On the same page
2024-2025 Claremont Community Read
Hollywood Park was chosen by the On the Same Page Committee of the Friends of the Claremont Library as our 2024-2025 community read. Author Mikel Jollett begins his memoir with remarkable childhood observations of living in a cult. Today, he is a journalist, an NPR commentator, and the lead singer and songwriter for the indie rock band The Airborne Toxic Event.
We have three events scheduled for this remarkable book.
√* Mikel Jollett Comes to Claremont
The author of Hollywood Park is coming to Claremont. He will speak with journalist Emily St. Martin, who covers entertainment and events across eleven publications and has written widely in newspapers and magazines throughout the US.
Saturday, March 8, 2025, 2:00 PM in the Padua Room
Alexander Hughes Community Center, 1700 Danbury Road, Claremont
√ * Panel Discussion: Cults and Their Effects on Children
We have arranged for three speakers who have vast experience with the deleterious effects of cults on families:
Claremont Helen Renwick Library
√ * Community Discussion of Hollywood Park
This memoir by Mikel Jollett presents a unique look into messy family dynamics. The author is a sensitive, observant, thoughtful, injured child, and as a successful adult, he has recreated his world, recognizing that people around him were, for the most part, doing the best they could, but the damage was done.
Saturday, January 25, 2025, 10:00 AM in the Meeting Room
Claremont Helen Renwick Library, 208 Harvard Ave., Claremont
Note: Our library offers copies of Hollywood Park for check-out.
Video: Join NPR Music’s Bob Boilen for a conversation with writer and musician Mikel Jollett, author of Hollywood Park, his New York Times bestselling memoir. Hollywood Park beautifully and painfully details the author’s journey from a troubled childhood – poverty, emotional abuse, addiction, and an escape from the notorious Synanon cult – to the discovery of his voice as a writer and musician. During this live, virtual event, Bob and Mikel discuss the book and its companion soundtrack by Mikel’s band, The Airborne Toxic Event. Mikel also performs songs that align with the stories in his written memoir.
We have three events scheduled for this remarkable book.
√* Mikel Jollett Comes to Claremont
The author of Hollywood Park is coming to Claremont. He will speak with journalist Emily St. Martin, who covers entertainment and events across eleven publications and has written widely in newspapers and magazines throughout the US.
Saturday, March 8, 2025, 2:00 PM in the Padua Room
Alexander Hughes Community Center, 1700 Danbury Road, Claremont
√ * Panel Discussion: Cults and Their Effects on Children
We have arranged for three speakers who have vast experience with the deleterious effects of cults on families:
- Marie Carr worked for years as a social worker in Child Protective Services and dealt with removing twin girls from the infamous Children of God cult.
- Michelle Dowd was born into an ultra-religious cult in the Angeles National Forest above Arcadia, started by her grandfather in the 1930s. She has published a book about her life called Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult - A Memoir.
- Christopher Smith, from the University of La Verne, is a criminologist who works with high-risk youth. His studies have included abuse in cults, including Synanon.
Claremont Helen Renwick Library
√ * Community Discussion of Hollywood Park
This memoir by Mikel Jollett presents a unique look into messy family dynamics. The author is a sensitive, observant, thoughtful, injured child, and as a successful adult, he has recreated his world, recognizing that people around him were, for the most part, doing the best they could, but the damage was done.
Saturday, January 25, 2025, 10:00 AM in the Meeting Room
Claremont Helen Renwick Library, 208 Harvard Ave., Claremont
Note: Our library offers copies of Hollywood Park for check-out.
Video: Join NPR Music’s Bob Boilen for a conversation with writer and musician Mikel Jollett, author of Hollywood Park, his New York Times bestselling memoir. Hollywood Park beautifully and painfully details the author’s journey from a troubled childhood – poverty, emotional abuse, addiction, and an escape from the notorious Synanon cult – to the discovery of his voice as a writer and musician. During this live, virtual event, Bob and Mikel discuss the book and its companion soundtrack by Mikel’s band, The Airborne Toxic Event. Mikel also performs songs that align with the stories in his written memoir.
Read or listen to the first chapter of Hollywood Park and listen to 12 songs from Hollywood Park's Airborne Toxic Event on NPR here: npr.org/sections/allsongs/2020/07/08/888193655/the-airborne-toxic-events-mikel-jollett-live-interview-and-performance
Interview: "Mikel Jollett, Author of Hollywood Park, On Life Inside and Outside a Cult," by Jennifer Jackson.
Hollywood Park is the memoir of musician Mikel Jollett, who was born into the California cult Synanon. Jollett sat down with Celadon (the book's publisher) to tell us about his earliest memories, his complicated relationship with his mother, and how it felt to remember his beloved father through his writing. Read the interview here.
Visit Hollywood Park's publisher's website: CeladonBooks .com/book/hollywood-park/
Interview: "Mikel Jollett, Author of Hollywood Park, On Life Inside and Outside a Cult," by Jennifer Jackson.
Hollywood Park is the memoir of musician Mikel Jollett, who was born into the California cult Synanon. Jollett sat down with Celadon (the book's publisher) to tell us about his earliest memories, his complicated relationship with his mother, and how it felt to remember his beloved father through his writing. Read the interview here.
Visit Hollywood Park's publisher's website: CeladonBooks .com/book/hollywood-park/
What is On The Same Page?
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The Friends of the Claremont Library sponsors the annual citywide reading program Claremont: On the Same Page. We engage as many people as possible in discussing one book as the basis for a shared experience. Local reading groups and educators are encouraged to read the book in their activities or curriculum. After the book is selected in September, various local events are offered to discuss it and related topics. All events are free and open to the public.
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Past On The Same Page book selections*
2023:This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel
2022: A Fire Story by Brian Fries
2021: Always a Song by Ellen Harper
2020: Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
2019: The Library Book by Susan Orlean
2018:The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen
2017:Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California by Frances Dinkelspiel
2016: Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America by Firoozeh Dumas
2015: Wonder by R.J. Palacio
2014: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
2013: Take One Candle Light a Room: A Novel by Susan Straight
2012: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
2011: Into The Beautiful North: A Novel by Luis Alberto Urrea
2010: The God of War by Marisa Silver
2009: The Soloist: A Lost Dream, An Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music by Steve Lopez
2008: The Distant Land of My Father by Bo Caldwell
2007: Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
*Click on the linked book titles to learn more about these past selections.
2023:This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel
2022: A Fire Story by Brian Fries
2021: Always a Song by Ellen Harper
2020: Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
2019: The Library Book by Susan Orlean
2018:The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen
2017:Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California by Frances Dinkelspiel
2016: Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America by Firoozeh Dumas
2015: Wonder by R.J. Palacio
2014: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
2013: Take One Candle Light a Room: A Novel by Susan Straight
2012: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
2011: Into The Beautiful North: A Novel by Luis Alberto Urrea
2010: The God of War by Marisa Silver
2009: The Soloist: A Lost Dream, An Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music by Steve Lopez
2008: The Distant Land of My Father by Bo Caldwell
2007: Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
*Click on the linked book titles to learn more about these past selections.