Welcome to Prospect Park Books
Prospect Park Books is a Pasadena-based publisher and distributor of high-quality regional books and web sites. Our publications are smart, witty, colorful, informed and always fun to read.


Our titles include:

Written by locals for locals, with a foreword by acclaimed crime novelist April Smith, Hometown Santa Monica is the book Santa Monica and her neighbors have been waiting for. Its 256 color-charged pages celebrate the savvy, the friendly, the smart, the fashionable, the beachy, the fun and the historic in Santa Monica, Venice, the Palisades, the Marina, Malibu, Topanga and Brentwood. It’s a friend who tells you about a great restaurant and introduces you to some amazing people. It’s an educated resource showcasing the region’s world-class art, architecture, natural beauty, culture and fun stuff to do. And it’s a great gift.

ISBN 978-0-9753939-2-5; retail price $24.95

At Home Pasadena is the first book to showcase the range and diversity of the San Gabriel Valley’s exceptional homes and gardens. With lush color photographs and evocative text, At Home Pasadena celebrates how Pasadenans live at home—where they cook, eat, sleep, work, play, socialize, garden, grow, learn, collect, retreat, dress, bathe and even save the world. The homes reflect the architectural richness of Pasadena and her design-loving neighbors, including Altadena, South Pasadena, Sierra Madre and San Marino. You’ll step inside much more than the Arts & Crafts bungalows that have brought these communities international fame—there are midcentury moderns both grand and small, kitchen gardens and rose gardens, a clean-lined loft and a rustic rental cottage, a Wallace Neff hacienda and a Madison Heights colonial, a sustainable mini-farm and an historic observatory/home . . . and many, many more. With a foreword by David R. Brown, executive director of Descanso Gardens, former president of Art Center College of Design and owner of an historic Greene & Greene home.

ISBN 978-0-9753939-3-2; retail price $39.95

Just published by Blenheim Press and already a hit, this exciting new cookbook is being distributed by Prospect Park Books. Author Amelia Saltsman celebrates the famed Santa Monica Farmers' Market, provides advice on choosing, storing and using seasonal ingredients, shares tips from chefs and farmers, and gives readers more than 100 simple but fabulous recipes inspired by the market. With a foreword by Deborah Madison, a gorgeous design by Ph.D (including color photos of the market and the farmers), and rave reviews from everyone from Alice Waters to Lynne Rossetto Kasper, this book is the essential companion to farmer's market shoppers across the nation.

ISBN 978-0-9790429-0-4; retail price $22.95.

Finalist, Southern California Independent Booksellers Award

Not content to simply profile another picturesque foothill enclave with ocean views and Nobel Prize-winning physicists, Hometown Pasadena takes you inside the real Pasadena, pulsating with arts, architecture, nature, science, food and international culture. Its 256 color-charged pages celebrate the artistic, the friendly, the smart, the fashionable and the historicin Pasadena, Sierra Madre, Eagle Rock, La Canada . . . in fact, throughout the entire San Gabriel Valley. Its five authors, locals all, have spent a combined 91 years eating in the restaurants, prowling the galleries, antiques shops and flea markets, and discovering the gardens, colleges, architectural masterpieces, hotels, coffeehouses, museums, mountain trails, libraries, kids' activities, wine bars, jazz clubs, lectures, golf courses, theaters and bookstores. And there's more: engaging feature stories, Q&As with local notables, hundreds of color photographs, and detailed maps.

ISBN 978-0-09739391-9; retail price $22.95.