Join Bel Canto Books as we celebrate the launch of AND OTHER MISTAKES by debut author Erika Turner with C.B. Lee (A CLASH OF STEEL).Bel Canto Books is honored to host the book launch of AND OTHER MISTAKES by debut author Erika Turner. Erika will be joined conversation by C.B. Lee, author of A CLASH OF STEEL.RSVP required; please select the ticket option that best fits your group. Attendees will be required to follow all current COVID-19 restrictions. This is an outdoor event in the garden at The Hangout (2122 E 4th Street, LB).ABOUT THE BOOKA teenage girl deals with insecurities, a stressful family life, tension with friends, and being on the cross-country team, in And Other Mistakes—a debut Young Adult coming-of-age novel by Erika Turner about accepting one’s selfABOUT THE AUTHORErika Turner is a writer, a poet, and the daughter of storytellers. Sometimes, she writes songs she may one day share. Once, in a Brooklyn community center, she read James Baldwin's quote "You can't tell the children there's no hope," and she carries those words from the city to the desert and beyond. She lives in California with her family and a dog who is suspicious of stationary street Read More ...

Join Bel Canto Books as we celebrate the launch for BLACK CANDLE WOMEN with Diane Marie Brown + Ashley M. Coleman.Bel Canto Books is honored to host the book launch of BLACK CANDLE WOMEN with debut author Diane Marie Brown. Diane will be joined conversation by Ashley M. Coleman, author of GOOD MORNING, LOVE.RSVP required; please select the ticket option that best fits your group. Attendees will be required to follow all current COVID-19 restrictions. This is an outdoor event in the garden at The Hangout (2122 E 4th Street, LB).ABOUT THE BOOKPractical Magic meets The Secret Lives of Church Ladies and The Mothers in this warm and wry family drama with a magical twist about four generations of Black women living under one roof and the family curse--any person they fall in love with dies--that stems back to a Voodoo shop in 1950s New Orleans’ French Quarter.ABOUT THE AUTHORDiane Marie Brown is a professor at Orange Coast College and a public health professional for the Long Beach Health Department. She has a BA and MPH from UCLA and a degree in fiction from USC's Master of Professional Writing Program. She grew up in Stockton and now lives in Long Read More ...

Join us for the Alder & Sage Book Club, presented by Bel Canto Books. Our November book is HOME FIRE by Kamila Shamsie; discussion on 11/16.Join us for the Alder & Sage Book Club, presented by Bel Canto Books. We'll meet every third Thursday of the month to discuss a book of contemporary fiction or non-fiction handpicked by bookstore owner Jhoanna Belfer of Bel Canto Books.Our November book is HOME FIRE by Kamila Shamsie, called an "explosive novel with big questions about the nature of justice, defiance, and love" (Kirkus Reviews). Book discussion on Thursday 11/16 at 6:30pm at Alder & Sage (366 Cherry Ave, LB). Free to attend; RSVP required. Light refreshments graciously provided by Alder & Sage. ABOUT THE BOOKLonglisted for the Man Booker Prize, HOME FIRE is the suspenseful and heartbreaking story of an immigrant family driven to pit love against loyalty, with devastating consequences, from Kamila Shamsie, the author of BEST OF FRIENDS.ABOUT ALDER & SAGELocated in the Bluff Heights neighborhood of Long Beach, Alder & Sage serves Breakfast, Lunch, Happy Hour and Dinner, featuring a menu with simple yet unique dishes that reflect the freshes of farm-to-fork dining. Learn more at aldersage.com. ABOUT BEL CANTO Read More ...

Bel Canto Books is delighted to host a Poetry Reading & Book Release Party with Jason Magabo Perez + Renaissance HS Poets at KUBO LBBel Canto Books is delighted to host a Poetry Reading & Book Release Party with San Diego Poet Laureate Jason Magabo Perez and Renaissance High School poets Ashley Vasquez, Jule Loven, Nahlah Sweet, and Georgia Topper.Light refreshments will be served. Kindly RSVP so we can plan accordingly. Please stay home if you feel sick.This event will be held indoors at KUBO LB (3976 Atlantic Avenue, Long Beach CA).EVENT SCHEDULE3:45pm - Welcome & event start4:00pm - Event welcome, author and poets introductions4:15pm-5:00pm - Poetry readings, conversation and Q&A5:00pm - Book signing, meet-and-greet, and shopping time6:00pm - Event endsABOUT THE BOOKJason Magabo Perez's second full-length book of poetry is an extended elegy set in the alleyways and Pacific-bound boulevards of San Diego, California during the current global health crisis. Called “an antidote to despair” (Muriel Leung, Imagine Us, The Swarm) and poetry that “complicates notions of solidarity, community and justice, distilling the quotidian into something sacred” (Rachelle Cruz, God’s Will For Monsters), I ask about what falls away serves as an intimate grief manifesto against the daily violations Read More ...

Bel Canto Books is delighted to host Writing Against Asian American Stereotypes w/Christine Ma-Kellams, Janie Kim, Sonali Kohli + Karen Yin.Bel Canto Books at KUBO LB is delighted to host Writing Against Asian American Sterotypes: Authors in Conversation featuring: Christine Ma-Kellams, THE BANDJanie Kim, WE CARRY THE SEA IN OUR HANDSSonali Kohli, DON’T WAIT: THREE GIRLS WHO FOUGHT FOR CHANGE AND WONKaren Yin, THE CONSCIOUS STYLE GUIDEKindly RSVP so we can plan accordingly. Please stay home if you feel sick.This event will be held indoors at KUBO LB (3976 Atlantic Avenue, Long Beach CA).EVENT SCHEDULE3:45PM - Event check-in begins4:00pm - Welcome & event start4:15-5:00pm - Author reading, conversation, and Q&A5:00pm-6:00pm - Book signing & shopping time6:00pm - Event endsABOUT THE AUTHORSChristine Ma-Kellams is a Pushcart-nominated writer, Harvard-trained cultural psychologist, and college professor who occupies the intersection where story-telling meets an empirical understanding of what makes people tick.Her empirical studies on culture, social perception and relationships have also been widely covered in GQ (Australia), Esquire (Middle East), Boston Globe, Vice News, Elle Magazine (UK), the Atlantic, Yahoo News, MSN News, Fox News, New York Post, and Daily Mail. Her academic textbook, Cultural Psychology: Cross- and Multicultural Perspectives, has been adopted in Read More ...

Bel Canto Books is delighted to host an IG Live Artist Talk with Kenneth Tan, TANS INTERWOVENBel Canto Books is delighted to host an IG Live Artist Talk with Kenneth Tan, TANS INTERWOVEN.This is a virtual event, presented on IG Live (www.instagram.com/belcantobooks).ABOUT THE BOOKA family is a collection of loose strands.It’s a choice to wind through life together.It’s a challenge to stay tightly knit.Meet the Tan family: Crescenciana, Olivia, Audrey, and Kenneth. They live their lives interwoven, their stories spanning time—from the 1920s to the modern day—and geographies—from the Philippines to Canada to the United States.After Kenneth did the running man for kindergarten show-and-tell, his older sister, Audrey, did a veritable quickstep inside their garage while balancing a tray of piping hot pastries. Their mother, Olivia, cha-chaed on Friday nights with her nursing school classmates, and her mother, Crescenciana, stole away for an evening waltz at a secret town fiesta even as Japanese forces occupied her village during World War II.Be it dancing or admiring women with rough hands or learning a super hard—yes, that is a technical term—language, the Tans find common threads running through the stories that they take turns sharing.TANS INTERWOVEN is an intergenerational collection of honest, Read More ...

Bel Canto Books + Gold House are delighted to present a conversation with Ellie Yang Camp, Soo Jin Lee, Linda Yoon and Carolyn Huynh.Bel Canto Books + Gold House are delighted to present "Asian American Identity, Solidarity, and Self-Love: A Conversation with Ellie Yang Camp, Soo Jin Lee and Linda Yoon, moderated by Carolyn Huynh."Kindly RSVP so we can plan accordingly. Please stay home if you feel sick.This event will be held indoors at KUBO LB (3976 Atlantic Avenue, Long Beach CA).EVENT SCHEDULE3:45PM - Event check-in begins4:00pm - Welcome & event start4:15-5:00pm - Writers reading, conversation, and Q&A5:00pm-6:00pm - Book signing & shopping time6:00pm - Event endsABOUT THE AUTHORSEllie Yang Camp is an artist and educator from the San Francisco Bay Area. The proud daughter of Taiwanese immigrants, she has been a high-school history teacher, a full-time parent, a calligrapher, an anti-racist educator, and now an author. She has a bachelor’s degree in political science from UC Berkeley and a master’s degree in education from Stanford. (Author photo by Amy Hu)Soo Jin Lee is a licensed marriage and family therapist, executive director of Yellow Chair Collective, and cofounder of Entwine Community. Soo Jin's experiences as an undocumented Asian immigrant have Read More ...