Library Live.

Bonnie Garmus in conversation with Professor Judy Wu

Lessons in Chemistry
Friday, October 4, 6:00pm*

In captivating conversations, Bonnie Garmus talks about her journey from copywriter and creative director to writing and publishing her own bestselling novel. With wit and candor, she describes the process of creating her subversive protagonist Elizabeth Zott and how real-life experience fueled and inspired Lessons in Chemistry. Bonnie Garmus is the author of Lessons in Chemistry, a number-one global bestseller that has captivated readers worldwide and won multiple national and international awards. Set in 1960s California, the book introduces us to Elizabeth Zott, a gifted research chemist whose career takes a detour when she becomes the unlikely star of a beloved TV cooking show.

Judy Tzu-Chun Wu is a professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Irvine and the director of the Humanities Center.  She received her Ph.D. in U.S. History from Stanford University and previously taught at Ohio State University. She authored Radicals on the Road: Internationalism, Orientalism, and Feminism during the Vietnam Era and Fierce and Fearless: Patsy Takemoto Mink, First Woman of Color in Congress, a collaboration with political scientist Gwendolyn Mink.

*Event will be held at the Civic Center Green
*Programs starts at 6:00pm and check-in at 5:30pm
*Chairs will be provided

Rosanna Xia

California Against the Sea: Visions for our Vanishing Coastline
Thursday, November 7, 7:00pm

Celebrated environmental journalist Rosanna Xia explores sea level rise along the West Coast, focusing on California’s coastline imperiled by the rising Pacific Ocean. Through human stories and ecological dramas, she delves into the impacts of engineered landscapes, development pressures, and activism shaping the coastline. Xia’s investigation spans from the Mexican border to the North Coast, highlighting the voices of various stakeholders advocating for climate-wise coastal stewardship. The narrative emphasizes the urgency of addressing climate change to secure a sustainable future for coastal communities in California. Rosanna Xia is an environmental reporter for the Los Angeles Times and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2020 for explanatory reporting.

Javier Zamora in conversation

Solito: Home, Identity, and the Immigrant Experience
Thursday, February 27, 7:00pm

What is the meaning of home? At only nine years old, Javier Zamora left his native El Salvador to embark on a 3000-mile journey to reunite with his parents in the United States. Alone except for the other migrants in his group and the “coyote” hired to guide them across the border, he survived perilous trips across oceans and deserts. Javier Zamora shares his harrowing journey and explores how identity influences our ideas of home and brings humanity and warmth to the figure of the “immigrant,” stressing there are always moments of joy, love, and hope, even in the worst of circumstances. Zamora puts a face to child immigrants and the humanitarian crisis along the US-Mexico border.

“Solito” was a New York Times bestseller, longlisted for the PEN America 2023 Literary Awards, and Winner of the Los Angeles Times Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiography. Zamora is the winner of a 2024 Whiting Fellowship. He holds fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry Foundation, Stanford University (Stegner), and was the recipient of Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard University.

Viet Thanh Nguyen

A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial
Thursday, April 24, 7:00pm

With insight, humor, formal invention, and lyricism, in A Man of Two Faces Viet Thanh Nguyen rewinds the film of his own life. He expands the genre of personal memoir by acknowledging larger stories of refugeehood, colonization, and ideas about Vietnam and America, writing with his trademark sardonic wit and incisive analysis, as well as a deep emotional openness about his life as a father and a son. Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel The Sympathizer is a New York Times best seller and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It is now an HBO TV series.