Pasadena's One City, One Story event March 22

To celebrate 10 years of Pasadena’s One City, One Story community reading project, the public is invited to a conversation with Geraldine Brooks, author of this year’s selected novel “People of the Book,” Thursday, March 22, at 7 p.m. in the sanctuary at All Saints Church, 132 N. Euclid. Ave.



Library Director Jan Sanders will moderate the discussion, which will include questions from the audience. Everyone is encouraged to bring their copies of “People of the Book” for Brooks to sign following the discussion; books will be available for purchase as well. The event is free and open to the public.



Tickets to a private wine and cheese reception with Brooks prior to the public discussion are available for $50 each by calling (626) 744-4207 or e-mailing dhumphrey@cityofpasadena.net. The deadline to buy reception tickets is Friday, March 16. Proceeds will benefit One City, One Story programs.



“People of the Book” is a New York Times best seller inspired by the true story of a mysterious and ancient volume known as the Sarajevo Haggadah. From its creation in Muslim-ruled medieval Spain, the illuminated Jewish manuscript, which sets the order of the Passover Seder, takes the reader on a sweeping adventure through five centuries and a series of perilous journeys through Inquisition-era Venice, turn-of-the-century Vienna and the Nazi sacking of Sarajevo.



A native Australian, Brooks attended Bethlehem College and the University of Sydney, then worked as a reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald covering environmental issues. She moved to the U.S. after winning a Greg Shackleton Memorial Scholarship and earned a master’s degree in journalism at Columbia University in 1983.



The following year, she married American journalist Tony Horwitz and converted to Judaism. As a foreign correspondent for Wall Street Journal, she covered crises in the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. In 1990 she and Horwitz received the Overseas Press Club’s Hal Boyle Award for Best Newspaper or Wire Service Reporting from Abroad for their coverage of the Persian Gulf. In 2006 she was awarded a fellowship to Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.



Brooks also authored “Caleb’s Crossing,” “March,” “Year of Wonders” and the non-fiction works “Nine Parts of Desire” and “Foreign Correspondence.” She was awarded a 2006 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her novel “March.”



Pasadena’s annual One City, One Story program is intended to broaden and deepen an appreciation of reading in Pasadena by engaging the community in dialog around a single literary work. For more information visit www.cityofpasadena.net/library or call (626) 744-7270.