I heard two girls raving about it at the train station. I received several email messages in the last few days from people wanting to know if it was true that I was friends with the author.

Libba Bray's newest novel Going Bovine came out last week and it's so gloriously weird, so jaw-droppingly brilliant I just have to make sure every one of you goes out and reads it. And not just because Libba and I are old pals. (You should have seen us rocking out to Billy Idol back in college. I was sporting the Madonna-in-her-Borderline-phase look. Lib leaned more toward Cindy Lauper.)

I'm happy to name drop when it comes to raving about this novel. Not that Libba needs my help to get people to buy her books. Most readers know her as the author of the New York Times bestselling Gemma Doyle series -- a supernatural grrrl-power trilogy set in Victorian England that serves up a much juicier, cooler, more psychedelic mythology than anything found in Harry Potter. But Going Bovine? I have no idea how to describe it. Back in my copy writing days, I would have been hard pressed to come up with a tag line for the book jacket. "A boy with mad cow disease loses his mind and finds himself..." No way. That doesn't even begin to tackle the lush, heartbreaking, hilarious, mind-bending splendor of this story. As Libba described in her riotously insane book trailer it's the "feel good mad cow disease string theory book of September 2009."

It's a road trip as well as a head trip about life, death, madness, reality, love, meaning, dreams, hope, despair, humor, microwave popcorn, parallel universes, happiness cults, jazz, quantum physics, connection and the ephemeral nature of existence led by a 16 year old boy, a hypochondriac dwarf, a punk rock fairy and, yes, a talking garden gnome. Don't let the Young Adult classification throw you. This is a new classic along the lines of Catcher in the Rye and Don Quixote. (Only much more fun.) If you love John Irving, Douglas Adams, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Robbins and Charles Dickens -- read this book. You'll never look at a garden gnome the same way again.

Library Noir

Think my night prowling shots of the library are spooky? I guess I'm just tapping into the zeitgeist. Last month our sweet little hometown library hosted an Author Night with Steve Hodel, the national best selling author of Black Dahlia Avenger. In 1947, The Black Dahlia murder terrified Los Angeles with its grisly details. The tale of victim Elizabeth Short could have been lifted straight from the pages of Raymond Chandler. Short was a sultry drifter known for the sour company she kept and the sweet flowers she wore in her jet black hair. Her body turned up in pieces in a Los Angeles park, and for decades, the unsolved case has been the subject of investigation, public fascination, fiction and film adaptation.

So what does a brutal murder have to do with our fair city? Steve Hodel -- a police investigator with 24 years experience -- believes he has finally uncovered the elusive killer: a South Pasadena High School graduate, and (get this) his very own father! You can read all about the library's event here, and watch a local news story about it here.

Moving from real life crime to mystery fiction, The South Pasadena Library's next Author's Night is on January 22, at 7:00PM and features the Edgar Award-winning author of the fantastic Mas Arai mystery series, Naomi Hirahara -- who just happens to be another South Pasadena High School graduate. Prior to Ms. Hirahara's program, renowned jazz master (and South Pasadena resident) Elliott Caine will perform a freewheeling set of “Blue Note” style jazz. No tickets or reservations are necessary, and the entire community is invited to attend.

Thanks to our fabulously cool City Librarian Steve Fjeldsted for keeping me updated on all the famous -- and infamous -- goings on at our wonderful library ... and for not thinking I'm terribly weird for creeping around the place in the dark.