Events

March 2023

Author KIM TODD visits Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore on Wednesday March 29th, at 7pm to read from, discuss, and sign her new paperback release of Sensational: The Hidden History of America's "Girl Stunt Reporters."

To attend this free event, you just sign up on Eventbrite or contact us at the store prior to the presentation.  Walk-ins cannot be accommodated.

In the waning years of the 19th century, women journalists across the United States risked their safety and reputations to expose the hazardous conditions under which many Americans existed. Donning disguises, they stole into sewing factories to report on child labor, fainted in the streets to test public hospital treatment, posed as lobbyists to reveal corrupt politicians, and more. Thanks to their daring exploits, these “girl stunt reporters” changed laws, helped launch a labor movement, championed women’s rights, and more. After a decade of headlines and fame, though, these trailblazers faced a vicious public backlash. Accused of practicing “yellow journalism,” their popularity waned until “stunt reporter” became a badge of shame.

Sensational is a vivid history that brings to light these writers and pays long overdue tribute to the essential part they played in revolutionizing modern journalism. Kim Todd traces how their influence would arc across the century from the Progressive Era “muckraking” of the early 1900s to the personal “New Journalism” of the 1960s and ’70s to the “immersion journalism” and “creative nonfiction” of today. Todd reveals how these bold and unconventional writers changed how people would tell stories forever.

“A gripping, flawlessly researched, and overdue portrait of America’s trailblazing female journalists. . . . In this important and immensely readable book, Kim Todd has restored these long-forgotten mavericks to their rightful place in American history.”—Abbott Kahler, author (as Karen Abbott) of The Ghosts of Eden Park

KIM TODD is the award-winning author of Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis and Tinkering with Eden: A Natural History of Exotic Species in America, winner of the PEN/Jerard Award and the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award. Her essays and articles have appeared in Smithsonian, Salon, Sierra magazine, Orion, and Best American Science and Nature Writing anthologies, among other publications. She is a member of the MFA faculty at the University of Minnesota and lives in Minneapolis with her family.

THIS EVENT is free but pre-registration is required. Registration ends at 4:30 pm on March 29th.

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 permits

WE ASK that attendees arrive between 6:45 and 7:00 PM for the event.

Wednesday, March 29, 2023 - 7:00pm to 8:30pm
Sensational: The Hidden History of America's “Girl Stunt Reporters” By Kim Todd Cover Image
$19.99
ISBN: 9780062843623
Availability: Most titles are on our shelves or available within 1-5 days.
Published: Harper Perennial - March 21st, 2023

April 2023

Bestselling author ALKA JOSHI visits Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore on Tuesday, April 4th to present the third book in her Jaipur Trilogy, The Perfumist of Paris. The first installment, The Henna Artist, was a Reese's Book Club Pick, and now the final chapter takes readers to 1970s Paris, where Radha’s budding career as a perfumer must compete with the demands of her family and the secrets of her past.

SPECIAL OFFER: Pre-order a signed copy of Alka Joshi’s The Perfumist of Paris and receive a LilaNur Parfums Discovery Set with your copy of the book! LilaNur Parfums is a fragrance house which combines the best of Indian and French perfumery traditions, pairing exquisite Indian ingredients with French master perfumery. More information about LilaNur can be found at lilanur.com. While supplies last, copies must be picked up at Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore.

The event is free, but you must sign up in advance on Eventbrite or contact us at the store prior to the presentation.

Paris, 1974. Radha is now living in Paris with her husband, Pierre, and their two daughters. She still grieves for the baby boy she gave up years ago, when she was only a child herself, but she loves being a mother to her daughters, and she’s finally found her passion—the treasure trove of scents.

She has an exciting and challenging position working for a master perfumer, helping to design completely new fragrances for clients and building her career one scent at a time. She only wishes Pierre could understand her need to work. She feels his frustration, but she can’t give up this thing that drives her.

Tasked with her first major project, Radha travels to India, where she enlists the help of her sister, Lakshmi, and the courtesans of Agra—women who use the power of fragrance to seduce, tease and entice. She’s on the cusp of a breakthrough when she finds out the son she never told her husband about is heading to Paris to find her—upending her carefully managed world and threatening to destroy a vulnerable marriage.

ALKA JOSHI was born in India and raised in the U.S. since she was nine. She has a BA from Stanford University and an MFA from California College of Arts. Joshi's debut novel, The Henna Artist, immediately became a NYT bestseller, a Reese Witherspoon Bookclub pick, was Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, & is in development as a TV series. Her second novel, The Secret Keeper of Jaipur was published in 2021.

THIS EVENT is free but pre-registration is required. Registration ends at 4:30 pm on April 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.

Tuesday, April 4, 2023 - 7:00pm to 8:30pm
Pre-Order Now Badge
The Perfumist of Paris: A Novel from the Bestselling Author of the Henna Artist By Alka Joshi Cover Image
$30.00
ISBN: 9780778386148
Availability: Coming Soon - Available for Pre-Order Now
Published: Mira Books - March 28th, 2023

Join us at Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore on Wednesday, April 5th at 7:00 pm when ecological designer and author FELIX DE ROSEN comes to read from, discuss, and sign his new book A Garden's Purpose: Cultivating Our Connection With the Natural World. It's a book filled with essays and stories to inspire us to nurture diverse, meaningful relationships with gardens and landscapes.

The event is free, but you must register on Eventbrite online or contact the store.

The garden provides a powerful, generous way of looking at the world. Through stories and essays, this gracious volume, written in a highly accessible tone, invites readers on a journey to understand gardens as places where we build mutually beneficial relationships with the living world around us.

As beautiful spaces, gardens fill us with hope and wonder. As gathering places, they nurture friendships and communities. Thoughtfully crafted, they make us pause and appreciate our surroundings. Full of edible plants, they nourish us. Full of diversity—human and non-human—they connect us with the polychromatic world in which we live. They make us feel at home in our own bodies, in our cities, and on our planet.

Each chapter in this book is dedicated to a specific idea or element of the garden, from places where gardens grow (i.e., a driveway in San Francisco, a bathtub as a planter) to garden management (why some lawns need watering every few days, and some gardens can go almost a full year without irrigation) to color and texture (i.e., how fine-textured plants like grasses can be used to unify a space), and everything in between. Hundreds of gardens from all corners of the globe are included, photographed in glorious full color.

Perfect for home gardeners, landscape designers, or as a gift for the gardener in your life, this is an ode to the wonder, design, and habitat of gardens, and an inspiration to nurture meaningful relationships with the natural world around us.

FELIX de ROSEN is a landscape designer, climate activist, and author from Oakland, California. His mission is to connect people to the living world, by exploring the permeability between our bodies, cultures, and ecosystems. He consults on ecological regeneration projects by cultivating radically hopeful visions of the future. He believes imagination, humor, and bodily awareness are starting points to advance systemic solutions to the planetary crisis. His design practice, Studio Polycultura, uses writing, landscape design, and event production to "compost" stale understandings of nature, ecology, and life into life affirming soil. He received a Master of Landscape Architecture from UC Berkeley and a Bachelors in Government from Harvard.

THIS EVENT is free but pre-registration is required. Registration ends at 4:30 pm on April 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-service companion animals at home.

OUR shared restrooms are not accessible after 6:30 PM, please plan accordingly.

Wednesday, April 5, 2023 - 7:00pm to 8:30pm
A Garden's Purpose: Cultivating Our Connection with the Natural World By Félix de Rosen Cover Image
$29.95
ISBN: 9781797222448
Availability: Most titles are on our shelves or available within 1-5 days.
Published: Princeton Architectural Press - March 14th, 2023

Join us Thursday April 6th when author MARY OTIS comes to Mrs. Dalloway's to read, discuss, and sign her debut novel Burst, which explores the relationship complexities between mothers and daughters, the desire to escape, and the longing to connect. Burst is a powerful story about how we become—and unbecome—our mothers, how we absorb the past, and how we burst into our own futures. Mary will will be joined in conversation by LAURA COGAN and will also sign copies of her book at the end of the event.

To attend this free event, you must sign up on Eventbrite or contact us at the store prior to the presentation. Walk-ins cannot be accommodated.

Viva has always found ways to manage her mother’s impulsive, eccentric, and addictive personality. She’s had to—for her entire life, it has always been Viva and Charlotte against the world. After accidentally discovering an innate ability for dance, Viva chases her new passion with the same fervor with which her mother chases the bottle. Over the years, Viva’s talent becomes a ticket to a life of her own, and as she moves further away from home to pursue her dream, Charlotte struggles to make peace with her own past as a failed artist and the effects of her addiction. When tragedy strikes, Viva begins a downward spiral and must decide whether she will repeat her mother’s mistakes or finally take control of her life.

Told from interwoven perspectives with lyrical writing as deft as a choreographed dance, Burst excavates a mother-daughter relationship to reveal its gorgeous beating heart.

MARY OTIS is the author of the short story collection Yes, Yes, Cherries. Her fiction, essays, and poetry have been published in Best New American Voices, Electric Literature, Tin House, Zyzzyva, McSweeney's, Bennington Review, The Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, and numerous other literary journals and anthologies. She has taught fiction at UCLA and was a founding professor in the UC Riverside Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing Program. Originally from the Boston area, Mary lives in Los Angeles.

LAURA COGAN has been the Editor and Executive Director of ZYZZYVA for over 10 years. In that time, she has spearheaded a redesign of the print journal and two website redesigns; expanded the journal’s programming and circulation; developed the presence of visual arts in the journal; and championed the continued excellence of the journal’s content. She has been an invited speaker and panelist at a number of conferences and schools, including The Community of Writers, Saint Mary’s College, Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, Litquake, and LA Times Festival of Books. She holds a B.A. and an M.A. from New York University. In 2022, ZYZZYVA was awarded a Whiting Literary Magazine Prize.

THIS EVENT is free but pre-registration is required. Registration ends at 4:30 pm on April 6th.

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.

Thursday, April 6, 2023 - 7:00pm to 8:30pm
Pre-Order Now Badge
Burst By Mary Otis Cover Image
$26.99
ISBN: 9798985282825
Availability: Coming Soon - Available for Pre-Order Now
Published: Zibby Books - April 4th, 2023

Author JAMES M. ZIMMERMAN comes to Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore on Thursday April 12th, at 7:00 pm. James will read from and discuss his new book The Peking Express: The Bandits Who Stole a Train, Stunned the West, and Broke the Republic of China.

To attend this free event, you must sign up on Eventbrite or contact us at the store prior to the presentation.

The Peking Express is the incredible, long-forgotten story of a hostage crisis that shocked China and the West. It vividly captures the events that made international headlines and later inspired Josef von Sternberg’s 1932 Hollywood masterpiece Shanghai Express. It's the thrilling rue story of train-robbing revolutionaries and passengers who got more than they paid for.

In 1923 Shanghai, native and foreign travelers alike are enthralled by the establishment of a new railway line to distant Peking. With this new line comes the Peking Express, a luxurious express train on the cutting edge of China’s continental transportation. Among those drawn to the train are oil heiress Lucy Aldrich, journalist John Benjamin Powell, and vacationing Army Majors Roland Pinger and Robert Allen, wives and children in tow. These errant Americans and their eclectic fellow passengers all eagerly anticipate an idyllic overnight journey in first class.

But the train’s passengers are not the only ones enchanted by the Peking Express. The bandit revolutionary Sun Mei-yao sees in it the promise of a reckoning long overdue. From his vantage in Shantung Province, a conflict-ravaged region through which the train must pass, he identifies the Peking Express as a means of commanding the global stage. By disrupting the train and taking its wealthy passengers hostage, he can draw international attention to the plight of Shantung and, he hopes, thereby secure a solution.

JAMES M. ZIMMERMAN is a Beijing-based lawyer who has lived and worked in China for over 25 years. He is among China's leading foreign lawyers and represents companies and individuals confronted with the political and legal complexities of doing business in Mainland China. He is the author of the China Law Deskbook, published by the American Bar Association, and is frequently featured as a political commentator on US-China relations in various print and broadcast media around the globe. He is the former four-term Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China. In addition to Beijing, he maintains a home in San Diego, California.

THIS EVENT is free but pre-registration is required. Registration ends at 4:30 pm on April 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 permits

WE ASK that attendees arrive between 6:45 and 7:00 PM for the event.

Wednesday, April 12, 2023 - 7:00pm to 8:30pm
Pre-Order Now Badge
The Peking Express: The Bandits Who Stole a Train, Stunned the West, and Broke the Republic of China By James M. Zimmerman Cover Image
$30.00
ISBN: 9781541701700
Availability: Coming Soon - Available for Pre-Order Now
Published: PublicAffairs - April 4th, 2023

Join us Wednesday April 19th at 7:00 pm when bestselling author J. RYAN STRADAL comes to the store to read from, discuss, and sign his new novel Saturday Night At The Lakeside Supper Club. He will be joined in discussion by Mrs. Dalloway's own CAROLYN HUTTON. Ryan's new book is a story of a couple from two very different restaurant families in rustic Minnesota, and the legacy of love and tragedy, of hardship and hope, that unites and divides them.

This is a free event, but you must register online at Eventbrite or contact us in the store prior to the event.

Mariel Prager needs a break. Her husband Ned is having an identity crisis, her spunky, beloved restaurant is bleeding money by the day, and her mother Florence is stubbornly refusing to leave the church where she’s been holed up for more than a week. The Lakeside Supper Club has been in her family for decades, and while Mariel’s grandmother embraced the business, seeing it as a saving grace, Florence never took to it. When Mariel inherited the restaurant, skipping Florence, it created a rift between mother and daughter that never quite healed.

Ned is also an heir—to a chain of home-style diners—and while he doesn't have a head for business, he knows his family's chain could provide a better future than his wife's fading restaurant. In the aftermath of a devastating tragedy, Ned and Mariel lose almost everything they hold dear, and the hard-won victories of each family hang in the balance. With their dreams dashed, can one fractured family find a way to rebuild despite their losses, and will the Lakeside Supper Club be their salvation?

In this colorful, vanishing world of relish trays and brandy Old Fashioneds, Stradal has once again given us a story full of his signature honest, lovable yet fallible Midwestern characters as they grapple with love, loss, and marriage; what we hold onto and what we leave behind; and what our legacy will be when we are gone.

J. RYAN STRADAL is the author of New York Times bestseller Kitchens of the Great Midwest and national bestseller The Lager Queen of Minnesota. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Granta, The Rumpus, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. His debut, Kitchens of the Great Midwest, won the American Booksellers Association Indie's Choice Award for Adult Debut Book of the Year. Born and raised in Minnesota, he now lives in California with his family.

THIS EVENT is free but pre-registration is required. Registration ends at 4:30 pm on April 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 companion pets at home.

OUR shared restrooms are not accessible after 6:30 PM, please plan accordingly.

Wednesday, April 19, 2023 - 7:00pm to 8:30pm
Pre-Order Now Badge
Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club: A Novel By J. Ryan Stradal Cover Image
$28.00
ISBN: 9781984881076
Availability: Coming Soon - Available for Pre-Order Now
Published: Pamela Dorman Books - April 18th, 2023

MEERA SRIRAM (left) and SANDHYA PRABHAT visit on Saturday, April 22nd at 2:00 PM to read from, discuss, and sign their new children's picture book, A Garden In My Hands. This touching picture book celebrates the custom of applying henna for special occasions through a mother and daughter who share family memories and stories.

The event is free, but you must register at Eventbrite or sign up at the store prior to the presentation.

The sweet smell of henna, and stories we carry, fill us with pride of a faraway home.

There's a wedding tomorrow! And one little girl sits patiently while her mother tenderly applies intricate, delicate henna designs on her hands. As she does, she shares family stories--about weddings, monsoons, and ancestors long gone. The little girl must be careful to protect her hands as the henna dries--one smudge could ruin a story! After a whole night of anticipation, when the flakes are washed away, what will they reveal? Lyrical text pairs with vibrant illustrations for this poignant picture book that blooms with heart, connects us to our roots, and sweetly reminds us of the the garden of love we curate with those closest to us.

★ “An intimate, lyrical story about an ancient artistic tradition.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

MEERA SRIRAM grew up in India and moved to the U.S. at the turn of the millennium. She is the author of several picture books, including A Gift for Amma, which School Library Journal called an "excellent story for young readers to enhance their understanding of color and an aspect of traditional Indian culture" in a starred review. An electrical engineer in her past life, she now enjoys writing for children and advocating for early and multicultural literacy. Meera loves yoga and chai, and lives with her husband and two children in Berkeley, California.

SANDHYA PRABHAT is an independent animator and illustrator based in the Bay Area, California, who hails from Chennai, India. She holds an MFA degree in animation and digital arts from NYU Tisch School of the Arts Asia and a bachelor's degree in literature from Stella Maris College. She has illustrated several picture books for independent publishers, including I Am Brown and Today I Am.

THIS EVENT is free but pre-registration is required. Registration ends at 12:30 pm on April 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-service companion animals at home.

Saturday, April 22, 2023 - 2:00pm to 3:30pm
Pre-Order Now Badge
A Garden in My Hands By Meera Sriram, Sandhya Prabhat (Illustrator) Cover Image
By Meera Sriram, Sandhya Prabhat (Illustrator)
$18.99
ISBN: 9780593427101
Availability: Coming Soon - Available for Pre-Order Now
Published: Knopf Books for Young Readers - April 18th, 2023

May 2023

Author JAY WEXLER comes to Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore to read from, discuss, and sign his new book Weed Rules : Blazing the Way To a Just and Joyful Marijuana Policy. With full legalization seeming inevitable, it's time to shift the conversation—from whether recreational cannabis should be legalized to how.

To attend this free event, you must sign up on Eventbrite or contact us at the store prior to the presentation. Walk-ins cannot be accommodated.

Weed Rules argues that it's time for states to abandon their "grudging tolerance" approach to legal weed and to embrace "careful exuberance." In this thorough and witty book, law professor Jay Wexler invites policy makers to responsibly embrace the enormous benefits of cannabis, including the joy and euphoria it brings to those who use it.

The "grudging tolerance" approach has led to restrictions that are too strict in some cases—limiting how and where cannabis can be used, cultivated, marketed, and sold—and far too loose in others, allowing employers and police to discriminate against users. This book shows how focusing on joy and community can lead us to an equitable marijuana policy in which minority communities, most harmed by the war on drugs, play a leading role in the industry. Centering pleasure and fun as legitimate policy goals, Weed Rules puts forth specific policies to advocate for a more just, sensible, and joyous post-legalization society.

"Weed Rules is a highly entertaining and user-friendly guide to the complex world of cannabis policy. Jay Wexler combines compelling stories with data and legal analysis to make a persuasive case the way only a marijuana-law professor could. This book will change the cannabis debate." -- Shaleen Title, former Commissioner, Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission, and founder, Parabola Center for Law and Policy

"Weed Rules is an engaging, thoughtful, and accessible guide for anyone interested in reshaping marijuana policy." -- Robert A. Mikos, author of Marijuana Law, Policy, and Authority

 

JAY WEXLER is Professor of Law at Boston University, a former law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the United States Supreme Court, and author of six previous books, including Our Non-Christian Nation, The Odd Clauses, and the novel Tuttle in the Balance.

THIS EVENT is free but pre-registration is required. Registration ends at 4:30 pm on May 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 permits

WE ASK that attendees arrive between 6:45 and 7:00 PM for the event.

Thursday, May 4, 2023 - 7:00pm to 8:30pm
Pre-Order Now Badge
Weed Rules: Blazing the Way to a Just and Joyful Marijuana Policy By Jay Wexler Cover Image
$26.95
ISBN: 9780520343924
Availability: Coming Soon - Available for Pre-Order Now
Published: University of California Press - April 18th, 2023