Pasadena Announces its 2025 One City, One Story Selection, James

Pasadena Public Library has announced its book selection for Pasadena’s 2025 One City, One Story community reading celebration: James by author Percival Everett. A 19-member selection committee led by Senior Librarian Christine Reeder and made up of community volunteers worked for many months to determine this year’s One City One Story honoree.

Now in its 23rd year, One City, One Story is designed to broaden and deepen an appreciation of reading and literature and to promote tolerance and understanding of differing points of view by recommending a compelling book that engages the community in conversation.

James is a reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – both harrowing and savagely funny – told from the enslaved Jim’s point of view.

1861, The Mississippi River. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a new owner in New Orleans and separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson’s Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, who recently returned to town. Thus begins a dangerous and transcendent journey by raft along the Mississippi River, toward the elusive promise of the free states and beyond. As James and Huck begin to navigate the treacherous waters, each bend in the river holds the promise of both salvation and demise. With rumors of a brewing war, James must face the burden he carries: the family he cannot protect, and the constant lie he must live. And together, the unlikely pair must face the most dangerous odyssey of them all.

Scorchingly plotted, unexpectedly comical, witheringly observed, and ingeniously inventive, James is, of course, also absolutely heartbreaking, populated by unforgettable characters realized in incredible dimensionality. A single sitting read with short chapters and a galloping pace, the novel offers a wide-eyed look from the shadows of Huck Finn’s mischievous spirit, allowing Jim to fully emerge with a reclaimed voice defying the conventions that have traditionally consigned him to the margins.

Percival Everett is a distinguished professor of English at USC. His most recent books include James (2024 National Book Award, 2024 Kirkos Prize Winner for Fiction and finalist for The Booker Prize), Dr. No (finalist for the NBCC Award for Fiction and winner of the PEN/ Jean Stein Book Award), The Trees (finalist for the Booker Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction), Telephone (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), So Much Blue, Erasure, and I Am Not Sidney Poitier. He has received the NBCC Ivan Sandrof Life Achievement Award and The Windham Campbell Prize from Yale University. American Fiction, the feature film based on his novel Erasure, was released in 2023 and was awarded the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, the writer Danzy Senna, and their children.

One City, One Story community programs will be held throughout the month of March, highlighted by a conversation with the author on Saturday, March 15, 2025, at 2 p.m., at Pasadena Presbyterian Church, 585 E. Colorado Blvd.

For more information on One City, One Story, visit https://CityOfPasadena.Libguides.com/OneCityOneStory.