BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//GayOut//Event Export//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH BEGIN:VEVENT UID:199174@gayout.com DTSTAMP:20260824T065138Z DTSTART:20260924T180000Z DTEND:20260924T193000Z SUMMARY:Pod Picks Book Club: Ramona’\\;s Pick: Unprecedented Times DESCRIPTION:Pod Picks Book Club is White Whale staff picks and a communit y book club combined!\\nIt’\\;s the powerful forces of White Whale s taff picks and a community book club combined: the Pod Picks Book Club! E ach month (usually on the last Thursday)\\, a different bookseller gets t o pick a book for the club to read\\, and they’\\;ll host the meetin g\\, too. Book club picks will be 10% off 30 days in advance of the meeti ng day\\, to give you time to read it. And plan on grabbing a drink and a snack from the cafĂ© when you come to the meeting!\\nRamona’\\;s pi ck: Unprecedented Times by Malavika Kannan\\nRAMONA (they/them) is a semi -recent transplant to Pittsburgh from Austin\\, Texas. They love film pho tography\\, bad movies\\, high camp\\, general kitsch\\, and miniature ve rsions of things. They are a brothmonger loyalist and a generally sentime ntal guy. Ramona can be found consuming beautiful translated fiction\\, a bsurdist short story collections\\, and devastating essay collections.\\n 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝\\nOne of Ms. Magazine and Debutiful’s Most Anticipa ted Debut Books of the Year\\nOne of LGBTQ Read’s Most Anticipated LGBT Q+ Fiction Books\\nOne of Debutiful’s Most Anticipated Debut Books of t he Year\\n“Unprecedented Times made me laugh\\, cry\\, and rage—often within the same paragraph . . . Kannan’s voice is hilarious and genero us\\, and her incisive portrayal of navigating college as a second-genera tion immigrant kept me up late into the night. I absolutely could not put this book down.” —Lamya H\\, award-winning author of Hijab Butch Blu es\\nMalavika Kannan establishes herself as an inimitable voice of Gen Z in this piercing coming-of-age debut novel.\\nWhich comes first: experien ce or narrative? Rishi thinks she knows the answer as she arrives on camp us for her first year at Stanford. A burnt-out youth climate activist\\, she used to want to save the world\\, but now she just wants to have gay sex. Her plan is set—she’s going to leave behind the strict trappings of her Indian American childhood in Florida\\, study literature\\, exper iment with love\\, and write all about it. Within a few months\\, she mak es her first best friend\\, falls in love with her situationship\\, and p romptly gets her heart broken.\\nWhat is not a part of Rishi’s plan is the onset of the COVID pandemic. As the outside world becomes a terrifyin g place\\, she increasingly finds solace in the friendships she’s made. Instead of virtual college\\, however\\, Rishi and her classmates join a farm collective\\, where their political discussions and growing disillu sionment collide with sexual tension and responsibility. It’s only when those relationships start fracturing under the stress of careless decisi ons\\, unrequited crushes\\, jealousies\\, and\\, yes\\, unprecedented ti mes\\, that Rishi begins to question her own story.\\nUnprecedented Times captures the beauty\\, humor\\, pain\\, and straight-up chaos that exist in relationships between best friends and lovers\\, mothers and daughter s\\, and between storytellers and themselves. Malavika Kannan’s fresh\\ , arresting novel is a testament to the power of self-narrative for Gen Z American women: of writing oneself into existence where no previous scri pt exists.\\nhttps://www.gayout.com/usa-canada/united-states/pittsburgh/e vents/pod-picks-book-club-ramona-8217-s-pick-unprecedented-times-2026-09- 24 LOCATION:Pittsburgh URL:https://www.gayout.com/usa-canada/united-states/pittsburgh/events/pod-picks-book-club-ramona-8217-s-pick-unprecedented-times-2026-09-24 STATUS:CONFIRMED END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR