Time Tested Books continued its Living Library series with a visit from filmmaker Richard Simpson, who shared his 1966 documentary “Marshes of Two Street” with a full house and answered questions from the audience about the experience of filming a historical moment of Sacramento’s skid row district. The black and white film was played from an old-fashioned projector and showed the riverfront of Sacramento that was once considered the skid row district where the housing was cheap and the alcohol was affordable, so the poorest citizens sought refuge there. This was before the area was demolished for the construction of Interstate 5.  Simpson admitted that many of the people he interviewed

A Sunday night panel with four former Sacramento mayors took a lighthearted tone at the Time Tested Books/Midtown Monthly Living Library series. Topics included Burnett Miller's alleged pornographic doodlings during council meetings ("You claimed they were pornographic," he said to Anne Rudin who kept several of them); Heather Fargo's love of animals; the expectation that Rudin look like Gloria Steinem ("aviator glasses, long hair and militant," she said); and Phil Isenberg's ability to politely interrupt people ("he knew how gently to cut everybody else off, so nobody hated him," said Miller). Nearly 100 people, most appearing to be over 40, showed up at Time Tested Books to listen to th

Projecting archival photographs above stacks of albums, Jorae described the familial and political relationships of a generation of children marginalized by two cultures. On Sunday night, a dozen history buffs arrived at Time Tested Books to partake in an informal discussion with local author and educator Wendy Rouse Jorae about the research behind her recently published book, "Children of Chinatown: Growing Up Chinese American in San Francisco, 1850-1920." Jorae wrote her dissertation for the University of California, Davis on the pioneer generation of Chinese Americans in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Her interest in the subject was sparked as a history student in Sacramento where she bec