Buy used: $4.50

$8.73 delivery June 23 - July 17. Details

Used: Good | Details

Sold by New Chapter Recycling

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

Add to List

Added to

Unable to add item to List. Please try again.

Have one to sell?

Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See this image

Follow the Authors

Joe Dunn

Colleen Dunn Bates

Hometown Pasadena: The Insider's Guide Paperback – October 4, 2006

by Colleen Dunn Bates (Author), Jill Alison Ganon (Author), Sandy Gillis (Author),

5.0 8 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Paperback

"Please retry"

$4.50

$14.95

$1.34

Paperback
$4.50

20 Used from $1.34 1 New from $14.95 2 Collectible from $20.00

Book by Colleen Dunn Bates, Jill Alison Ganon, Sandy Gillis, Mel Malmberg, Mary Jane Horton

Print length

256 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Prospect Park Books
Publication date

October 4, 2006
Dimensions

6.25 x 0.75 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

097539391X
ISBN-13

978-0975393918
See all details

Highest ratedin this set of productsThis item:
Colleen Dunn Bates
8
Paperback
23 offers from $1.34
Most purchasedin this set of products
Colleen Dunn Bates
24
Hardcover
28 offers from $8.59
Lowest Pricein this set of products
Tom Alyea
2
Paperback
$6.24
$8.05 shipping

Editorial Reviews

Review

Compact, colorful and discerning --Los Angeles Magazine

From the Inside Flap

Pasadena is 16 towns in one. From Sierra Madre to San Gabriel, La Canada to Eagle Rock, Pasadena is the hub of many remarkable communities.|A smart, witty insider's guide to Pasadena & the San Gabriel Valley -- sixteen towns in one, from Sierra Madre to San Gabriel, La Canada to Eagle Rock, Pasadena is the hub of many remarkable communities. People: The characters and visionaries, cranks, entrepreneurs and geniuses who helped Pasadena grow -- and those who make it vibrant today. Places: The architecture, gardens, hotels, campuses, museums movie locations, and hikes, from Pasadena to Montrose, Sierra Madre to San Marino. Fun: Theaters, kids' activities, bars, galleries, bookstores, parks, festivals, lecture halls, golf courses, cemeteries . . . oh, and there's this parade. Food: It's all here: Shanghai dumplings to New York steaks, apple martinis to flights of Shiraz, locally roasted coffee to locally made ice cream.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Prospect Park Books; First Edition (October 4, 2006)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 097539391X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0975393918
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.15 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.25 x 0.75 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,983,901 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #87 in General California Travel Guides
- #4,768 in Pacific West United States Travel Books

Customer Reviews:
5.0 8 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the authors

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Colleen Dunn Bates
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.
Colleen Dunn Bates is the publisher at Prospect Park Books, an independent press in Altadena, California. She founded Prospect Park in 2006 after spending 25 years as an author, magazine journalist, book editor, and newspaper editor. Prospect Park publishes trade books in several areas: fiction, mystery, food/cooking, humor, gift, and regional.
Prospect Park's authors include Edgar Award-winning mystery writer Naomi Hirahara; Los Angeles Times-bestselling novelist Lian Dolan; Los Angeles Times-bestselling writer Chris Erskine; award-winning cookbook authors Bill Esparza and Christine Moore; humorists Jennifer Worick and Mark Dawidziak; Emmy-winning crime writer Phoef Sutton; and such notables as Michelle Brafman, Michal Lemberger, Christopher Noxon, Douglas Segal, Karen Rizzo, Rachel M. Harper, Jim Kempton, Anne Flett-Giordano, and Karin Esterhammer. Prospect Park’s books are distributed by Consortium/Ingram.
A sixth-generation Southern Californian, Colleen lives in their Pasadena empty nest with her husband and their labradoodle.
See more on the author's page
Joe Dunn
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.
Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more
See more on the author's page

Customer reviews

5 out of 5

8 global ratings

5 star

100%

4 star

0%

3 star

0%

2 star

0%

1 star

0%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Travelin Ray

This is an excellent book about Pasadena and the surrounding areas

Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2017

Verified Purchase

This is an excellent book about Pasadena and the surrounding areas. I grew up here and didn't know most of what was in the book. Very informative.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

M. Nestor

This is a entertaining book with many useful facts about my old hometown

Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2015

Verified Purchase

This is a entertaining book with many useful facts about my old hometown. Loads of information truly a good read.

Helpful

Virginia J. Prickett

Locally made book blooms in Pasadena

Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2007

Hometown Pasadena: The Insider's Guide Writer Colleen Dunn Bates, a friendly Pasadena woman nearing 50, thought she had a good idea: to put together an upscale guidebook about her city -- a kind of travel book for people who live there. And given the intensely local focus of the project, rather than dealing with a big New York publisher, she decided to publish it herself, producing it out of her den and delivering it to stores from the back of her car.

Almost a year later, "Hometown Pasadena" has not only sold 10,000 copies, it has also turned into a small empire: Local bookstores, both chain and independent, Costco and even a hair salon now carry it, and Bates is branching out to other cities.

Bates' formula for the books is simple: "It's about how to really live in a place, and be in a place, and understand a place, even if you've lived there for 20 years," she said recently. "I've never seen anything like it. My model was to not have it look like a Fodor's guide."

Bates' book taps into the growing desire to conduct the business of one's life as locally as possible, in an era of crazy traffic, expensive gas and worries about the effect of a sprawling lifestyle on global warming. As Sara Nelson, editor of Publishers Weekly, noted, books about local topics and niche themes are thriving nationwide, helped in part by digital technology that makes it easier to self-publish books with a professional look.

"I think people are interested in themselves. As everything gets more global, the local stuff seems quaint and personal," she said.

"Hometown Pasadena" features well-illustrated sections on eating and drinking, cultural offerings, and where to take the kids, as well as less-typical features: several pages on the Metro Gold Line, a chapter on public and private gardens, and page-long interviews with key local players, such as architectural historian Robert Winter and Pasadena Playhouse artistic director Sheldon Epps. Bates and her four co-authors also know enough to treat the city as the bull's-eye of a cluster of communities that includes Sierra Madre, Eagle Rock and most of the San Gabriel Valley.

Bates' decision to publish on her own press comes from her experience with the New York publishing world, beginning in the early '80s when she edited a series of French-originated guidebooks for Simon & Schuster...
By handling "Hometown Pasadena" herself, she was able to use local talent not only in its creation but in its sales and promotion. One of her co-authors, Sandy Gillis, has kept the book supplied at her hairdresser.

Even more surprising, Bates has gotten the book into a Pasadena Barnes and Noble, despite the difficulty of small presses reaching the chains.

Bates also handles her press' non-bookstore distribution, which for months meant hauling boxes of books into her Subaru and driving them around town.

"I did it all," she said, "and have the chiropractic bills to prove it."

Some of the secret lies in Pasadena itself, the author believes.

"It's a very literary community, very educated," Bates said. "We have, outside of Powell's, the healthiest independent bookstore on the West Coast. There's educational institutions and culture and art and architecture. And food, and neighborhood identity. It has everything that makes for a complete community: There's a 'there' here."

Either way, it takes the right balance of size, cultural sophistication and local roots -- and possibly insularity -- for a city to be right for one of her books, Bates said. San Diego, for example, is too large and sprawling.
"Pasadena has a healthy self-image," she conceded. "It's in love with itself, and that helps."

Scott Timberg, Los Angeles Times

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Cathie

Pasadena finally gets its own guidebook!

Reviewed in the United States on October 21, 2006

LA/So Calif travel books have always given this gem of a city only a cursory glance. It's about time Pasadena got its own book! This glossy new guidebook is chock full of everything Pasadena; it is beautifully detailed and highly entertaining. I am a Pasadena native who thoroughly enjoyed reading about my favorite haunts and discovering new spots to explore. Highly recommnend this for visitors or ex-Pasadenans who want to reminisce about their beloved hometown.

11 people found this helpful

Helpful

Chris

It's Funny!

Reviewed in the United States on October 24, 2006

I was surprised by this complete guide. It was so well written and amusing that I found myself reading it for fun! I thought I knew this town, but I learned so much about it's history, places I've never been etc.. I'm giving it as Christmas presents to my partners at work. I think they'll love it and it's great o have on the shelf for guests. X Chris

10 people found this helpful

Helpful

Eleanor P. Dunn

excellent guide to the joy of discovering Pasadena and environs

Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2007

this is a fun guide to the wonderful city of Pasadena and the territory around it--excellent advice and comments about a city full of history, beauty and community

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Follow the Authors

Hometown Pasadena: The Insider's Guide Paperback – October 4, 2006

What do customers buy after viewing this item?

Editorial Reviews

Review

From the Inside Flap

From the Back Cover

Product details

Videos

About the authors

Colleen Dunn Bates

Joe Dunn

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Sorry, there was a problem.

Sorry, there was a problem.

Follow the Authors

Hometown Pasadena: The Insider's Guide Paperback – October 4, 2006

What do customers buy after viewing this item?

Editorial Reviews

Review

From the Inside Flap

From the Back Cover

Product details

Videos

About the authors

Colleen Dunn Bates

Joe Dunn

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.