[photo credit: Pasadena Public Library]
The book club is a partnership between La Pintoresca, Pasadena bookstore Octavia’s Bookshelf, and The Huntington, where Butler’s literary archive is housed, according to The Huntington’s event listing.
The discussion takes place at the library Butler frequented as a teenager growing up in Pasadena.
The meeting is scheduled for 3 to 4:30 p.m. at 1355 N. Raymond Ave., Pasadena.
For information, contact Annmarie Kolakowski at (626) 744-7268.
Lalami, a Moroccan-American novelist and distinguished professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction in 2015 for “The Moor’s Account,” according to her Harvard Radcliffe Institute biography.
“The Dream Hotel” was nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel in 2026, according to the book’s Wikipedia entry.
The novel follows a Moroccan American woman detained by a government algorithm that uses dream data to predict crimes, according to Kirkus Reviews.
“By pushing technological surveillance to its extreme limit — that is, by expanding it to dreams — I wanted to explore its power to control and its threat to our freedoms,” Lalami said in a Q&A posted on her website.
The book club discusses works by Butler and other science fiction authors of color, according to The Huntington’s event description.
Butler, born in Pasadena in 1947, was the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Foundation fellowship, according to Biography.com.
She died in 2006.
Her archive arrived at The Huntington in 2008, comprising more than 8,000 items, according to the institution.
“When I approached the La Pintoresca Library Associates with the idea of installing a portrait of Butler, since she used to visit this library often as a teen, they were enthusiastic and unanimously voted to commission it,” Kolakowski said in a 2023 statement reported by Pasadena Now.
Octavia’s Bookshelf, which opened in Pasadena in February 2023, is named for the science fiction author.
Founder Nikki High has said the bookstore fills a gap in the community.
“I wanted people to have access to have a space that I didn’t have access to growing up here,” High said in a 2024 interview with Pasadena Weekly.
