Location: Sherman Oaks, CA 91423, United States

Mysterious Galaxy looks forward to seeing readers and authors Kelley Armstrong and Melissa Marr, Terry Brooks,Peter David, Delilah S. Dawson, Kevin Hearne, Leanna Renee Hieber, C.J. Hill, Gini Koch, Tom Leveen, Jeffrey J. Mariotte, Shannon Messenger, Mike Mignola,Alexandra Monir, Joseph Nassise, Kris Neri, James A. Owens, Aprilynne Pike, Cherie Priest, Melanie Rawn, Adam Rex, Marsheila Rockwell, Brandon Sanderson, John Scalzi, Janni Lee Simner, Shawn Speakman, Michael Stackpole, David Lee Summers, Sam Sykes, Greg van Eekhout, Suzanne Young, Timothy Zahn and more. Mysterious Galaxy will be in booth #2411. Please check the con's website for more information.

Location: Street: Phoenix Comicon 13 Additional: Phoenix Convention Center City: Phoenix, Province: Arizona Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Of course it is important to understand the options and the consequences of any decisions related to retirement, but because Social Security is likely be the foundation of most people’s retirement income, understanding these benefits in particular is critical with so many Baby Boomers reaching retirement age. ROY TIRAKAYOS from Edward Jones will review the benefits of Social Security, and the factors one should consider before signing up, such as full retirement age, life expectancy, employment, as well as the benefits for spouses. Learn how the benefits are taxed and understand more about the relationship between Social Security and retirement planning at this free lecture, Thursday, May 23 at Crowell Public Library.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,* the average duration of retirement has increased from 8.1 years in 1950 to 20 years in 2007, with the average retirement age being 65, but many people will live considerably longer than that. Retirement income is derived largely from four sources: Social Security, earnings, pensions and asset income. Social Security provides the largest share of income for Americans age 65 or older. Learn what’s in store before you retire.

Roy Tirakayos graduated from Loyola Marymount University with a B.A. in Business Administration. Joining him will be BRUNO ESQUIVEL-PAZ, a graduate of Cal State L.A. who majored in finance and minored in Economics. Bring your retirement questions for Roy and Bruno and enjoy some light refreshments in the Library’s Barth Community Room.

* http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2001/10/art2full.pdf (notparoo)… (more)

From today's Best Authors and up and coming writers comes BLACK PULP from Pro Se Productions! BLACK PULP is a collection of stories featuring characters of African origin, or descent, in stories that run the gamut of genre fiction! A concept developed by noted crime novelist Gary Phillips, BLACK PULP brings bestselling authors Walter Mosley and Joe R. Lansdale, Gary Phillips, Charles R. Saunders, Derrick Ferguson, D. Alan Lewis, Christopher Chambers, Mel Odom, Kimberly Richardson, Ron Fortier, Michael A. Gonzales, Gar Anthony Haywood, and Tommy Hancock together to craft adventure tales, mysteries, and more, all with black characters at the forefront! "Literature for the masses kindled the imagination and used our reading skills so that we could regale ourselves in the cold chambers of alienation and poverty. We could become Doc Savage or The Shadow, Conan the Barbarian or the brooding King Kull and make a difference in a world definitely gone wrong."--Walter Mosley from his introduction. Between these covers are 12 tales of action, adventure, and thrills featuring heroes and heroines of darker hues that will appeal to audiences everywhere! BLACK PULP! From Pro Se Productions! Come early and enjoy these two fine LA authors.

Location: Street: 4327 Degnan Blvd (Leimert Park Business Center) Additional: t- @esowonbookstore or www.esowonbookstore2@gmail.com City: Los Angeles, Province: California Postal Code: 90008 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

The San Diego Book Discussion Group is led by Fearless Leader Christine. The May 23rd discussion focuses on Lauren Beukes' Zoo City. Participation is open to all readers; readers need not have completed a particular book to attend – it’s the perfect opportunity for readers to branch out and find new favorites!

Don't forget, attendees receive 20% off the current group selection!

Location: Street: 7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd Additional: Ste 302 City: San Diego, Province: California Postal Code: 92111-1040 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Rick Cahill was never convicted of his wife's murder, but he was never exonerated either. Not by the police. Not by the media. Not even by himself. Eight years later, police suspicion and his own guilt remain over his responsibility in his wife's death. When he meets Melody Malana, a beautiful yet secretive TV reporter, he sees a chance to love again. When she is arrested for murder and asks Rick for help, he reluctantly agrees. But Rick's attempt to help turns terribly wrong, and he becomes a suspect in the murder and the target of a police manhunt. On the run, Rick encounters desperate people who'll kill to keep their pasts buried. Before Rick can save himself and bring down a murderer, he must confront the truth about his own past and untangle his feeling for a woman he can never fully trust.

Those wishing to get books signed will be asked to purchase at least one copy of the author's most recent title from Vroman's. For each purchased copy of the newest title, customers may bring up to three copies from home to be signed. This policy applies to all Vroman's Bookstore events unless otherwise noted. Save your Vroman's receipt; it will be checked when you enter the signing line.

Can't make an event? Call us at (626) 449-5320 and we'll try to get a book signed for you.

Location: Street: 695 E. Colorado Blvd City: Pasadena, Province: California Postal Code: 91101 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Come meet Eve Ensler - activist, award-winning playwright, and internationally bestselling author - regarding her memoir In the Body of the World

Reading & Signing

This is a ticketed event. To purchase, please visit: http://www.lfla.org/event-detail/832/Eve-Ensler-and-Jody-Williams-

(added from Macmillan)… (more)

Friday, May 24, 6pm Soman Chainani discusses and signs The School for Good and Evil, in conversation with author Mark Salzman.

Welcome to The School for Good and Evil, where best friends Sophie and Agatha are about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime. With her glass slippers and devotion to good deeds, Sophie knows she'll earn top marks at the School for Good and join the ranks of past students like Cinderella, Rapunzel, and Snow White. Meanwhile, Agatha, with her shapeless black frocks and wicked black cat, seems a natural fit for the villains in the School for Evil. The two girls soon find their fortunes reversed - Sophie's dumped in the School for Evil to take Uglification, Death Curses, and Henchmen Training, while Agatha finds herself in the School for Good, thrust among handsome princes and fair maidens for classes in Princess Etiquette and Animal Communication. But what if the mistake is actually the first clue to discovering who Sophie and Agatha really are?

Those wishing to get books signed will be asked to purchase at least one copy of the author's most recent title from Vroman's. For each purchased copy of the newest title, customers may bring up to three copies from home to be signed. This policy applies to all Vroman's Bookstore events unless otherwise noted. Save your Vroman's receipt; it will be checked when you enter the signing line.

Can't make an event? Call us at (626) 449-5320 and we'll try to get a book signed for you.

Location: Street: 695 E. Colorado Blvd City: Pasadena, Province: California Postal Code: 91101 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Save the last few trees on earth! Please join us for an exciting event at Rob leads us in an exploration of Chris Howard's Rootless, a YA science fiction novel about a world without trees. There will be exciting activities and games for all.

Don't forget, attendees receive 20% off the current group selection!

Location: Street: 7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd Additional: Ste 302 City: San Diego, Province: California Postal Code: 92111-1040 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

An intuitional, Secret Story writing workshop conducted by S.L. Stebel, successful novelist, playwright and screenwriter. Designed for all writers—whether coffee house scribblers, journal memoirists, or published authors—who have ever felt the pull of a story struggling to emerge only to be frustrated by blind alleys, dead ends or a seeming failure of inspiration. Using simple but powerful techniques developed over the past few decades in workshops he has conducted in the U.S. and abroad, Stebel's method is designed to unblock writers and free them to tell the stories they were born to tell. Writers who wish to have their work mined for hidden treasures should bring three pages of a novel, short story, memoir or script.

Talent can't be taught but writing can! Read Double Your Creative Power by S.L. Stebel, the man Ray Bradbury called "the best writing teacher that ever was!"

No sign-up required- just come to the event and get ready to learn!

Location: Street: 695 E. Colorado Blvd City: Pasadena, Province: California Postal Code: 91101 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Author and game designer (Game Design Lead at the Institute of Play’s GlassLab) and insightful industry blogger Erin Hoffman returns to her native San Diego for the third and final volume in the Chaos Knight trilogy. The choices made by Vidarian Rulorat in the two previous volumes, including reawakening wild magic and gods in his world of Andovar, have drawn serious negative attention from the Alorean Import Company. In Shield of Sea and Space, Vidarian and his allies strive to guarantee a future that includes them, as the company seeks to exterminate them.

Location: Street: 7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd Additional: Ste 302 City: San Diego, Province: California Postal Code: 92111-1040 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Bring your questions and your notebooks as Dennis Palumbo answers questions in this informal writer’s workshop, Taking the Mystery Out of Writing Mysteries. Dennis, a licensed psychotherapist and former Hollywood screenwriter, will also be signing and discussing Night Terrors, the third entry into the Daniel Rinaldi Mystery series. "Palumbo, an award-winning Hollywood screenwriter turned psychotherapist, uses all his professional experience to craft short, action- and tension-filled chapters and insightful sketches of people traumatized by violence." --- BookList

Location: Street: 2810 Artesia Boulevard City: Redondo Beach, Province: California Postal Code: 90278 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

We’ve got action, romance, humor and adventure!
We’ve got music, FREE parking and refreshments!
We’ve got Hollywood LIVE!

The ONLY thing we’re missing is YOU!

This week's feature: "Death Waits at Sundown" a Western by L. Ron Hubbard.

Enter a world where bold men and woman come to life – in stories that take you by surprise and spark your imagination.

Admission: $10 per person (first time FREE)
To reserve your seat, call (323) 798-1635 or
email: Jonil@AuthorServicesInc.com (MARKUSWUETHRICH)… (more)

Robert Diemer discusses and signs The Widow's Son: A Tropical Island Mystery The Widow's Son is a tropical island mystery. For a lawyer practicing in paradise, Drake Burnham has a betel nut basket packed with problems. Burnham agrees to defend a nightmare client, Jangle Elwell, before Maximum Max Coleman, a hanging judge. But Burnham's initial troubles pale when Jangle is murdered.

Beverly Magid discusses and signs Sown in Tears Set in Czarist Russia, 1905, a time of turbulence and rampant anti-Semitism. After a brutal attack on her village, Leah Peretz is left alone to care for her two young children; life is complicated by the attentions of Captain Ivan Vaselik, who is drawn to her despite his antipathy towards Jews.

Barbara Jacobs discusses and signs Second Chances The remarkable story of a charmed life that takes you from New York to an Indian burial ground in Oklahoma to the canals of Venice, leaving you to wonder whether guardian angels really do exist.

Location: Street: 695 E. Colorado Blvd City: Pasadena, Province: California Postal Code: 91101 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

A selection of books that go on sale this week, most on Tuesday May 28th.

Check with staff if you have questions. You can also purchase many of the below in eBook format. Just click the title to see if an eBook is available for that title. (Thanks to Kobo, most ebooks are now available for pre-sale.)

Happy Reading!

Signed titles may arrive later in the month. Contact the staff to reserve a copy.

Location: Street: 7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd Additional: Ste 302 City: San Diego, Province: California Postal Code: 92111-1040 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Playwright, author, and activist Eve Ensler has devoted her life to the female body—how to talk about it, how to protect and value it. Yet she spent much of her life disassociated from her own body—a disconnection brought on by her father’s sexual abuse and her mother’s remoteness. “Because I did not, could not inhabit my body or the Earth,” she writes, “I could not feel or know their pain.”

But Ensler is shocked out of her distance. While working in the Congo, she is shattered to encounter the horrific rape and violence inflicted on the women there. Soon after, she is diagnosed with uterine cancer, and through months of harrowing treatment, she is forced to become first and foremost a body—pricked, punctured, cut, scanned. It is then that all distance is erased. As she connects her own illness to the devastation of the earth, her life force to the resilience of humanity, she is finally, fully—and gratefully—joined to the body of the world.

Unflinching, generous, and inspiring, Ensler calls on us all to embody our connection to and responsibility for the world.

Event Details (Updated 5/14): - This event will take place at All Saints Church

- Event begins at 7pm, doors open 6pm.

- Free and open to the public, however you must buy a copy of the book from Vroman’s to get it signed. Your Vroman’s receipt will get you a line ticket.

Location: Street: 132 N Euclid Ave. Additional: All Saints Church City: Pasadena, Province: California Postal Code: 91101 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)