Events
October 2023
Local author SUZANNE WERTHEIM will launch her new book The Inclusive Language Field Guide: 6 Simple Principles for Avoiding Painful Mistakes and Communicating Respectfully on Wednesday, October 4th at 7pm. Suzanne will read from, discuss, and sign copies of her book, which is written to help you avoid inadvertently offending or alienating anyone. As a no-nonsense linguistic anthropologist and business consultant, she's developed six straightforward communication guidelines that show you the way to inclusive language.
The event is at capacity, but you can sign up on the Waiting List through Eventbrite. Click here to preorder a copy of The Inclusive Language Field Guide.
In today's fast-moving and combative culture, language can feel like a minefield. Terms around gender, disability, race, sexuality and more are constantly evolving. Words that used to be acceptable can now get you “cancelled.” People are afraid of making embarrassing mistakes, or sounding outdated or out of touch, or not being as respectful as they intended. But it’s not as complicated as it might seem.
Linguistic anthropologist Suzanne Wertheim offers six easy-to-understand principles to guide any communication—written or spoken—with anyone:
- Reflect reality
- Show respect
- Draw people in
- Incorporate other perspectives
- Prevent erasure
- Recognize pain points
This guide clarifies the challenges—and the solutions—to using "they/them," and demonstrates why "you guys" isn't as inclusive as many people think. If you follow the principles, you'll know not to ask a female coworker with a wedding ring about her husband—because she might be married to a woman. And you'll avoid writing things like "America was discovered in 1492," because that's just when Europeans found it.
Filled with real-world examples, high-impact word substitutions, and exercises that boost new skills, this book builds a foundational toolkit so people can evaluate what is and isn't inclusive language on their own.
SUZANNE WERTHEIM is CEO of Worthwhile Research & Consulting. After getting her PhD in Linguistics from Berkeley, she held faculty positions at Northwestern, University of Maryland, and UCLA. In 2011, she left the university system in order to apply her expertise to real-world problems. Her clients have included Google, Reddit, Charles Schwab, One Medical, News Nation, Salesforce, and Shondaland, among others. She is the creator of a LinkedIn Learning course called Inclusive Language at Work that has been taken by tens of thousands of learners.
THIS EVENT is free but pre-registration is required. Registration ends at 4:30 pm on OCTOBER 4th.
BECAUSE SEATING is limited, please register only if you plan to attend.
DUE TO SPACE limitations, we may not be able to accommodate every person at an event, so early registration is encouraged.
WALK-INS will be accommodated only if space allows.
WE ASK that attendees arrive between 6:45 and 7:00 PM for the event.
PLEASE leave your non-support companion animals at home.
OUR shared restrooms are not accessible after 6:30 PM, please plan accordingly.
Bay Area author KELLY SATHER appears on Thursday, October 5th at 7:00 PM to read from and discuss her new book of short stores Small In Real Life. Kelly will be joined in conversation by author YAEL GOLDSTEIN-LOVEand will sign copies of her book af
ter the presentation. (Kelly's photo by Elisabeth Fall. Yael's photo by Laura Turbow Photography)
The event is free; register at Eventbrite or in the store prior to the evening. Click here to preorder a copy of Small In Real Life.
Winner of the 2023 Drue Heinz Literature Prize, Small in Real Life invokes the myth and melancholy of Southern California glamor, of starry-eyed women and men striving for their own Hollywood shimmer and the seamy undersides and luxurious mystique of the Golden State. Exiled to a Malibu rehab, an alcoholic paparazzo spies on his celebrity friend for an online tabloid. Down to her last dollar, a Hollywood hanger-on steals designer handbags from her dying friend’s bungalow. Blinded by grief, an LA judge atones after condescending to a failed actress on a date. When hunger for power, fame, and love betrays the senses, the characters in these nine stories must reckon with false choices and their search for belonging with the wrong people. Small in Real Life offers an insider’s view of California and the golden promises of possibility and redemption that have long made the West glitter.
“In Kelly Sather’s phenomenal short story collection, she compresses the daily commotion of life into riveting moments of reckoning, whether earned or forced. Desire can obscure or illuminate, and in these compelling stories, Sather’s characters deal with the complications of wanting and existing in the world. Sentence by sentence, Small in Real Life is one of the best debuts I’ve ever read.” —Michele Filgate, editor of What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About
KELLY SATHER is a former entertainment lawyer and screenwriter. She holds an MFA from Bennington and her fiction has appeared in Santa Monica Review, J Journal, Pembroke Magazine, PANK, and elsewhere. She grew up in Los Angeles and lives in Northern California.
THIS EVENT is free but pre-registration is required. Registration ends at 4:30 pm on OCTOBER 5th.
BECAUSE SEATING is limited, please register only if you plan to attend.
DUE TO SPACE limitations, we may not be able to accommodate every person at an event, so early registration is encouraged.
WALK-INS will be accommodated only if space allows.
WE ASK that attendees arrive between 6:45 and 7:00 PM for the event.
PLEASE leave your non-support companion animals at home.
OUR shared restrooms are not accessible after 6:30 PM, please plan accordingly.
Please join us on Tuesday, October 10th at 7:00 pm to celebrate the extraordinary new anthology 50 Years Of Ms.: The Best of the Pathfinding Magazine that Ignited a Revolution and engage in critical conversation with (from left) Ms. executive editor KATHERINE SPILLAR, managing editor CAMILLE HAHN, and contributor and scholar NICOLE M. GUIDOTTI-HERNANDEZ. We’ll explore what the future of feminism and movement journalism demands - a vision that is bold, imaginative and collaborative.
To reserve space for this special free event, register on Eventbrite or contact the store. Click here to preorder a copy of 50 Years of Ms.
50 Years Of Ms. is a remarkable collection – five decades of the magazine’s most startling, audacious, and norm-breaking pieces. Filled with iconic covers, photos, and letters to Ms., it features a foreword from Gloria Steinem and contributions by bell hooks, Alice Walker, Pauli Murray, Eleanor Smeal, Billie Jean King, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Allison Bechdel, Brittney Cooper, Joy Harjo, Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, Rita Dove and many more.
Ms. remains a trusted feminist source for news, analysis and commentary, and is more critical than ever as the fights for women’s rights and for democracy face new challenges. The book is as much a reflection of the past 50 years as it is a roadmap for the path forward.
For the past five decades Ms. has been the nation’s most influential source of feminist ideas, and it remains at the forefront of feminism today, affecting thought and culture with a younger-than-ever readership (ages 16-20!).
KATHERINE (KATHY) SPILLAR is the Executive Editor of Ms. and editor of and contributor to 50 Years of Ms: The Best of the Pathfinding Magazine that Ignited a Revolution. Kathy is also the Executive Director of Feminist Majority Foundation and Feminist Majority, national organizations working for women’s equality, empowerment and non-violence; one of the founders, she has been a driving force in executing the organizations’ diverse programs securing women’s rights both domestically and globally since its inception in 1987.
CAMILLE HAHN is the managing editor of Ms.—and has also served as its research editor, associate editor, features editor, copy editor and proofreader in her 15-plus years with the magazine. Previously, she worked as an associate editor at Bon Appétit.
DR. NICOLE M. GUIDOTTI-HERNÁNDEZ is a Ms. contributor and a member of the Ms. Committee of Scholars. She is the inaugural executive director of the Mills Institute at Northeastern University’s Oakland campus and author of Unspeakable Violence: Remapping U.S. and Mexican National Imaginaries.
THIS EVENT is free but pre-registration is requested. Registration ends at 5:00 pm on October 10th.
BECAUSE SEATING is limited, please register only if you plan to attend.
DUE TO SPACE limitations, we may not be able to accommodate every person at an event, so early registration is encouraged.
WALK-INS will be accommodated only if space allows.
WE ASK that attendees arrive between 6:45 and 7:00 PM for the event.
PLEASE leave your non-support companion animals at home.
OUR shared restrooms are not accessible after 6:30 PM, please plan accordingly.
Join us at Mrs. Dalloway's on Thursday, October 12th when organizing expert and local Berkeley author SHIRA GILL comes to launch her new book Organized Living: Solutions and Inspiration For Your Home. Shira will discuss her book, demonstrate techniques, take questions, and sign copies of her book after the presentation. Kickstart your organized life with this inspiring visual guide from the author of Minimalista.
THIS EVENT IS AT CAPACITY, but you can join the wait list at Eventbrite. Click here to preorder a copy of Organized Living.
Preordering a copy of Organized Living grants the guest both priority event seating and priority in the signing line. The FIRST TWENTY preorders will also receive a limited edition Organized Living x Paper and Pear home organizing label pack and a treat bag from Shira.
People are naturally curious about the homes of professional organizers. Organized Living was inspired by Shira's desire to provide a glimpse into a rarely-seen world: The homes of people who organize others. Shira showcases the homes of twenty-five international home organizers, offering an exclusive behind-the-scenes look into this meticulously kept world. Organized Living introduces you to the aspirational spaces of the most organized people in the world, the organizers themselves, and the passion that fuels their work. Through stunning images and absorbing interviews, you’ll gain expert tips and resources, loads of visual inspiration, and clever organizing hacks you can use in your own home.
If you’re seeking less clutter, overwhelm, and stress in your life, and are looking to create more time and energy for the things that matter most, Organized Living is your chance to learn directly from the best in the business.
SHIRA GILL is a globally recognized home organizing expert, bestselling author, and speaker. She has inspired thousands of people to clear clutter from their homes and lives, and developed a process and toolkit that applies to anyone, regardless of budget, space, or lifestyle. Shira is also the author of Minimalista and has been featured in 100+ print and media outlets including Vogue, Dwell, Better Homes & Gardens, House Beautiful, Architectural Digest, Domino, Forbes, Goop, Harper's Bazaar, HGTV, Today, InStyle, Parents, Real Simple, and The New York Times.
THIS EVENT is free but pre-registration is requested. Registration ends at 5:00 pm on October 12th.
BECAUSE SEATING is limited, please register only if you plan to attend.
DUE TO SPACE limitations, we may not be able to accommodate every person at an event, so early registration is encouraged.
WALK-INS will be accommodated only if space allows.
WE ASK that attendees arrive between 6:45 and 7:00 PM for the event.
PLEASE leave your non-support companion animals at home.
OUR shared restrooms are not accessible after 6:30 PM, please plan accordingly.
In celebration of World Migratory Bird Day, join us at Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore on Saturday, October 14th at 4:30 pm when acclaimed children's book author MADELEINE DUNPHY comes to read her two children's picture books The Peregrine's Journey and The Turtle Dove's Journey. Madeleine will be joined in conversation by MARY MALEC, Cal Falcons Raptor Expert, to discuss the peregrine falcons nesting on the Campanile, a mile from the bookstore! Madeleine will also sign copies of her books after the reading.
To register for this free event, sign up on Eventbrite or at the store. Click below to order a copy of Madeleine's books prior to the event.
The Peregrine's Journey - Paperback
The Peregrine's Journey vividly describes one of the most remarkable feats in the animal kingdom. Beginning in Alaska and ending two months later in Argentina, the peregrine falcon's annual migration is an 8,000-mile flight across the Americas. This beautifully illustrated book allows young readers to follow one bird on its journey. Based on the actual migration of a real bird that was tracked by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the book is filled with amazing facts about the bird's diet, habits, and navigational abilities, as well as stunning views of the many habitats the peregrine visits along the way.
The Turtle Dove's Journey follows a turtle dove on his 4,000 mile migration from England to Mali, Africa. Starting in the prim hedges of Suffolk, England, instinct drives the dove high into the night skies for a 4,000 mile trip to the savannahs of Mali, in West Africa. Along the way there are lonely, moonlit flights above the sea, a cozy hideout in the bushes of Bordeaux, France, a meeting of the birds at Gibraltar, the fountains of Casablanca, winds flowing "like a river" down canyons of the Atlas Mountains, and a Sahara sandstorm churning below. With carefully researched prose and luminous paintings, this book is perfect for anyone who has ever wondered about the mysterious journeys of Earth's feathered creatures.
MADELEINE DUNPHY has studied and visited many of the world’s ecosystems, and was inspired to write books about our world’s great diversity of life. Her books have been published by Hyperion Books for Children, Millbrook Press, and her own publishing company, Web of Life Children’s Books—a publishing company devoted to publishing picture books about the environment. Madeleine is also a teacher, activist and mother. She lives in Oakland, California.
MARY MALEC saw her first peregrine on a bridge during those last few years before there were no East Coast peregrines left. It would be 50 years before she saw a second peregrine. In the intervening years biologists used captive breeding and hacking and cross-fostering, combining science and falconry to help the peregrine recovery process. She has been monitoring nest sites and participating in urban fledgewatch for over 15 years, learning about this crazy and magnificent species
THIS EVENT is free but pre-registration is requested. Registration ends at 3:30 pm on October 14th.
BECAUSE SEATING is limited, please register only if you plan to attend.
DUE TO SPACE limitations, we may not be able to accommodate every person at an event, so early registration is encouraged.
WALK-INS will be accommodated only if space allows.
WE ASK that attendees arrive between 4:15 - 4:30 PM for the event.
PLEASE leave your non-support companion animals at home.
Join us at Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore on Tuesday, October 17th at 7 pm when author STUART REID comes to discuss and sign copies of his new book The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War
Assassination. Reid's book is a spellbinding work of history that reads like a Cold War spy thriller—about the U.S.-sanctioned plot to assassinate the democratically elected leader of the newly independent Congo. Stuart will be joined in conversation by ADAM HOCHSCHILD. (Stuart's photo by Mark Jaworski)
To attend this free event, you must register on Eventbrite or in the store. Click here to preorder a copy of The Lumumba Plot.
It was supposed to be a moment of great optimism, a cause for jubilation. The Congo was at last being set free from Belgium—one of seventeen countries to gain independence in 1960 from ruling European powers. At the helm as prime minister was charismatic nationalist Patrice Lumumba. Just days after the handover, however, the Congo’s new army mutinied, Belgian forces intervened, and Lumumba turned to the United Nations for help in saving his newborn nation from what the press was already calling “the Congo crisis.” Dag Hammarskjöld, the tidy Swede serving as UN secretary-general, quickly arranged the organization’s biggest peacekeeping mission in history. But chaos was still spreading. Frustrated with the fecklessness of the UN and spurned by the United States, Lumumba then approached the Soviets for help—an appeal that set off alarm bells at the CIA. To forestall the spread of Communism in Africa, the CIA sent word to its station chief in the Congo, Larry Devlin: Lumumba had to go.
Within a year, everything would unravel. The CIA plot to murder Lumumba would fizzle out, but he would be deposed in a CIA-backed coup, transferred to enemy territory in a CIA-approved operation, and shot dead by Congolese assassins. Hammarskjöld, too, would die, in a mysterious plane crash en route to negotiate a cease-fire with the Congo’s rebellious southeast. And a young, ambitious military officer named Joseph Mobutu, who had once sworn fealty to Lumumba, would seize power with U.S. help and misrule the country for more than three decades. For the Congolese people, the events of 1960–61 represented the opening chapter of a long horror story. For the U.S. government, however, they provided a playbook for future interventions.
STUART A. REID is an executive editor of Foreign Affairs. He has written for The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg Businessweek, Politico Magazine, Slate, and other publications. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and daughter.
ADAM HOCHSCHILD is the New York Times bestselling author of eleven books, including King Leopold's Ghost and To End All Wars (both finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award) and Bury the Chains (a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and PEN USA Literary Award). He lives in Berkeley, California.
THIS EVENT is free but pre-registration is requested. Registration ends at 5:00 pm on October 17th.
BECAUSE SEATING is limited, please register only if you plan to attend.
DUE TO SPACE limitations, we may not be able to accommodate every person at an event, so early registration is encouraged.
WALK-INS will be accommodated only if space allows.
WE ASK that attendees arrive between 6:45 and 7:00 PM for the event.
PLEASE leave your non-support companion animals at home.
OUR shared restrooms are not accessible after 6:30 PM, please plan accordingly.

Author EVELYN MCDONNELL comes to Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore on Wednesday, October 18th at 7:00 PM to read from, discuss, and sign copies of her new book The World According to Joan Didion. She will be joined in conversation by LISA REINERTSON. Evelyn's book
is an intimate exploration of the life, craft, and legacy of one of the most revered and influential writers, an artist who continues to inspire fans and creatives to cultivate practices of deep attention, rigorous interrogation and beautiful style. (Evelyn's photo credit John Rou. Lisa's photo credit Kurt Fishback)
This a a free event, but you must sign up in advance through Eventbrite or in the store. Click here to preorder a copy of The World According to Joan Didion.
Joan Didion was a writer’s writer; not only a groundbreaking journalist, essayist, novelist and screenwriter, but a keen observer who honed her sights on life’s telling details. Her insights continue to influence creatives and admirers, encouraging them to become close observers of the world, unsentimental critics, and meticulous stylists. An antidote to a global view that narrows our vision to the smallest screens, The World According To Joan Didion is a meditation on the people, places, and objects that propelled Didion’s prose and an invitation to journalists, storytellers, and life adventurers to “throw themselves into the convulsions of the world,” as she once said.
Evelyn McDonnell, the acclaimed journalist, essayist, critic, feminist, native Californian, and university professor who regularly teaches Didion’s work, is attuned to interpret Didion’s vision for readers today. Inspired by Didion’s own words—from her works both published and unpublished—and informed by the people who knew Didion and those whose lives she shaped, The World According to Joan Didion is an illustrated journey through her life, tracing the path she carved from Sacramento, Portuguese Bend, Los Angeles, and Malibu to Manhattan, Miami, and Hawaii. McDonnell reveals the world as it was seen through Didion’s eyes and explores her work in chapters keyed to the singular physical motifs of her writing: Snake. Typewriter. Hotel. Notebook. Girl. Etc.
One of the first books to be published after the revered writer’s death in 2021, The World According to Joan Didion is a literary companion for those embarking on new journeys and a guide to innovative ways of being. It will radically transform the way you explore the world, and will help you answer the question as you sit in a café, or on a plane or train, pondering the future: What would Joan Didion have seen?
EVELYN McDONNELL has written or coedited multiple books, including Women Who Rock: Bessie to Beyonce, Girl Groups to Riot Grrrl and Queens of Noise: The Real Story of the Runaways. She has been a pop culture writer at the Miami Herald and a senior editor at the Village Voice. Her writing has appeared in anthologies and publications, including the New York Times, The Guardian, Los Angeles Times, Ms., and Billboard. She teaches journalism at Loyola Marymount University and lives in San Pedro, California. https://populismblog.wordpress.com/
LISA REINERTSON is known for both her life size figurative ceramic sculptures and her large-scale public sculptures cast in bronze. Her ceramic work has been in exhibitions and museums nationally and internationally, including the Crocker Art Museum, the American Museum of Ceramic Art, the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, the National Museum of Ceramic Art in Maryland, Museo Internationale della Ceramica, Faenza, Italy, and the Oakland Museum of California. Reinertson has completed over 20 public commissions in bronze including three “Martin Luther King” memorial sculptures: in Kalamazoo, MI, Riverside, CA and the King Hall Law School at UC Davis, the “Cesar Chavez” memorial in downtown Sacramento, “Neptune’s Daughter” in Benicia, CA, and “Joan Didion” in Sacramento.
THIS EVENT is free but pre-registration is required. Registration ends at 4:30 pm on October 18th.
BECAUSE SEATING is limited, please register only if you plan to attend.
DUE TO SPACE limitations, we may not be able to accommodate every person at an event, so early registration is encouraged.
WALK-INS will be accommodated only if space allows.
WE ASK that attendees arrive between 6:45 and 7:00 PM for the event.
PLEASE leave your non-support companion animals at home.
OUR shared restrooms are not accessible after 6:30 PM, please plan accordingly.
Join us at Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore on Thursday, October 19th at 7 pm when acclaimed New Yorker cartoonist NAVIED MAHDAVIAN will read from, discuss, and sign copies of his new graphic novel This
Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America. It's a gorgeously illustrated and written debut graphic memoir about belonging, identity, and making a home in the remote American West. Navied will be joined in conversation by AMY KURZWEIL. (Navied's photo by Garth Bowden)
To sign up for this free event, go to Eventbrite or contact the store. Click Here to preorder a copy of This Country.
Before Navied Mahdavian moved with his wife and dog in November of 2016 from San Francisco to an off-the-grid cabin in rural Idaho, he had never fished, gardened, hiked, hunted, or lived in a snowy place. But there, he could own land, realize his dream of being an artist, and start a family—the Millennial dream. Over the next three years, Mahdavian leaned into the wonders of the natural Idaho landscape and found himself adjusting to and enjoying a slower pace of living. But beyond the boundaries of his six acres, he was confronted with the realities of America’s political shifts and forced to confront the question: Do I belong here?
Mahdavian’s beautifully written and unflinchingly honest graphic memoir charts his growth and struggles as an artist, citizen, and new father. It celebrates his love of place and honors the relationships he makes in rural America, touching on dynamics like culture, environment, and identity in America, and even articulating difficult moments of racism and brutality he found there as a Middle Eastern American. With wit, compassion, and a sense of humor, Mahdavian’s insider perspective offers a unique portrait of one of the most remote and wild areas of the American West.
"In Mahdavian's hands, comics feel like poetry. Perfect ink drawings bring land, beast, and humans, with all their delicacy and yearning, viscerally to life. This Country … made me want to grant my own surroundings the grace, humor, and dignity of Mahdavian's observant study." —Amy Kurzweil, cartoonist and author of Flying Couch: A Graphic Memoir
NAVIED MAHDAVIAN has been a contributing cartoonist to The New Yorker since 2018, where his cartoons and comics appear regularly. His work has also been featured in the LA Times, Reader's Digest, Wired, Alta Online, and in the cartoon collections, The Rejection Collection (2022) and Send Help!(2021). Before becoming a cartoonist, he taught the 5th grade in the East Bay where he learned most of his jokes.
AMY KURZWEIL is a cartoonist who is the author of two graphic memoirs: Flying Couch (2016) and her new book, Artificial: A Love Story (2023). Flying Couch was named a 2016 New York Times Editor’s Choice and a Kirkus Best Memoir of 2016. Her comics appear regularly in The New Yorker, The Believer, and elsewhere. Her prose has appeared in Longreads, Literary Hub, The Toast, and other publications.
THIS EVENT is free but pre-registration is requested. Registration ends at 5:00 pm on October 19th.
BECAUSE SEATING is limited, please register only if you plan to attend.
DUE TO SPACE limitations, we may not be able to accommodate every person at an event, so early registration is encouraged.
WALK-INS will be accommodated only if space allows.
WE ASK that attendees arrive between 6:45 and 7:00 PM for the event.
PLEASE leave your non-support companion animals at home.
OUR shared restrooms are not accessible after 6:30 PM, please plan accordingly.
Join us at Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore on Sunday, October 22nd at 2 pm when Bay Area author NIDHI CHANANI launches her new graphic novel for readers ages 8-12, Super Boba Cafe. First in a series, Nidhi's book is a sweet and magical graphic novel about a boba café, an earthquake-causing monster, and an unforgettable summer. Nidhi will read from and discuss her book and will sign copies at the end of her presentation.
To register for this free event, go to Eventbrite or contact the store.
Click here to preorder a copy of Super Boba Cafe in paperback.
Click here to preorder a copy of Super Boba Cafe in hardcover.
In the fog laden hills of San Francisco sits a sleepy independent boba café. Run by Jing Li and guarded by her kitty Bao, it comfortably fades into the background. But inside the boba café, there’s a secret. Jing is the keeper of the monster of San Francisco. Each day she prepares one giant boba for nine hours to feed it.
When Jing’s granddaughter, Aria, comes to stay with her for the summer she makes it her mission to turn the café around. Aria is quickly aided by Bao, who gives birth to eight perfect kittens. Aria spreads the news of the boba cat café on social media and overnight it is overrun with excited customers. Each day Nainai Li (Grandma Li) finds reasons to close the café but the demand only increases.
When she opens, the hill monster is left hungry and small earthquakes begin to plague the city. When Aria secretly follows her Nainai to the hill monster cave she isn’t sure what awaits. Will Aria be able to reason with the monster or become its new favorite meal? Or will she disturb its underground existence and cause the Big One?
NIDHI CHANANI is a freelance illustrator, cartoonist, and writer. Born in Calcutta and raised in suburban Southern California, she creates because it makes her happy—with the hope that it can make others happy too. Her debut graphic novel, Pashmina, received starred reviews from School Library Journal and Publishers Weekly, was a JLG Selection, a YALSA Top Ten Great Graphic Novel for Teens, and was reviewed in the New York Times, among other honors. She has a number of other comics and picture books out in the world as well, including Binny’s Diwali, Jukebox, and What Will My Story Be? Chanani draws and dreams every day with her husband, kid, and their kittens in the San Francisco Bay Area.
THIS EVENT is free but pre-registration is requested. Registration ends at 1:00 pm on October 22nd.
BECAUSE SEATING is limited, please register only if you plan to attend.
DUE TO SPACE limitations, we may not be able to accommodate every person at an event, so early registration is encouraged.
WALK-INS will be accommodated only if space allows.
WE ASK that attendees arrive between 1:45 and 2:00 PM for the event.
PLEASE leave your non-support companion animals at home.

Join us on Monday, October 23rd at 7:00 PM when author CAROL ROH SPAULDING appears to read from, discuss, and sign her new book of short stories, Waiting for Mr. Kim and Other
Stories. Carol will be joined in conversation by VANESSA HUA.
This is a free event, but you must register through Eventbrite or at the bookstore. Click Here to preorder a copy of Waiting For Mr. Kim and Other Stories.
This collection of linked stories follows four generations of the Songs, a Korean American family, beginning in 1924 just prior to the Immigration Act and extending to near the end of the century. Linked stories, or stories that form a story cycle, are a common book-length form seen in Asian American literature that accommodates multiple perspectives across generations and locations. Through this story cycle, patterns emerge as cultural identity and individuality, often in tension with one another, shape choices and outcomes.
With these stories, Carol Roh Spaulding charts shifting definitions of “Americanness” across time through the arc of a family narrative. She also explores desire and belonging as articulated, in turns, by the mother, father, granddaughter, great-grandson, and even a ghost child who died after a tragic accident. But these linked stories center on the life experiences of Gracie Song. They follow her from girlhood to young motherhood, through her children’s teenage years, and finally to her elderly solitude, when to her great astonishment she finds romance with a younger man and reconciliation with an estranged daughter—both unexpected gifts of later life.
CAROL ROH SPAULDING received the 2022 Flannery O’Conner Award for Short Fiction from University of Georgia Press, selected by Lori Ostlund. Her stories and essays have appeared in several publications including Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, and December magazine. Awards for her work include a Pushcart Prize, Best American Essays 2019 Notable Mention, and the Eludia prize from Hidden River Arts for her forthcoming novel, Helen Button (Sowilo Press). A California native and grand-daughter of Korean immigrants, she teaches at Drake University in Des Moines and lives in rural Iowa with her family.
VANESSA HUA is the author of the national bestsellers A River of Stars and Forbidden City, as well as Deceit and Other Possibilities, a New York Times Editors Pick. A National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow, she has also received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, a Steinbeck Fellowship in Creative Writing, and a de Groot Foundation Writer of Note grant, as well as awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Asian American Journalists Association, among others. A former longtime columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, her work has appeared in publications including the New York Times, Washington Post, and The Atlantic. The daughter of Chinese immigrants, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family.
THIS EVENT is free but pre-registration is required. Registration ends at 4:30 pm on October 23rd.
BECAUSE SEATING is limited, please register only if you plan to attend.
DUE TO SPACE limitations, we may not be able to accommodate every person at an event, so early registration is encouraged.
WALK-INS will be accommodated only if space allows.
WE ASK that attendees arrive between 6:45 and 7:00 PM for the event.
PLEASE leave your non-support companion animals at home.
OUR shared restrooms are not accessible after 6:30 PM, please plan accordingly.
Join us at Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore on Thursday, October 26th at 7 pm when Bay Area author NANCY JOOYOUN KIM will read from, discuss, and sign copies of her new novel What We Kept To Ourselves. The New York Times bestsel
ling author of the Reese’s Book Club pick The Last Story of Mina Lee returns with a timely and surprising new novel about a family’s search for answers following the disappearance of their mother. Nancy will be joined in conversation by Berkeley author HANNAH MICHELL. (Nancy's photo by Andria Lo)
This is a free event, but you must register on Eventbrite or at the store. Click here to preorder a copy of What We Kept To Ourselves.
1999: The Kim family is struggling to move on after their mother, Sunny, vanished a year ago. Sixty-one-year-old John Kim feels more isolated from his grown children, Anastasia and Ronald, than ever before. But one evening, their fragile lives are further upended when John finds the body of a stranger in the backyard, carrying a letter to Sunny, leaving the family with more questions than ever about the stranger’s history and possible connections to their mother.
1977: Sunny is pregnant and has just moved to Los Angeles from Korea with her aloof and often-absent husband. America is not turning out the way she had dreamed it to be, and the loneliness and isolation are broken only by a fateful encounter at a bus stop. The unexpected connection spans the decades and echoes into the family’s lives in the present as they uncover devastating secrets that put not only everything they thought they knew about their mother but their very lives at risk.
Both a riveting page-turner and moving family story, What We Kept to Ourselves masterfully explores the consequences of secrets between parents and children, husbands and wives. It is the story of one unforgettable family’s search for home when all seems lost, and a powerful meditation on identity, migration, and what it means to dream in America.
NANCY JOOYOUN KIM is the New York Times bestselling author of What We Kept to Ourselves and The Last Story of Mina Lee, a Reese’s Book Club pick. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
HANNAH MICHELL grew up in Seoul. She studied anthropology and philosophy at Cambridge University and now lives in California with her husband and children. She teaches in the Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies Program at UC Berkeley. Her U.S. debut novel Excavations was published in 2023.
THIS EVENT is free but pre-registration is requested. Registration ends at 5:00 pm on October 26th.
BECAUSE SEATING is limited, please register only if you plan to attend.
DUE TO SPACE limitations, we may not be able to accommodate every person at an event, so early registration is encouraged.
WALK-INS will be accommodated only if space allows.
WE ASK that attendees arrive between 6:45 and 7:00 PM for the event.
PLEASE leave your non-support companion animals at home.
OUR shared restrooms are not accessible after 6:30 PM, please plan accordingly.

November 2023
Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore is thrilled to present a special exhibit celebrating the artwork of Bay Area artists and storytellers: Cindy Derby, Susan Gal, Briana Loewinsohn, Thien Pham, Sendy Santamaria, Jason Shiga and Eugenia Yoh. Original artwork, fine art prints, and much more will be displayed and for sale. Start your holiday shopping early!
Opening Reception: Friday, November 3, 7:00 - 8:30pm
Come Mingle & Chat + Shop Art & Books
At 7:30, artists / authors will talk briefly about their work and process, and there will an opportunity for Q&A.
This is not a sit down event, but an exhibition and reception where people can chat with the artists and buy their work. Please pre-register on Eventbrite.
CINDY DERBY is an award-winning author and illustrator. She has received a Golden Kite Honor for Picture Book Illustration and a 2021 Caldecott Honor. The New York Times calls her work "profound...alive...and wonderfully out of control" Her latest picture book, Oh, Panda, "meld(s) lovely art with toddlerlike determination, this amalgamation of ice castles and vibrant butterflies soars." --Kirkus Reviews. Cindy lives in San Francisco.
SUSAN GAL is the illustrator of several award-winning books, including Tower of Life: How Yaffa Eliach Rebuilt Her Town in Stories and Photographs, winner of the 2023 Sydney Taylor Gold Award and the 2023 Robert F. Sibert Award. In her most recent book, Dear Stray, Gal's "digitally assembled watercolor and ink illustrations...movingly reinforce the prickly kinship <between the child and the stray kitten> via emphatic brushstrokes and dramatic hues." --Publishers Weekly, starred review. Susan lives in Berkeley.
BRIANA LOEWINSOHN is a cartoonist and educator. Her debut graphic novel, Ephemera: A Graphic Memoir, is an aching, meditative twist on autobiography, infusing the genre with an ethereal fusion of memory and imagination. Publisher Weekly writes, "this powerful yet meditative work heralds the arrival of a promising creator." --Publishers Weekly, starred review. Briana lives in Oakland.
THIEN PHAM is a graphic novelist, comic artist, and educator. In his memoir, Family Style: Memories of an American From Vietnam, about a Vietnamese immigrant boy's search for belonging in America, "Pham reflects the push-pull conflict of assimilation and cultural loss as explored through food in digitally illustrated panels portraying visual feasts and expressive emotion, making for a vivid and insightful telling that offers joy and hope amid the terror." --Publishers Weekly, starred review. Thien lives in Oakland.
SENDY SANTAMARIA is Xicana author-illustrator. Her debut picture book,Yenebi's Drive to School, the story of a family's drive to school--4 hours each day across the Mexico/CA border--is drawn from her life. In a starred review, Kirkus notes "softly rounded illustrations bring the vibrant border towns to life". Sendy lives in San Pablo.
JASON SHIGA is a cartoonist. His comics have a geeky side, and often feature exciting uses of math, mazes, puzzles, and unconventional narrative techniques. He has won two Eisner awards. In his recent Adventuregame Comics, a choose-your-own-adventure-style series, "Shiga uses wiry ink and a blue-hued palette to depict a moody environment, while clever dialogue and stout character design impart good humor..."-- Publishers Weekly, starred review. Jason lives in Oakland.
EUGENIA YOH is a Taiwanese-American author-illustrator. She is a children's book designer at Chronicle Books during the day and a children's book illustrator during the night. Her debut picture book,This is Not My Home, "through spare text, thoughtful illustration, and masterful artistic design, ... captures an affecting journey of gradual healing and adjustment... A truly exceptional debut."-- Booklist, starred review. Eugenia lives in Berkeley.
PLEASE leave your non-support companion animals at home.
OUR shared restrooms are not accessible after 6:30 PM, please plan accordingly.
Mrs. Dalloway's is pleased to present a special off-site event on Sunday, November 5th at 4:00 pm with author MANDY AFTEL, the owner of Aftelier Perfumes and the Aftel Archive of Curious Scents in Berkeley, California. Mandy will discuss and sign copies of her new book The Museum of Scent: Exploring the Curious and Wondrous World of Fragrance. Breathe in the natural and cultural history of scent with this richly illustrated book inspired by the Aftel Archive of Curious Scents. (Mandy's photo by Aya Brackett)
To attend this free event, you must register on Eventbrite. Space is limited to 40 attendees for this special event so sign up early! Click here to preorder a copy of The Museum of Scent.
EXCLUSIVE OFFER: the first 20 people to preorder the book will also receive a complimentary ticket to the Aftel Archive of Curious Scent — a $25 value!
Please note, this event is offsite at the author's beautiful backyard garden located at 1518 Walnut St. in Berkeley, not in the bookstore.
Mandy Aftel is one of the world’s preeminent natural perfumers, with a clientele ranging from the singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen to Ivy Ross, head of hardware design at Google. Eschewing the synthetic molecules that dominate commercial perfumes, Aftel creates her complex and subtle fragrances using only natural essences. For her, each of these essences is a gateway to a lost world of scent, stretching back to the beginnings of human civilization and intertwined with the history of medicine, cuisine, adornment, sexuality, and spirituality. In 2017, Aftel opened a one-room museum—the Aftel Archive of Curious Scents—in her backyard in Berkeley, California, to help a modern audience rediscover the enchantment of this lost world. Her museum has attracted thousands of enthusiastic visitors and has been featured in the New York Times, Vogue, Goop, O: The Oprah Magazine, and numerous other media outlets.
Now Aftel has created this beautiful book, illustrated with treasures from her museum’s collection, so that readers at home can immerse themselves in the world of scent. She guides us through the different families of botanical fragrances (including flowers, woods, leaves and grasses, and resins), depicting each plant with a hand-colored antique woodcut and revealing its olfactory notes and lore. Special chapters are devoted to the most rare and precious fragrances—such as ambergris, formed of a rare secretion of the sperm whale—and to antique essential oil bottles, handwritten recipe books, and other evocative artifacts. The Museum of Scent, which includes a bookmark subtly scented with a natural essence, invites us on a sensuous, imaginative journey.
MANDY AFTEL, an internationally known artisan perfumer and authority on natural fragrance, is the owner of Aftelier Perfumes and the Aftel Archive of Curious Scents in Berkeley, California. Her other books include Essence and Alchemy: A Natural History of Perfume, which helped sparked the natural perfume renaissance and has been translated into eight languages. Aftel's work has been featured in the New York Times, Vogue, Vanity Fair, and numerous other major outlets.
THIS EVENT is free but pre-registration is REQUIRED. Registration ends at Noon on November 5th.
BECAUSE SEATING is limited, please register only if you plan to attend.
DUE TO SPACE limitations, we may not be able to accommodate every person at an event, so early registration is encouraged.
WALK-INS will be allowed at this event only if space allows.
THE MUSEUM will not be accessible during the event.
WE ASK that attendees arrive between 3:45 and 4:00 PM for the event.
PLEASE leave your non-support companion animals at home.
NO RESTROOM access during the event so please plan accordingly.
