Adventure Pass temporarily shut down in 2025

Due to software issues affecting all libraries using the service, the Iowa Adventure Pass program will temporarily shut down in 2025. Any reservation already made for 2025 will be honored, but we encourage anyone with a current reservation to print those passes immediately. Customers can still make new reservations for passes that must be used by December 31, 2024. The service will return at a later time. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Weather update for 12/14/2024

All locations of the Des Moines Public Library will be open normal hours Saturday, December 14, and all locations will serve as emergency warming shelters during open hours. 

AViD Presents Emily St. John Mandel

Program Type:

Author Visits

Age Group:

All Ages
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Event Details

Canadian author Emily St. John Mandel is one of our most acclaimed and revered storytellers, with her novels spanning genres from post-apocalyptic fiction to literary fiction to mystery thriller. Her 2022 bestseller, Sea of Tranquility, is a masterpiece of metaphysical and speculative fiction that dives into time travel, the simulation hypothesis, love, and unfurls a story of humanity across centuries. Barack Obama included the novel on his list of favorite books of 2022, and a review in USA Today said the book was “transporting and brilliant and generous… I haven’t read anything quite like it.”

Mandel’s past novels are also praised bestsellers, with The Glass Hotel called “a perfect novel” by The Washington Post and being named a best book of 2020 by The AV Club, BBC, Entertainment Weekly, The New Yorker, NPR, Parade, TIME, Washington Post, and many, many more.

Her groundbreaking 2014 novel, Station Eleven, is a landmark work of post-apocalyptic fiction, winning the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award. It was also a finalist for the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and many other accolades. The book was adapted into an award-winning HBO 10-part TV series of the same name, which was nominated for seven Primetime Emmy Awards.