Author Adrienne Pine will discuss the situation in Honduras since the 2009 coup through her book, "Working Hard, Drinking Hard: On Violence and Survival in Honduras" at Time Tested Books on Monday. A frequent traveler to the country, Pine will give Sacramentans insight into the situation as well as sign copies of her books. The event begins at 7 p.m. at Time Tested Books.

This Friday, April 13 La Raza Galería Posada presents Martha Toledo in concert at Time Tested Books. This highly requested return concert of Oaxacan singer Martha Toledo will be held at Time Tested Books located at 1114 21st Street. The Galería is holding several concerts off site this spring until their new center opens later in the year in Miller Park. The radiant Mexican singer returns to Sacramento accompanied by superb guitarist José Roberto. Both artists played at the Galería Posada last September and left a lasting impression. Toledo is an internationally recognized performer whose commanding presence embodies the sensibility and majesty of the Oaxacan culture. Toledo is a Zapo

Music promoters in Sacramento gathered Sunday evening to discuss the need to create more local venues and how this would help the local music culture thrive. Time Tested Books hosted the Living Library discussion, called, “The State of Live Music in Sacramento.” Many panelists said that creating more venues in Sacramento is vital and find the city’s regulations to be a huge obstacle. No chairs were empty, and a crowd stood for the whole two hours of the event. When the moderator, local writer/music fan Dennis Yudt, asked if anyone present was a musician, more than half of the attendants raised their hands. Yudt spent the first hour and a half prompting the five panelists with questions –

From increasing availability of digital content to online shopping and a still-sluggish economy, independent bookstores are finding it harder to survive. The Sacramento Press checked out three central city bookstores to see what is working for them. When Borders Books and More closed last year, emails to the store’s Borders Rewards members cited surges in electronic readers as one of the major reason’s for the bookstore giant’s collapse. Locally, Newsbeat – a Midtown indie newsstand – shut down in November, with the owner pointing to the availability of digital content. Beers Books, The Book Collector and Time Tested Books – all located within the grid from 24th and J streets to Ninth an

Sacramento resident Judie Panneton, author of “Proud Americans: Growing Up As Children Of Immigrants,” was at Time Tested Books on 1114 21st St. on Thursday to read excerpts from her book and sign books for the audience. “I was a child of immigrants, and my parents were Holocaust survivors,” Panneton said. “I felt really, really different. I just wondered if any other children of immigrants felt different.” The book, a collection of stories from various people Panneton talked to over the seven years it took her to complete the book, gives a glimpse into the lives of children of immigrants and their parents who came from all over the world. “Just about everybody knows somebody in Sacrame

We've all heard it before, “I need to get out of Sacramento."   The above statement has been muttered out of the mouths of people born and raised here or forced here beyond their will as a child by the likes of their parents or family, just waiting for the day they turned 18 to flock to wherever the cool kids are. You have probably also heard the generic, "There is nothing to do here," or, " If I want a real career, I need to move to San Francisco or Los Angeles, where it's happening."   Maybe so, or maybe, these people haven't given our state capital a fair look at a microscopic level with a new pair of eyes.     You know what, no microscope needed, just open your eyes.   Sacramen

Over 30 teams of bike scavengers took to the streets of downtown Sacramento Saturday in a race against time to interpret clues, hunt for items and complete challenges for the Bicycle Kitchen’s annual Hunt the Grid bike scavenger hunt. If cyclists didn’t know Sacramento before the hunt, they sure do now. The hunt, now in its third year, is an event where teams of four hit the pavement and try to solve clues based on well-known venues and random oddities of Sacramento. Bike Kitchen staff member and event organizer Ryan Sharpe, 32, planned the event with his staff non-stop for six weeks. “No one is going to look at the city in the same way,” he said. The city was broken up into quadrants,

Author Ishmael Reed discussed his latest novel, “Juice!” at Time Tested Books Sunday. According to owner Peter Keats of Time Tested Books, he said this was the first time Reed had made an appearance and was contacted to host the well-known writer at the bookstore. “We sold lots of books,” Keats said. “Juice!” is about protagonist Paul Blessings, a diabetic political cartoonist who obsesses about the O.J. Simpson trial during the early 21st century America. The novel provides a look into how the media distorted Simpson’s trial and reflects on how the media influences present culture and politics. “The one thing that the case did was expose media’s sloppiness of evidence gathering of the

  Sunday evening Patrick Mulvaney couldn’t be found in the Mulvaney’s B&L kitchen. Instead, the chef and restaurateur was at Time Tested Books with Shawn Harrison, executive director of Soil Born Farms, discussing local agriculture as part of The Sacramento Living Library series. The series is presented by Midtown Monthly and Time Tested Books. Tim Foster, editor of Midtown Monthly, moderated the talk. Harrison began the conversation with the historical context of Sacramento’s agriculture addressing the question: Why it is the way it is? “Farmers were unable to sell their crops in Sacramento because there was not a huge demand for those crops so they went elsewhere,” said Harrison. Mu

The UC Davis Extension Words in Bloom writers' conference is coming to Midtown for the first time this spring, and it promises a fertile writing environment for area wordsmiths. “There’s great power in coming together with a group of people to set words on a page, words that you never thought you could or would write,” said Kate Asche, Words in Bloom program director and UC Davis Extension associate director of arts and humanities. Words in Bloom will be held the weekend of April 29 to May 1. Writers who register by March 15 receive a $150 discount. Three persons registering for Words in Bloom together as a writing group each receive a further discount of $100.  The full tuition before d

Fred and Victoria Dalkey, Sacramento artist and art critic, appeared for a question and answer session as part of Midtown Monthly’s Living Library speaker series at Time Tested Books Sunday night. The used bookstore was a full house with 80 to 100 people in attendance, and standing room only for nearly half of the attendees. The tone of the night was full of serious inquiry and tongue-in-cheek analysis from the crowd and the featured couple. It was facilitated by one of the series organizers, Tim Foster, publisher of Midtown Monthly. Foster and Peter Keats, Time Tested Books owner, began the Living Library series in Jan. 2010. Since then, they have been able to put together one talk or p

David Prybil will be reading from and signing his new book “Golden State” at Time Tested Books on Monday at 7 p.m. Prybil is a Los Angeles resident who has been a producer with Paramount for over 15 years. He worked on “Saved!,” “Lost in Space,” “Black Dog,” and “Dancer Texas, Pop. 81.” “Golden State” is the story of four people in Sacramento living their versions of the California dream. The Sacramento Press asked Prybil what inspired him to write “Golden State.” “It seems in general that California as a state attracts dreamers, people that are looking for more, whatever that may be. Whether it’s the Gold Rush that helped found Sacramento or coming to Hollywood to be discovered as a s

Local chocolatier Ginger Elizabeth shared the farm-to-storefront process of making chocolate Sunday as a part of Time Tested Books’ Living Library series, at Time Tested Books, co-sponsored by Midtown Monthly. “Chocolate is my life, and my mission is to educate the Sacramento region about chocolate,” Elizabeth said. And educate she did. According to Elizabeth, all the chocolate we consume comes from the cacao tree. The farmer grows the cacao tree, which has football-like cacao pod blossoms that grow from its trunk. Each pod yields about 40 beans, Elizabeth said. When it’s time to harvest the beans, they are fermented. Without this process of fermentation, the beans wouldn’t taste like

Jeffrey Callison, host of Insight Capitol Public Radio’s popular morning live news magazine, was interviewed by The Sacramento Press Editor in Chief David Watts Barton Sunday Evening. The interview was part of the The Sacramento Living Library, curated by Time Tested Books’ Peter Keat and hosted by “Midtown Monthly” editor Tim Foster. Barton had kicked off The Sacramento Living Library 2010 in January, interviewing Tower Records founder Russ Solomon. More on The Sacramento Living Library and previous interviews is available at Time Tested Books’ website. Insight premiered in July 2009 as a half-hour afternoon news magazine. Then the KXJZ news director had been invited by Station Manager

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

Fans of hot rods and car customization crowded into Time Tested Books on 21st Street Sunday night to hear from a legend in the Sacramento car customization scene. Dick Bertolucci, 82, had more than 100 fans eating out of his hand as he and his longtime friend Bud Ohanesian recounted tales from their pasts, all the while grinning like children who have just gotten away with something naughty. As part of a series hosted by Time Tested Books, Bertolucci was this month’s guest in “The Sacramento Living Library,” a series that chooses its guests for their unparalleled knowledge in a particular field. As historian and auto enthusiast Bruce Woodward sat beside Bertolucci and Ohanesian, it beca

Since the inception of the Arizona immigration bill, a great debate has taken place in California over immigration reform. In mid-June, the City Council even voted to take action against the bill by boycotting Arizona businesses. Sunday evening, author, journalist and former Sacramento Bee editor Peter Schrag took part in this debate as part of Midtown Monthly and Time Tested Book’s Living Library series. Schrag shared what he learned while writing his newly released book, Not Fit for our Society: Immigration and Nativism in America, with an audience of over 50 attendees, both young and old. Schrag began by talking about some of the propositions that have come into California in the past

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

 It was a packed crowd Sunday night, as about 50 people gathered to listen to the fourth installment of Time Tested Books' Living Library series, co-sponsored by Midtown Monthly. Sacramento architect David Mogavero was on hand to share a special presentation of his career designing structures and developments all over Northern California. Mogavero began about 30 years ago, joking that it was while working with hippies that he was able to create fresh ideas. "I was working all over Northern California in different scales and contexts," he said. He described the excitement of putting developmental resources into new projects, especially the suburbs. "I really believe the greatest opportun

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