Welcome back to Same Page SF, your home for all things local and literary!

I’m Christina, your friendly, well-informed, and unabashedly nerdy bookseller. Every Monday, I share author talks, book clubs, and new releases happening across our city.

It’s another great week to be a reader in San Francisco. Here’s what you’ll want to do if:

1) You’re intrigued by a literary fraudster turned cult leader

Ru Marshall on American Trickster: The Hidden Lives of Carlos Castaneda at Bookshop West Portal. Tuesday 6/16, 7pm, free.

Until drafting this newsletter I hadn’t heard of Carlos Castaneda, but now I’m dragging you down the rabbit hole. A prolific literary fraudster, his faux-anthropological titles on Native American spirituality were international bestsellers - and that’s just the tip of the pre-cult-leader iceberg. No wonder it took Ru Marshall twenty years to write the biography, which they’ll discuss with journalist and oral historian Alison Owings.

2) You’d like to celebrate a literary luminary

Dave Eggers on Contrapposto at Calvary Presbyterian. Tuesday 6/16, 7pm, $38 includes signed book.

However you know him - for his bestselling books, his network of youth writing centers, or as the founder of McSweeney’s - you’ll want to join Dave Eggers for the launch of his new novel. Italian for “counterpose,” the term for a figure bearing weight on one foot a la Michelangelo’s David, Contrapposto is a sweeping saga of friendship, love, and the pursuit of art. In the words of Alexandra Jacobs (NYTBR), “Is there anything this children’s-book-writing, nonprofit-overseeing, magazine-founding Gen X-er can’t do?”

3) You’re craving a reality-twisting thriller

Annakeara Stinson on Nerve Damage at Booksmith. Thursday 6/18, 7pm, free with RSVP.

Three years after Clarice fled her boyfriend - and right as the restraining order expires - she spots him at a nightclub. Or does she? Rather than wait to confirm his feared return, the protagonist of Nerve Damage takes matters into her own hands by stalking him herself. Kaveh Akbar raved of this propulsive debut, “It’s impossible for a book so chilling, so uncanny, so urgent to also be this funny.”

4) You’re honoring Juneteenth

The SFPL is hosting three Black Bay Area authors for a panel, Living Free, about their research into family history and how writing is a freedom practice (Wednesday 6/17, 6pm, free). Green Apple Books on the Park is welcoming Zinzi Clemmons for the launch of Freedom: Essays, an incendiary exploration of race, sex, class, and inheritance, with Esmé Weijun Wang (Wednesday 6/17, 7pm, free). Across the Bay, Pub Scholar is partnering with author J.R. Rice for The Art of Black Storytelling: Juneteenth Edition (Wednesday 6/17, 6:30pm, $25). And at Letterform Archive, curator Jada Simone Haynes will lead a tour of their exhibit Black Memory Scholar, which emphasizes the importance of memory work and the preservation of Black communities, legacies, and stories (Thursday 6/18, 1:30-3pm, $10+).

5) You know it’s not summer without a reading challenge

I’m thrilled to share Same Page’s first-ever Summer Reading Bingo. It’s about books - of course - but it’s also about getting to know the literary pillars of our city, from indie bookstores to public libraries to cultural hubs. Think prompts like “A book with 10+ words in the title” interspersed with “Visit a niche-interest bookstore” and “Attend a silent reading party.”

Speaking of parties, I’ll be throwing one for everyone who participates, complete with raffles and prizes. Details to come! Sign up for the challenge and download your Bingo sheet here.

And if one reading challenge isn’t enough for you, the SFPL’s Summer Stride is underway, and Fabulosa just published their Bingo card. Let the games begin!

Book-adjacent events

• 🍰 Black Bird is hosting their monthly Game & Pie Night. Bring your own game or buy one and settle in for an evening of friendly competition. Your ticket gets you tea, wine, and treats from a local micro-bakery. Wednesday 6/17, 7pm, $10.

• 📽️ Et al. is holding a Mixtape Cartoon Night curated by exhibiting artists Daniel Arthur Mendoza and Daniel Alejandro Trejo. Cozy up with lawn chairs, blankets, popcorn, and the offbeat cartoons that influenced Neighbors. Thursday 6/18, doors at 5:30pm, free.

• 🇮🇹 If you’re celebrating the 70th Annual North Beach Festival, don’t forget to swing by Golden Sardine - the poetry bookstore cleverly disguised as a wine bar - for wine, snacks, and tarot. Saturday 6/20 and Sunday 6/21, 2-9pm.

Excited about one of this week’s features? Invite a friend to join you (or a full crew, but let’s be real, we’re all introverts here).

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Letterform Archive is hiring for two full-time roles, a Digitization Architect and an Art Director | The SF Art Book Fair is seeking volunteers for its late-July festival | The Bay Area Queer Zine Fest has opened applications for its ninth annual festival, with IRL and virtual spaces available | The Center for the Art of Translation (CAT) has raised over $13m toward an ambitious campaign to open a bookstore and cultural hub downtown

MONDAY Podcaster Bella Freud in conversation with author Rachel Kushner via City Arts & Lectures | Bestselling horror author CJ Leede on Headlights at Barnes & Noble Opera Plaza | Chef Claudette Zepeda on Cooking the Borderlands - with Top Chef / Tournament of Champions winner Mei Lin, nbd - at Omnivore

TUESDAY Deb Olin Unferth on Earth 7, a “keenly imagined, ravishing, and profound” (Booklist) end-of-the-world love story, at Green Apple Books on the Park | Corey Rosen, host of The Moth StorySLAM, on A Story for Everything: Mastering Diverse Storytelling for Any Occasion at the Commonwealth Club | Journalist Jonathan Weber on City on the Edge: Technology, Politics, and the Fight for the Soul of San Francisco also at the Commonwealth Club | Annual Bloomsbury Tea, a worldwide celebration of James Joyce’s Ulysses, at Mechanics’ Institute

WEDNESDAY Publisher’s Lunch with writer/translator Tiffany Tsao and critic Lili Loofbourow at Heyday HQ; these talks aren’t usually open to the public, so take advantage if you can! | Zayd Ayers Dohrn on Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground, a New Yorker Best Book of the Year So Far, at Booksmith | Frederick Smith, whose romances center queer Black characters, on Love is a Contact Sport at The Love Potion Library | Nelson German and Andréa Lawson Gray on Caribbean Cocktails: Drinks and Bites from the Afro-Latino Diaspora at Omnivore | Joseph Andrew Cerny on The Bootlegger’s Daughter: A San Francisco Tale at SFPL Bernal | Classics Book Club on Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway at Barnes & Noble in the Marina | Contemporary Translated Works Book Club on Slipping by Mohamed Kheir, translated by Robin Moger, at Mechanics’ Institute | Launch of Not Like the Rest, an inaugural literary magazine by and for Bay Area incarcerated artists, at Medicine for Nightmares

Paid readers get the complete ALSO section, including “an evening of sharp wit, sparkling dialogue, and deliciously petty social maneuvering,” and a rave review for a book so vivid I kept thinking of the characters as real.

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Welcome back to Same Page SF, your home for all things local and literary!

I’m Christina, your friendly, well-informed, and unabashedly nerdy bookseller. Every Monday, I share author talks, book clubs, and new releases happening across our city.

It’s a ludicrously good week to be a reader in San Francisco. I’ve been writing Same Page for three years, and for an average newsletter, I collect 32 literary events - an abundance of choice. This week boasts almost 70! Needless to say, picking just five to feature was particularly painful, but Same Page is a one-woman labor of love, so I stick to my limit. Here’s what you’ll want to do if:

1) You’d like a definitive history of LGBTQ music

Barry Walters on Mighty Real: A History of LGBTQ Music, 1969-2000 at Fabulosa. Tuesday 6/9, 7pm, free with RSVP.

I have a theory - and I’m pretty sure it’s wrong - that if you really love one form of media (i.e., books), all others are basically lost on you. That’s my way of excusing my cluelessness about music, so I’m intrigued by Barry Walters’ Mighty Real, which draws on his decades as a New York- and San Francisco-based music critic for a deeply researched look at LGBTQ music and its impact on culture and American life.

2) You’re looking for a cheeky Father’s Day gift

Ashton Politanoff on Dad Had a Bad Day at Green Apple Books on the Park and live online. Thursday 6/11, 7pm, free.

They say don’t judge a book by its cover, but I bought Ashton Politanoff’s Dad Had a Bad Day on the strength of its limp-racketed jacket. The tale of a stay-at-home father who rediscovers his passion for tennis to the detriment of his son’s childcare, his wife’s credit card, and much more, Rita Bullwinkel - who’ll be Politanoff’s conversation partner - described it as “dripping in masculinity and self-pity … thrillingly unhinged.”

3) You’d rather be carbo-loading in Italy

Andrew Sean Greer on Villa Coco at the Peacock Lounge with Booksmith. Friday 6/12, 7pm, $20 general admission or $38 with signed book.

Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less, is back with another big hug of a novel. Villa Coco follows a hapless young man who accepts an assistant job for an eccentric ninety-two-year-old Baronessa at her crumbling villa in the Tuscan Hills; expect “wit, sophistication, and deep knowledge of focaccia,” plus a forbidden romance.

4) You want to celebrate literature and culture

SF Flor y Canto Literary Festival on Calle 24 Latino Cultural District. Friday 6/12 through Sunday 6/14, various times, free.

Flor y Canto, La Misión’s homegrown literary festival, is back! Created in 2008 by San Francisco’s first Latino poet laureate to celebrate La Misión’s deep literary roots, it’ll kick off with a Paseo de Poetry on Friday afternoon, then continue with over a dozen gatherings - readings, talks, film screenings, and art-making - through the weekend, mostly at Medicine for Nightmares and Adobe Books & Art.

5) Your favorite books include Kindred or The Parable of the Sower

Panel: Octavia’s Legacy at the SFPL Main. Sunday 6/14, 2-3:15pm, free.

You know when an author is highly rated but still somehow underrated? That’s Octavia Butler. Join this free author panel - hosted at the SFPL in partnership with Sistah Scifi, the first Black-owned bookstore in the US focused on sci-fi and fantasy - to discuss her enduring influence on speculative fiction, imagination, and the futures we dare to envision.

Book-adjacent events

• 🎨 The Letterform Archive is welcoming prolific artist Cyrus Highsmith - who, over the last three decades, has filled 300 sketchbooks that were recently acquired by the Providence Public Library - for a talk on daily drawing and its impact on creative practice. Thursday 6/11, 6-7:30pm, $15.

• 🀄As part of the Chinatown Night Market, On Waverly is holding drop-in mahjong. All levels are welcome, and instructors will be on hand to help! Friday 6/12, 5-9pm, free (or $88 to reserve a full table).

• 🎤 The Stud is hosting Text Change, a new reading series curated by author June Martin featuring “five trans writers on anything but transition.” Sunday 6/14, 6:30pm, free.

Excited about one of this week’s features? Invite a friend to join you (or a full crew, but let’s be real, we’re all introverts here).

Share Same Page SF

The Writers Grotto is accepting membership applications from professional-level writers through June 15 | The Center for the Art of Translation (CAT) has raised over $13m toward an ambitious campaign to open a bookstore and cultural hub downtown | Speaking of CAT, they’re one of three local literary nonprofits receiving grants from the newly created Literary Arts Fund as part of a national effort to champion literary culture

MONDAY #1 NYT bestselling author Matt Haig on The Midnight Train, the magical story of an elderly widower transported back to pivotal moments from his past, at JCCSF | Poetry Reading in celebration of World Oceans Day at SFPL North Beach | Babes Who Book at Sour Cherry Comics

TUESDAY Lior Torenberg on Just Watch Me - “Fleabag meets Big Swiss in this bold debut about a charismatic misfit who livestreams her life for seven days and nights to raise money to save her comatose sister” - at Green Apple Books on the Park | Former Deputy National Security Advisor of the United States Ben Rhodes on All We Say, a sweeping look at the battle over American identity, at Sydney Goldstein Theater | Rob Osler on The Case of the Murdered Muckraker at SFPL Main | From Heather’s Mommies to Tango’s Daddies, a celebration of the New Tarpey-Schwed LGBT Families Children’s Book Special Collection, at Mechanics’ Institute | On the Page, Off the Page at SFPL Park | Launch Party for ​Bita Behzadi’s rom-com debut Letters from the Last Apothecary at The Love Potion Library | Jennifer Newens on Thursday Night Tiki Lounge (yes, ironically on Tuesday) at Omnivore

WEDNESDAY Words & Stories, a free lunchtime reading series presented by The Writers Grotto, featuring Anoop Judge and Pia Chatterjee at Salesforce Park | Hillary Sterling on Ammazza!: Culinary Adventures from New York to Italy and Back Again at Omnivore | Poetry & Prose Open Mic at Black Bird

Same Page is a labor of love, but it’s still a labor! Paid subscribers get full access to the ALSO section, plus a sweet little gift.

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Welcome back to Same Page SF, your home for all things local and literary!

I’m Christina, your friendly, well-informed, and unabashedly nerdy bookseller. Every Monday, I share author talks, book clubs, and new releases happening across our city.

Same Page normally goes out at 10:30am, but I'm behind thanks to the glorious chaos of yesterday’s Bay Area Book Festival. (Also my son's double ear infection, but that's decidedly less fun.) At BABF I got to meet thousands of book lovers, including a number of longtime readers. To those of you who stopped by and introduced yourself, thank you! Meeting you and putting faces to names was one of the best parts of an already-extraordinary day.

Another highlight: seeing my friend Angela Chu’s gorgeous indie bookstore illustrations fly off the shelves! We had prints of her watercolor guide to some of San Francisco’s longest-running indie bookstores - eleven general-interest shops operating for at least ten years, though that’s just a fraction of our 30+ literary destinations! - and a handful of stickers. Angie’s best known for her murals, but the precision and charm of her small-scale illustrations is incredible.

If you’d like your own print, it’s available for purchase here! Bonus: Buy a print this week and we’ll include a sticker of your choice (Christopher’s, City Lights, Black Bird, or the original Green Apple).

Whew! It’s another great week to be a reader in San Francisco. Here’s what you’ll want to do if:

1) You’re looking for intimate memoirs of queer family-making

It’s the start of Pride Month, and I’m unsurprised but still impressed that we’ve got two different author events falling into this category on Tuesday 6/3 (both 7pm, both free). At Green Apple Books on the Park, Steven Pfau will discuss Say Nephew: On Boyhood, Unclehood, and Queer Mentorship with Brendan McHugh, and at Fabulosa, National Book Critics Circle Award and Lambda Literary Award finalist Joseph Osmundson will speak on Spawning Season: A Memoir of Queer Parenthood.

2) You’re up for a book launch that’s less a reading, more a party

Julián Delgado Lopera on Pretend You’re Dead and I Carry You at The Lab. Thursday 6/4, 7pm, $10+.

To celebrate the launch of Pretend You're Dead and I Carry You, join Julián Delgado Lopera for a conversation about his richly imagined novel of Colombia's underground queer scene, complete with drag performances, extra-special readings, and a surprise from the GLBT Historical Society's archive.

3) You crave nourishment in every sense of the word

Kitchen Table at Medicine for Nightmares. Thursday 6/4, 7-9pm, free.

Kitchen Table is a reading series centered around poetry and literature, food and drink, and culture and politics. What feeds your body? What feeds your mind? To explore these enduring questions, hear from writers Lauren Ito, Gabriel Cortez, and Eddie Kim along with Stay Sweet SF, small-batch chocolate and confections by local pastry chef Mark Lieuw.

4) You’re looking for a surprisingly sweet tale of deception

Vincent Chu on Nice Places at On Waverly. Friday 6/5, 5:30-6:30pm, free.

When Georgie quits his tech job to travel, getting robbed en route to SFO - by a meditation guru, no less - isn’t part of the plan. But when he posts a photo of Thai noodles from a local restaurant and everyone believes he’s abroad, he fakes his journey with the help of an art student looking for an unusual thesis. That’s the premise of Vincent Chu’s debut, which Kate Folk (Sky Daddy) called “a wildly inventive tale of how we forge our identities … addicting and hilarious.”

5) You might have enough books can’t ever have enough books

Book Sale Block Party at the Friends of the SFPL Donation Center. Saturday 6/6, 12-5pm, free.

Come to the Friends of the SFPL’s fourth annual Block Party for the massive selection of used books; if you’re a donor, take 10% off and arrive at 11am for an hour of early browsing. Stay for author talks, a button-making station, and literary camaraderie - and the vibrant new exterior art by none other than Angie Chu!

Book-adjacent events

• 🫟 Sour Cherry Comics is adapting Queer Art Night to Activist Craft Night: “YES this is still an arts/crafts event, but we are making it political. Why ignore/escape our fascist reality when you can get together with friends and fight it instead?” Wednesday 6/3, 6-7:30pm, donations welcome.

• 🍪 Black Bird is welcoming AP Flour SF, a home microbakery operating in the Outer Sunset, for a sourdough cookie pop-up. As someone with an equal love for carbs and chocolate, I’m obviously intrigued. Sunday 6/7, 10am-12pm or until sold out.

• 🎵 Bird & Beckett is holding a listening party and reading for the new LP “America, Give a Shit!,” a 1980 recording of Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, and Steven Taylor in Austria that was only released last month, with Tate Swindell and friends. Sunday 6/7, 8pm, donations welcome.

Excited about one of this week’s features? Invite a friend to join you (or a full crew, but let’s be real, we’re all introverts here).

Share Same Page SF

MONDAY Former Obama White House staffer Jason Green on Too Precious to Lose: A Memoir of Family, Community, and Possibility at Manny’s | Professor Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor on Something We Said: Richard Pryor, a Notorious Word, and Me, which braids her experience as a Black Jewish daughter with research into the historical and contemporary use of the N-word, at Sydney Goldstein Theater via City Arts & Lectures

TUESDAY Poetry Reading + Discussion with Colette Lafia and Leslie Kirk Campbell at Bookshop West Portal | Silent Reading Party at Booksmith | From Pilot to Page: Writing Your First Romance Novel Using TV Storytelling Techniques at The Love Potion Library is full, but you can join the waitlist

WEDNESDAY Rasheed Newson on his thriller There’s Only One Sin in Hollywood, about a backlot fixer’s investigation into the suspicious death of a closeted Black actor, at Green Apple Books on the Park | Lerone Martin, the Martin Luther King, Jr., Centennial Professor in Religious Studies at Stanford, on Young King: The Making of Martin Luther King Jr. at the Commonwealth Club | Ginsberg @ 100, hosted by Kevin Dublin, at Golden Sardine | Dreams, OMENS, and Language: Writers Respond to The Prince of Homburg at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts | SFPL Silent Book Club at Magnolia Brewing | Writing Club at Black Bird | Actor, comedian, writer, and producer Billy Eichner on Billy on Billy: An Audio Memoir has moved from Calvary Presbyterian to Book Passage’s Corte Madera store

THURSDAY J.P. LaCrampe on Valet: A Novel, the madcap adventure of a robot helper and his 35-year-old ward, at Book Passage | Pushcart-nominated food writer Madhushree Ghosh on SAFAR: Finding Home, History, and Culture through Punjabi Food in the American West at Omnivore | An Evening of Mark Twain: Lecture and Dramatic Reading with Ben Griffin and Lynne Kaufman at Mechanics’ Institute | Gen Blend, an intergenerational open mic and potluck, at Ruth’s Table | First Thursday Poets featuring Ronald Sauer’s The Ascent of Mt. Obvious, followed by open mic, at Bird & Beckett | Launch Party for Arel Wiederholt Kassar’s debut novel The Desert Spring Movement, in which a Danish poet vanishes in Las Vegas and leaves behind a single letter recounting his final days in the city, at Latin America Club

FRIDAY Launch Party for Jennifer Barone’s poetry collection Sirenland, a reclamation of personal lineage with color illustrations and photographs, with Italian mandolin music by Duo Pizzicato | First Friday Poetry Series featuring Leigh Lucas, Perry Janes, and Christian Gullette at Golden Sardine

SATURDAY Outdoor Poetry Workshop with Nia Pearl at Yerba Buena Gardens | History professor Charlotte Brooks on The Moys of New York and Shanghai, the true story of six Chinese American siblings navigating life across two continents during a century of upheaval, at the CHSA Museum | Dr. Terence Keel on The Coroner’s Silence, a landmark investigation into how forensic reports can systematically conceal state violence, at Book Passage | Aloud / Out Loud: The Writers Grotto on reckoning and renewal at Telegraph Hill Books | Launch Party for Orange: Poems by Noel Quiñones, with an opening by San Francisco Youth Poet Laureate Karan Gupta - Noel’s former student! - at Medicine for Nightmares | Launch Party for The Beatles by Jim Marshall: Live at Candlestick Park 1966 at Trick Dog, with a complimentary “Soundcheck” cocktail included with RSVP

SUNDAY Noel Quiñones on Orange: Poems at Fabulosa | Jacob Anthony Rose on Stillness and Survival: A Life Between Trauma, Glitter, and the Echo of My Own Voice at Book Passage | Food Demo + Book-Signing with Chefs Nelson German and Andréa Lawson Gray for Caribbean Cocktails: Drinks and Bites from the Afro-Latino Diaspora at the SF Ferry Plaza Market

Advance notice is my love language.

It’s the start of a new month - specifically Pride Month! - and you know what that means: a sneak peek into what’s most likely to fill up or sell out, organized by FICTION, NONFICTION, and FUN.

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Welcome back to Same Page SF, your home for all things local and literary!

I’m Christina, your friendly, well-informed, and unabashedly nerdy bookseller. Every Monday, I share author talks, book clubs, and new releases happening across our city.

Same Page is a one-woman labor of love, so I rarely feature events outside San Francisco proper - but I make a joyful exception for the Bay Area Book Festival, a world-class literary extravaganza in downtown Berkeley.

Inspired by the legacies of James Baldwin and Octavia Butler, the theme of this year’s festival is Writing the Future, a call to community and action in an era where the freedom to tell our stories is under threat. The vast majority of the weekend’s eighty-plus readings, talks, and panels are free, but the extraordinary Headliners are well worth the $20 admission.

Ever since I was a grad student at UC Berkeley, my favorite day of the year has been BABF’s Bookworm Block Party. On Sunday, the sprawling street fair will feature four outdoor stages, a cozy reading lounge, and nearly 150 literary-themed exhibitors - including, for the first time, Same Page! Catch me at Table #49 alongside the Oakland Review of Books, the East Bay’s source for literary news and events, from 11am-5pm.

I’ll have merch for sale, a free gift for subscribers, and - I’m SO excited about this - hand-illustrated prints of a selection of indie bookstores by Angela Chu of Tend Studio. (She’s the brilliant artist behind On Waverly’s clubhouse mural!) Feast your eyes on a few of her gorgeous renderings:

Needless to say, it’s an exceptional week to be a reader in San Francisco. Here’s everything else you’ll want to do if:

2) You enjoy schadenfreude and satire

Claire Caro Burke on Yesteryear at the United Irish Cultural Center. Tuesday 5/26, 7pm, $17.

2025 didn’t have an obvious “book of the summer,” but 2026 sure does. The gleefully dark tale of a tradwife influencer who seems to have been transported to 1855, Claire Caro Burke’s debut Yesteryear - which was snapped up in a big-deal auction and immediately optioned for film - has topped the NYT bestseller list since publication. Originally hosted by Bookshop West Portal, this event was moved to the United Irish Cultural Center due to overwhelming demand.

3) You’re curious about the story behind the story

Kirkpatrick Speaker Series: Amy Tan with Arion Press at the Bayfront Theater. Tuesday 5/26, 6:30pm, $20.

What stories shape the writers who shape us? For the first 2026 Kirkpatrick Speaker Series, a long-running forum celebrating the vitality of the printed word, Arion Press is welcoming bestselling author Amy Tan (The Joy Luck Club, The Backyard Bird Chronicles, and many more). In conversation with George McCallum, she’ll share personal stories, literary insights, and the five books that have impacted her most deeply - as a writer, a reader, and a human.

4) You’re craving a hero’s journey you haven’t read before

Paige Lewis on Canon at Green Apple Books on the Park and live online. Wednesday 5/27, 7pm, free (RSVP requested).

Every bookseller I know is intrigued by Canon, the hotly anticipated novelistic debut by poet Paige Lewis, one-half of our generation’s literary power couple (they’re married to Kaveh Akbar, whose Martyr! remains one of Black Bird’s most popular titles two years post-publication). Described as a weird, irreverent, and heartwarming saga in which two unlikely heroes embark on quests to win God’s favor, it’s garnered effusive praise. Tommy Orange said of it, “This book is why I love novels, why I love reading.”

5) You have big feelings about short stories

Lit Lounge: In Defense of the Short Story at Mechanics’ Institute. Thursday 5/28, 6-9pm, $10 (free for members).

Lit Lounge is a new series celebrating the joy of analog connection, and this time, it’s celebrating the oft-underrated art of the short story. Settle in with a drink and a book - bring your own or borrow from their collection - until the 7pm discussion with Lori Ostlund, Anita Fellicelli, Joan Frank, and Kar Johnson, moderated by Oscar Villalon. (A superb lineup!) Stick around to purchase signed copies of the authors’ works and participate in a speed-writing challenge.

Book-adjacent events

• 💧 This water tasting workshop is mostly an excuse to share Soleil Ho’s Notes from a Surprisingly Exciting Water Tasting Class, a delightful write-up in COYOTE that converted my skepticism to genuine curiosity. Tuesday 5/26, 6-7:30pm, $45.

• 😂 If the Venn diagram of your interests includes bookstores and comedy, you’re in luck! Adobe Books & Art Cooperative is hosting Laughs With Benefits for a comedy show featuring Edith Peng, Maggie Adams, Tom Jonze, and Cuauhtemoc Silva. Friday 5/26, 7-8pm, free (tips appreciated).

• 🎧 Green Apple Books on the Park is partnering with Libro.fm - an Amazon alternative that lets you share profits with your favorite indie - for an audiobook walk through Golden Gate Park, with snacks and a free audiobook for attendees. Saturday 5/30, 12pm, free with RSVP.

Excited about one of this week’s features? Invite a friend to join you (or a full crew, but let’s be real, we’re all introverts here).

Share Same Page SF

MONDAY Babes Who Book at Sour Cherry Comics

TUESDAY In Celebration of American Rambler: A Conversation About Legends and Bullsh*t with Mac Barnett, Daniel Handler, and Jon Scieszka, hosted by Isaac Fitzgerald, at Booksmith | Young King: The Making of Martin Luther King Jr. with Lerone A. Martin, the Martin Luther King, Jr., Centennial Professor in Religious Studies at Stanford, at KALW in partnership with Litquake | Mario Elías on his debut novel Beloved Disciples, a gay love and coming-of-age story, at Fabulosa | Helen Benedict on The Soldier’s House, a journalism-informed novel about an Iraq War veteran who transports his assassinated interpreter’s family to his New York home, at Book Passage | Attorney Joshua Colangelo-Bryan on Through The Gates of Hell: American Injustice at Guantanamo Bay at City Lights | Outdoors writer Tom Stienstra on Heaven Delayed: One Man’s Survival of 16 Near-Death Encounters at the Commonwealth Club | Nichole Accettola on Scandinavian Everyday: Vibrant, Simple Meals from Northern Europe at Omnivore | Poetry Open Mic with 1428 Poets at SFPL North Beach | SFPL Silent Book Club at Saluhall

WEDNESDAY Theo Baker, the youngest-ever recipient of the George Polk Award for investigative journalism, on How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University at the Commonwealth Club | Jeremy Lent, founder of the Deep Transformation Network, on Ecocivilization: Making a World that Works for All at City Lights | After-Hours Reading Club at Black Bird | The Love Potion Library’s second Heated Rivalry trivia night is full, but you can join the waitlist

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Welcome back to Same Page SF, your home for all things local and literary!

I’m Christina, your friendly, well-informed, and unabashedly nerdy bookseller. Every Monday, I share author events, book clubs, and new releases happening across our city. (Except next Monday! I’m taking a long-overdue getaway with two of my best friends/roommates from grad school and my first Same Page break all year.)

It’s another great week to be a reader in San Francisco. Here’s what you’ll want to do if:

1) You’re looking for a local Little Fires Everywhere

Vanessa Hua on Coyoteland at Booksmith. Tuesday 5/12, 7pm, free with RSVP.

Join bestselling author Vanessa Hua, along with ZYZZVYA editor Oscar Villalon, for a discussion of her novel Coyoteland. Set in a wealthy East Bay enclave and centering on a newly arrived Chinese American family, it’s no spoiler to say a coyote attack is the least of the chaos; Lithub called it “as dynamic and explosive a suburban drama as Little Fires Everywhere.”

2) You love a thriller, imagined or real

Andrea Bartz on The Last Ferry Out at The Best Bookstore in Union Square. Tuesday 5/12, 6-7:30pm, free with RSVP.

If you don’t know author Andrea Bartz for her bestselling thrillers, maybe you’re familiar with her real-world fight against copyright infringement: she’s the lead plaintiff in the Bartz v Anthropic class action suit, which secured a $1.5 billion settlement for authors’ pirated work. In conversation with tech journalist turned writer/bookseller Paul Bradley Carr, she’ll discuss her latest book The Last Ferry Out and the future of literature and AI.

3) You’re meditating on memory

On Tuesday, City Lights is hosting M Lin for her debut story collection The Memory Museum (7pm, free). Stretching from the present day to the near future in China, America, and beyond, it explores the hopes and contradictions of the One-Child Generation. I’m equally intrigued by the concept and the cover.

On Thursday, City Lights is welcoming Eleni Sikelianos for the launch of Memory Rehearsal (7pm, free), “a genre-busting encounter between a poet and her ancestral past documenting a startling intersection of queer history, ancient theater, utopian visions, and modern poetry.” Say less!

4) Your ideal book event comes with centers on snacks

The Curated Board Charcuterie Workshop, Tasting, and Book Talk at Bernie’s Coffee Shop with Noe Valley Books. Wednesday 5/13, 6-7pm, free with RSVP.

In celebration of Bebe Black Carminito’s The Curated Board: Inspired Platters & Spreads for Any Occasion, join Bebe and fellow cookbook author Cara Mangini for a lively night of boards and books. They’ll chat about best practices as they craft a cheese/veggie/dip platter in real time, which the audience will get to enjoy (!) during Q&A and signing.

5) You’re craving family history and cultural commentary

Tracy Clark-Flory on My Mother’s Daughter: Finding Myself in My Family’s Fractured Past at Green Apple Books on the Park and live online. Thursday 5/14, 7pm, free.

When Tracy Clark-Flory’s DNA test linked her to a half-sister, she wasn’t shocked: she’d always known her mother had given a baby up for adoption. But once they connected, she realized the extent to which their late mother had been pulled into a racist, sexist system designed to turn “bad girls” into proper women and wives. My Mother’s Daughter weaves her own story, broader history, and cultural commentary into “a rich and deeply layered portrait of family and how we think about identity, memory, trauma, and love” (Soraya Chemaly).

🗓️ Bonus: You’re planning ahead

In lieu of Same Page next week, here’s the quick list of what would have featured: Patrick Cottrell on Afternoon Hours of a Hermit at Green Apple Books on the Park (Monday 5/18, 7pm, free), Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw on Backtalker: An American Memoir at the Internet Archive with Booksmith (Monday 5/18, 7pm, $15+), Ayelet Waldman on A Perfect Hand at Bookshop West Portal (Tuesday 5/19, 7pm, free), 50 Years of Mother Jones at Manny’s (Tuesday 8/19, 8-9pm, $10), and chef-activist José Andres at Sydney Goldstein Theater (Thursday 5/21, 7:30pm, $54+).

✨ If you read the Bonus and thought to yourself, “That’s a lot less detailed and interesting than a full Same Page,” first of all, thank you - and secondly, please consider upgrading your subscription or buying a very cool hat! Same Page is a labor of love, but it’s still a labor that takes hours of research, writing, and editing each week. ✨

Book-adjacent events

• 💯 The Allen Ginsberg Estate and (((folkYEAH!))) present Allen Ginsberg’s Centennial, an intimate evening of poetry and music culminating in a rare performance of Kronos Quartet’s Howl. Monday 5/11, 7pm, $45.

• ✏️ The Bad Art Club, “a judgement-free space to create without restraint and play like a kid again,” is scribbling nonsense and calling it poetry at The Nook. You bring the good vibes, they’ll bring the supplies (and snacks!). Monday 5/11, 6-9pm, $16+.

• 📜 The Letterform Archive is welcoming calligraphic artist Takako Takigawa for a talk on her creative process. She’ll dig into the interplay between art and language, from selecting passages to deciding which words deserve emphasis. Thursday 5/14, 6-7:30pm, $15.

• 📘 San Francisco Center for the Book is holding an opening reception for Futurity Library: Disobedient Artists’ Books in the Postbook Age. Curated by bex ya yolk, the exhibit frames the book as an evolutionary object, exploring what it’s been and what it might yet become. Friday 5/15, 6-8pm, free with RSVP.

• 🐝 In honor of World Bee Day, community scientist Krystle Hickman (The ABCs of California’s Native Bees) will lead a “bioblitz,” identifying native plant species and documenting local bees, at the San Francisco Botanical Garden. Sunday 5/17, 11am, free.

Excited about one of this week’s features? Invite a friend to join you (or a full crew, but let’s be real, we’re all introverts here).

Share Same Page SF

MONDAY Mike Monteiro on How to Die (And Other Stories), an edited selection of advice columns/essays from his popular newsletter, at Booksmith | Manoush Zomoro of TED Radio Hour on Body Electric: The Hidden Health Costs of the Digital Age at the Commonwealth Club | Ex-Chez Panisse baker David Lebovitz on Ready for Dessert and The Great Book of Chocolate at Omnivore | History professor Linford D. Fisher on Stealing America: The Hidden Story of Indigenous Slavery in U.S. History via City Lights Zoom

TUESDAY Hugo Award-winning author Sarah Gailey on Make Me Better, “a hypnotic tide pool of a novel, a habitat of horror teeming with all types of taxonomies of folkish frights” (Clay McLeod Chapman), at Books Inc/Barnes & Noble Opera Plaza | Myisha Battle on Sexual Pleasure for Dummies - with a Good Vibrations pop-up! - at Green Apple Books on the Park | Benoit Denizet-Lewis on You’ve Changed: The Promise and Price of Self-Transformation at the Commonwealth Club | Saeng Douangdara on The Lao Kitchen: Lao Flavors & Stories Told Through Family Recipes at Omnivore | Poetic Tuesday at Yerba Buena Gardens | On the Page, Off the Page at SFPL Park

WEDNESDAY Willy Vlautin, winner of the 2025 Joyce Carol Oates Prize, on The Left and the Lucky at Bookshop West Portal | Julien Royer, the chef-owner of three Michelin-starred Odette, on Odette: Terroir to Table, Heart to Plate at Omnivore | Artist Janani Balasubramanian and astrophysicist Natalie Gosnell on their co-authored book Art-Science Undisciplined: A Playbook for Transformative Collaboration at Green Apple Books on the Park | Stephanie Fairyington on Ugly: A Letter to My Daughter, a moving account of queer motherhood and interrogation of traditionally feminine beauty standards, at Book Passage | Poetry & Prose Open Mic at Black Bird

Read on for the complete ALSO section, plus motherhood (and non-motherhood) related fiction recs.

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Welcome back to Same Page SF, your home for all things local and literary!

I’m Christina, your friendly, well-informed, and unabashedly nerdy bookseller. Every Monday, I share author events, book clubs, and new releases happening across our city.

It’s another great week to be a reader in San Francisco. Here’s what you’ll want to do if:

1) You’re wondering what we’re all wondering

Simon Rogers on What We Ask Google: A Surprisingly Hopeful History of Humankind at Book Passage. Wednesday 5/6, 5:30pm, free.

When I was a new mother, I found unexpected comfort in my old Google searches. It was oddly reassuring to see my most urgent concerns - torticollis physical therapy near me, why does my newborn only sleep 8 hrs/day TOTAL, curdled spit up cpma? - change over time, even as they felt endless.

I’m not the only one who finds these questions illuminating! Data journalist Simon Rogers’ What We Ask Google shares insights from a decade of research into the world’s largest dataset, from our most existential queries (“what is love”) to practical ones (“what is my IP”).

2) You’re in the mood for a speculative debut

Portia Elan on Homebound at JCCSF with Green Apple Books and Litquake. Wednesday 5/6, 7-8:30pm, free with RSVP.

As a book-buyer, I get plenty of recommendations, and - second only to close friends - there’s no better source than a trusted author. Anna North’s The Bog Queen was one of my favorite books of 2025, so when she visited Black Bird and raved about Portia Elan’s Homebound, I immediately placed an order. The saga of four women loosely connected across 600+ years by a computer game, it’s kind of like David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas meets Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, but it’s also utterly itself.

3) You’re looking for a genre-defying, thought-provoking history

Karen Tei Yamashita on Questions 27 & 28: A Novel at City Lights and live online. Wednesday 5/6, 7pm, free.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the US forcibly removed 120,000 Japanese Americans from their homes and placed them into camps. To be considered for release, they had to answer a so-called loyalty questionnaire, in which the last two questions were particularly contentious:

Karen Tei Yamashita’s Questions 27 & 28 explores the reverberations, blending fact with fiction and archival research with imagined perspectives - including a trombone’s point of view. PW called it a “powerful and lively novel that raises enduring questions about identity, loyalty, and citizenship.”

4) You’re intrigued by underwater drama

Josie Iselin and Ellen Litwiller on The Mysterious World of the Bull Kelp Forest at Black Bird. Thursday 5/7, 7pm, free.

You’ve probably stumbled over them - if not actively avoided them - but have you ever stopped to wonder about those enormous rubbery tendrils that wash up from the sea?

They’re the remains of kelp forests, which explode from seedlings to 60-foot “underwater redwoods” in a single season. Learn more with author Josie Iselin and illustrator Ellen Litwiller, whose The Mysterious World of the Bull Kelp Forest - out now from local press Heyday - profiles thirteen forest species, from sea creatures to shorebirds to the massive kelp itself.

5) You’re a bookseller or want to be

• ☕ Love books, coffee, and me as a coworker? Black Bird Bookstore & Cafe is looking for a bookseller; send your resume to books@blackbirdsf.com.

• 🌉 Dream of working at a literary landmark (literally)? City Lights has a rare opening for a full-time bookseller; follow these delightful instructions to apply.

Book-adjacent events

• 🧶 Sour Cherry Comics is holding Queer Craft Night; bring your own materials and share space with other friendly makers. Wednesday 5/6, 6-7:30pm, free with RSVP.

• 🎶 Green Apple Books on the Park is welcoming Hauras and Silo Homes for a show benefiting The Sameer Project, a donation-based initiative for Gaza led by Palestinians. Thursday 5/7, 7pm, $5-20 suggested.

• 💐 Looking for something special on Mother’s Day? Pick up a bouquet from Black Bird’s flower pop-up with Bright Moments (10am-12pm) or hand-crafted pastries from Lunar Bakery via On Waverly (11:30am-3pm).

Excited about one of this week’s features? Invite a friend to join you (or a full crew, but let’s be real, we’re all introverts here).

Share Same Page SF

MONDAY Prolific ghostwriter Samatha Rose on Giving Up the Ghost: A Daughter’s Memoir, the first book published under her own name, at The Best Bookstore in Union Square | Christian John Wikane on A Night at the Disco, a coffee-table book celebrating the dance music of the 70s, at Green Apple Books on the Park | Meet-and-Greet with David Archuleta for Devout: Losing My Faith to Find Myself at Book Passage

TUESDAY Eric Scot Tryon on I’m The Undertow, “a haunting and tender debut about guilt, grief, and the unexpected places we go to find redemption,” at Green Apple Books on the Park | Natasha MacAller on The Apothecary Chef: Recipes with Beneficial Herbs & Plants for a Long and Happy Life at Omnivore | Coauthors Andrea Lonardi and Jessica Dupuy on Italianity: The Culture of Italian Wine at A16, with pizza and wine-tasting | ZYZZVYA Issue #132 Cinco De Mayo Party at City Lights

WEDNESDAY Jibz Cameron on Hell in a Handbag, “the debut memoir from the unhinged queer genius known as Dynasty Handbag,” at Fabulosa | Mélanie Maserin on Riviera: Recipes from the Coast of France & Italy at Omnivore | Meeting of the Black Bird Writing Club

Read on for the complete ALSO section, plus my most meaningful motherhood-related books in honor of the holiday.

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I’m Christina, your friendly, well-informed, and unabashedly nerdy bookseller. Every Monday, I share author events, book clubs, and new releases happening across our city.

I’m still riding high - if exhausted, hence this late issue - from last week’s Independent Bookstore Day festivities. I launched our community-sourced guide to San Francisco’s 45+ beloved bookstores.

Plus, I made it to four stores on the day itself and treated myself to a few gems (my toxic delightful trait is I work at a bookstore and yet buy books wherever I go):

A friendly reminder that Same Page is a labor of love, but it’s still a labor! If you appreciate my work, consider treating yourself (and me) to a paid subscription or a very cool hat.

It’s another great week to be a reader in San Francisco. Here’s what you’ll want to do if:

1) You’re repulsed and fascinated in equal measure

Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff on Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed at City Lights and live online. Tuesday 4/28, 7pm, free with RSVP.

Co-authored by a historian and a technologist, Muskism - “a pyrotechnic examination of Elon Musk as a symptom and avatar of our postliberal age” - convincingly argues that he needs to be understood not as an individual but as a cultural force. Among the many rave reviews, Astra Taylor’s stands out: “This book is brilliant in all the ways Elon Musk is not: unflinchingly honest, actually humorous, and deeply humane.”

2) You’re immediately sold on a woman/sea creature cover

Lauren W. Westerfield on Woman House at Green Apple Books on the Park and live online. Wednesday 4/29, 7pm, free with RSVP.

One of my favorite memoirs of 2025 was Anelise Chen’s Clam Down: A Metamorphosis, whose brilliant title and cover were inspired by her mother’s mistyped advice. Now we’ve got Lauren W. Westerfield’s Woman House: Essays and Assemblages, an equally intriguing memoir exploring how pain and pleasure are passed down through generations of women. Ayşegül Savaş, whose postpartum chronicle The Wilderness was a lifeline in my early motherhood, called it “a feverish, glowing book.”

3) You know that “Lily and Jane” means “Ilya and Shane”

Heated Rivalry Trivia Night at The Love Potion Library. Thursday April 30, 7pm, free with RSVP.

The Love Potion Library, San Francisco’s newest bookstore - and the only one devoted to romance - had a wildly successful opening Saturday. A friend and I were lucky enough to snag a table, where we shared a pot of tea and a generous slice of pistachio cake from their cozy cafe. Visit this Thursday for their first-ever event, Heated Rivalry trivia!

Fun fact: the steamy phenomenon wasn’t on my radar until I had the opportunity to meet Lily King (Heart the Lover) and she raved about it with my coworker so effusively, the entire signing line paused for their conversation.

4) You’re looking for a novel with breadth and depth

Devi S. Laskar on Midnight, At the War at Booksmith. Thursday 4/30, 7pm, free with RSVP.

Inspired by journalists Christiane Amanpour and Sylvia Poggioli, Midnight, at the War follows a foreign correspondent chasing the biggest story of her career as she grapples with her own pregnancy (and the question of whether her husband or lover fathered the child). Booklist called it “an enthralling tale of a journalist’s futile attempt to separate the personal from the political” in a starred review.

5) Your ideal Friday night combines poetry, music, and an outdoor sauna

Poetry Springs at Alchemy Springs. Friday 5/1, 5-7pm, $57 for non-members.

Here’s a reading you haven’t experienced before: Alchemy Springs, a new sauna garden in Lower Nob Hill, is partnering with Decentered Arts for an evening of poetry, violin music, and communal relaxation. Bring your own towel, robe, and bathing suit; even in San Francisco, it’s the rare literary event that kindly reminds you it isn’t clothing-optional.

Book-adjacent events

• 💬 Bookshop West Portal is conducting the last in its four-part series of Q&A with congressional candidates with Marie Hurabiell. These aren’t debates, but rather a chance for each candidate to share their platform and connect with the community. Thursday 4/30, 7pm, free with RSVP.

• 🔤 The Letterform Archive is holding its monthly Font Friends Hangout, a casual happy hour for type designers and anyone else with feelings about fonts. Thursday 4/30, 6-7:30pm, $10 suggested.

• 🎞️ In partnership with Black Hole Cinematheque and Left in the Bay, 34 Trinity Arts & News is welcoming labor historian Gifford Hartman for a talk and screening of the Newsreel films May Day (1969) and Richmond Oil Strike (1969). Friday 5/1, 7:30pm, free.

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News & needs

Celestial Books successfully raised $30k to open a brick-and-mortar location in the Outer Richmond (as a proud donor and friend, I’m psyched!) | Staff at Silver Sprocket are raising funds to support themselves after the shop abruptly closed last month | Broccoli Club, a four-week writing group centering mutual accountability and inspiration, is seeking members for their May circle | The Bay Area Book Festival wants volunteers for next month’s festivities | Litcrawl is accepting submissions through April 30th

Excited about one of this week’s features? Invite a friend to join you (or a full crew, but let’s be real, we’re all introverts here).

Share Same Page SF

MONDAY Trinity Mouzon Wofford on Eating at Home: The Nourishing Practice of Everyday Cooking at Omnivore | Adele Bertei on No New York: A Memoir of No Wave and the Women Who Shaped the Scene via City Lights Zoom | Book-Signing with distance runner Sara Hall for For the Love of the Grind at Book Passage | The Heroine’s Journey, a panel discussion and interactive writing session with Kate Farrell, at the Mechanics’ Institute | Meeting of Babes Who Book at Sour Cherry Comics

TUESDAY Jeanne Carstensen on A Greek Tragedy: One Day, a Deadly Shipwreck, and the Human Cost of the Refugee Crisis at Bird & Beckett | Ralph Remington on Penetrating Whiteness: How White Supremacy Built America at SFPL Main | Caroline Paul on Why Fly: Seeking Awe, Healing, and Our True Selves in the Sky at SFPL Main | Exam-certified beer judge Kris Butler on Drink Maps in Victorian Britain at Omnivore | Silent Reading Party at Booksmith | David Szalay of the Booker Prize-winning novel Flesh, with Rita Bullwinkel via City Arts & Lectures, is sold out

WEDNESDAY If This Be Magic: The Unlikely Art of Shakespeare in Translation, co-presented by the Center for the Art of Translation and San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, at The Drawing Room Annex | Anna Dorn on American Spirits, a love letter to pop music charting an icon’s fall and an obsessive fangirl’s rise, at Booksmith | Amara Lakhous on The Fertility of Evil, a psychological thriller spanning the history of postcolonial Algeria, at Telegraph Hill Books | Dr. Tina Seelig on What I Wish I Knew About Luck at the Commonwealth Club | Writing in Color, a poetry workshop with Haley Hutchinson, at Russian Hill Books | Nisha Srinivasa on her collection The Synesthete’s Rainbow: Poetry in the Colors of Love at Scrap & Sip in partnership with San Francisco Book Besties; your $15 ticket includes a signed copy, a goodie bag, and light refreshments

Read on for the complete ALSO section - Thursday’s a good day to be a history lover! - and the MONTHLY SNEAK PEEK.

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See the guide

As someone who’s never built a website before, this was truly a labor of love - and not just from me, from the many readers who’ve shared what they love about their favorite shop! For example:

The sweet testimonials are what brings this to life, and I’m so grateful to everyone who’s contributed. (It’s a living resource, so keep sharing!)

In a recent survey, Same Page readers estimated our city has an average of 14 bookstores. Depending on how you count it (the methodology’s laid out on the site for data nerds like me), we’ve got 45 and counting. My hope is that you’ll be overwhelmed in the best way by the breadth, depth, and passion of our city’s literary offerings, and be inspired to not just share the love for their favorite but visit and support a new gem or two.

This is just the first iteration, and there’s plenty of work to be done (high on my roadmap is accessibility info and a map view). But in the spirit of “done is better than perfect” - which I’ve embraced in motherhood, if mostly by necessity - I’m sharing this today. I hope you love it!

Happy pre-Indie-Bookstore-Day,

Christina

Welcome back to Same Page SF, your home for all things local and literary!

I'm Christina, your friendly, well-informed, and unabashedly nerdy bookseller. Every Monday, I share author events, book clubs, and new releases happening across our city.

It’s an especially great week to be a reader in San Francisco: Saturday is Independent Bookstore Day, a twelve-years-running celebration of our beloved literary and community spaces. It was founded in defiance of Amazon’s growing chokehold over books, and in that spirit, I’ll break down or bust the three most common Amazon-related myths I hear as an indie bookseller:

💵 “The book’s cheaper on Amazon.”

True! And that’s deliberate. Books on Amazon are what’s called loss leaders, meaning they’re sold below jacket price to entice customers (with the expectation of profiting on their higher-margin purchases and, of course, through their data). While it’s tempting to see a new release offered for $25 instead of $30, at an indie bookstore that extra $5 goes to things like rent, maintenance, and at-least-aspirationally livable salaries - things Amazon doesn’t concern itself with.

Bezos’s behemoth began selling books not out of love for literature (lol) but because books have standard shapes, making them ideal to store and ship. For Amazon, books are commodities, and all they provide is the product itself. Compare that to your favorite indie, a real-world community space that might host events, display local artwork, set aside a book for you, hand out dog treats - a destination, not a delivery service.

📦 “Amazon gets it faster.”

You’d be surprised! If you’re looking for a book your favorite indie doesn’t carry, they’ll be glad to source it directly from the publisher or distributor; in most cases, it’ll arrive within the week, sometimes a few days. If you’re really in a rush, let the bookseller know and they’ll see if they can work magic. Sure, it might not be hastily deposited at your door at 10pm that same night, but as my old colleague Griffin always said, “There’s no such thing as a book emergency.”

🤷 “There’s no other option for [online shopping / ebooks / audiobooks / book tracking].”

Finally, I can say it: MYTH BUSTED! If you’re looking for the convenience of online shopping, Bookshop.org is a superb alternative that distributes 10-30% of sales to indies. If you’re an e-book reader, I’ll admit the Kindle’s been hard to avoid, but the Kobo is gaining ground, and it integrates with Libby for library rentals, which we all know is crucial. When it comes to audiobooks, Libro.fm not only allows you to buy through your favorite bookstores, but its files are DRM-free, meaning you actually own your purchases (it’s complicated, but when you buy through Amazon, you’re usually getting licensed access, so the files could be altered or revoked).

Last but not least, many folks aren’t aware that Goodreads has been an Amazon-owned data farm for over a decade; try The StoryGraph, which recently reached 5 million users, or locally-founded Bookworm to track your reading instead.

Got it - go, indies! What are the festivities?

• 🎤 Green Apple Books is holding author karaoke to benefit local nonprofit Books Not Bans at their Park location, where they’ll also host a variety of pop-ups throughout the afternoon.

• 💞 On the other side of GGP, Green Apple Books is holding a Blind Date with a Book (Lover) mixer at their original Clement shop. Tickets are sold out, but the FAQs say they’ll accept RSVPs at the door!

• 🌹Speaking of love, San Francisco’s first romance bookstore The Love Potion Library is officially opening its doors! Swing by 284 Noe Street between 10am-9pm.

• 📜 Bookshop West Portal is welcoming San Francisco Center for the Book for a bookmaking pop-up in the courtyard (which suggests they’ve discontinued their tradition of hosting llamas in that space).

• 💸 Noe Valley Books is giving a $10 coupon to all customers who show an IBD-weekend receipt from another local indie bookstore - and, inspired by East Bay Books, they’ll also give booksellers a bonus each time their staff pick is purchased.

• 🎭 Berkeley-based Book Society is holding a fancy Plot Twist Masquerade at a mystery location in San Francisco, with wine, live music, and a literary dress code.

Other bookstores are planning Blind Dates, one-day-only merch, scavenger hunts, and more. Check in directly with your favorite to see what they’re - ahem - cooking up…

Excited to celebrate Independent Bookstore Day? Invite a friend to join you (or a full crew, but let’s be real, we’re all introverts here).

Share

As if Independent Bookstore Day wasn’t enough, we’ve also got San Francisco’s first-ever Cookbook Week, five days full of flavor and stories. The schedule boasts several multi-chef dinners - Wednesday’s celebration of noodles at Che Fico has my mouth watering - and book talks like Thursday’s Queer Voices, Bold Flavors. The marquee event is Headnotes Live, so named for the short paragraph traditionally preceding a recipe’s ingredients and instructions - “that small, personal window into why a dish matters, where it came from, and what it means.” Your ticket gets you into a pre-show mixer hosted by Omnivore Books, where you’ll mingle with culinary luminaries like Brandon Jew, Crystal Wahpepah, Hailee Catalano, and more.

Since this week’s issue centered on Independent Bookstore Week, I’ve starred the events I would have featured if I’d had the space!

MONDAY Mats Söderlund on English-language translation of his poetry collection Eskatos & the Stretched Necks of Stillness at Green Apple Books on the Park | SFCW at Climate One presents Annie Leonard on Protest and Dr. Katharine Wilkinson on Climate Wayfinding at the Commonwealth Club

TUESDAY ⭐ Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein on The Edge of Space-Time: Particles, Poetry, and the Cosmic Dream Boogie at Bookshop West Portal | Dr. Rebecca Thompson on Held Together: A Shared Memoir of Motherhood, Medicine, and Imperfect Love at Book Passage | From the Heights to the Mission: Writing Home with Norman Antonia Zelaya (Gente, Folks) and JP Infante (On the Tip of Your Mother’s Tongue) at Medicine for Nightmares

WEDNESDAY ⭐ Dave Eggers and Shawn Harris on Art + Words at California College of the Arts | ⭐ Grace Notes: Poetry at Grace Cathedral featuring Thea Matthews, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Preeti Vangani, and Devon Walker-Figueroa presented by Litquake | David Levithan and Gabriel Duckels on The Fight of Our Lives: AIDS in America, a brief history of the AIDS epidemic interspersed with poems, essays, and other first-person narratives, at Fabulosa | Sociologist Leah Ruppanner on Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More at Book Passage | End-of-life educator Roy Remer on Zen Caregiving: How to Care for Yourself While Caring for Others at Books Inc. Laurel Village | Multimedia artist Golden on Reprise, their second collection of poetry and photography, at SFPL Main | STIR, a seasonal reading series featuring Nina Schuyler, Rona Fernandez, Mark Schapiro, and Zoe Young, at Café Suspiro | Poetry Open Mic at Noe Valley Books | After-Hours Reading Club at Black Bird | “An impossibly rad evening” with artist-musician Melissa Auf der Maur for Even the Good Girls Will Cry at Booksmith

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Welcome back to Same Page SF, your home for all things local and literary!

I’m Christina, your friendly, well-informed, and unabashedly nerdy bookseller. Every Monday, I share author events, book clubs, and new releases happening across our city.

It’s another great week to be a reader in San Francisco. Here’s what you’ll want to do if:

1) You’re ready for the next nonfiction sensation

Patrick Radden Keefe on London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth at the United Irish Cultural Center. Tuesday 4/14, 7pm, $40 includes book.

Every once in a while, there’s a book it seems everyone’s reading - and even less frequently, that book’s not a novel but nonfiction. In 2021, it was Empire of Pain, Patrick Radden Keefe’s mind-blowing investigation into the Sackler pharmaceutical dynasty. Now the Orwell Prize-winning journalist is back with London Falling, a deep-dive into a teenager’s mysterious death interwoven with the broader story of London’s criminal underworld; New York Magazine called it Keefe’s most gripping story yet.

2) You’ve been meaning to rewatch Dead Poets Society

Ada Limón on Against Breaking: On the Power of Poetry at Sydney Goldstein Theater. Tuesday 4/14, 7:30pm, $49 (may include book).

In partnership with Litquake, City Arts & Lectures is hosting Ada Limón, two-time Poet Laureate of the United States and (equally prestigious) the author of my favorite love poem. In a fireside-style chat with KQED’s Alexis Madrigal, she’ll discuss her new book Against Breaking, a meditation on the power and urgency of poetry: “If you need to remember what makes us human, tender, brave, flawed, and worthy of love, you need poetry.”

3) You’d like to learn about a local literary institution

Insurgent Beatitudes: The History of City Lights at SFPL Main. Thursday 4/16, 6pm, free.

When it opened in 1953, City Lights was the nation’s first all-paperback bookstore - a radical position at a time when paperbacks were considered lowbrow and vulgar, distinct from “real” literature.

That’s just one of many fun facts about City Lights, which today sells books of all formats over three floors of their iconic North Beach building; they also operate a progressive independent press, publishing around a dozen titles each year. Join Peter Maravelis, events director at the City Lights Foundation, for a presentation on the bookstore/publisher/literary landmark’s rich history.

4) You’re intrigued by stories about “love, language, and the anguish of becoming oneself”

Rachel Khong on My Dear You at Green Apple Books on the Park and live online. Thursday 4/16, 7pm, free.

In the single best phrase I’ve read this week, Mariella Rudi hails “the long half-life of [Rachel Khong’s] short stories.” That’s the perfect way to capture how they burrow and linger; I read an early copy of My Dear You months ago, and when I skimmed it again in preparation for pub date, I realized I recalled every single tale (especially “Selene,” the standout about a sex doll with an actual happy ending). She’ll discuss it with R.O. Kwon, whose Incendiaries was a national bestseller.

And if you’re looking to continue the conversation, radio personality Angelina from WiLD 949/iHeartRadio is hosting a chat with Khong the following evening as part of her new Read A Book! with Angelina series at the Redwood Room (Friday 4/17, 6pm, free with RSVP).

5) You’re interested in Japanese literature and the art of translation

Author Kanako Nishi with translator Allison Markin Powell on Sakura with Center for the Art of Translation (CAT) at Black Bird Bookstore + Cafe. Saturday 4/18, 7pm, free with RSVP.

On tour from Tokyo, Kanako Nishi is one of Japan’s best-selling and most-awarded authors - but until now, her work’s been inaccessible to US readers. (In a fascinating interview with LitHub, translator Allison Markin Powell reflects on the challenge of choosing which of her beloved books to tackle first: “With a backlist spanning twenty years, where do you even start?”) In a talk moderated by Marie Mutsuki Mockett, whose evocative and sensual The Tree Doctor was one of my favorite books of 2024, they’ll discuss the process for her debut novel Sakura, a life-affirming tale about love in the wake of loss.

✨ REMINDER: You’re joining our book club

Same Page Book Club at Black Bird. Sunday April 19, 7pm, free with RSVP.

Book-adjacent events

• 🍰 Black Bird is holding their monthly Game & Pie Night. Bring your own game (or buy one) and settle in for a night of friendly competition! Your ticket gets you tea, wine, and treats from Bry’s micro-bakery. Wednesday 4/15, 7pm, $10.

• 💬 Bookshop West Portal is hosting Saikat Chakrabarti for the second evening in their Q&A series with congressional candidates. These aren’t debates, but rather a chance for each candidate to share their platform and connect with the community. Thursday April 16, 7pm, free with RSVP.

• 🐴 Adobe Books is popping up outside Horsies Market & Saloon with a selection of pulp and paperbacks. Buy a book and get 20% off a drink! Saturday April 18, 5pm-close.

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News & needs

In a rare opening, Booksmith is hiring a part-time / on-call events host and bookseller | Celestial Books’ campaign to open a brick-and-mortar shop in the Outer Richmond is 70% funded with two weeks to go | Staff at Silver Sprocket are raising funds to support themselves after the shop abruptly closed last month | Bookshop West Portal is offering 20% off all poetry in celebration of National Poetry Month | Noe Valley Books is donating 10% of merch sales to San Francisco Women Against Rape in recognition of Sexual Assault Awareness & Prevention Month | Broccoli Club, a four-week writing group centering mutual accountability and inspiration, is seeking members for their May circle | The Bay Area Book Festival wants volunteers for next month’s festivities

Excited about one of this week’s features? Invite a friend to join you (or a full crew, but let’s be real, we’re all introverts here).

Share Same Page SF

MONDAY The River Connects Us, a conversation with memoir and natural-world writers Sangamithra Iyer, Vijaya Nagarajan and Shruti Swamy, at The Ruby | Cleo Wade on In A World of Sunrises: 365 Days of Heart, Soul, and Hope at the Commonwealth Club | Edd Kimber on Chocolate Baking: The Ultimate Guide to Cakes, Cookies, Desserts, and Pastries at Omnivore | Reading with San Francisco Youth Poet Laureate Karan Gupta at SFPL Glen Park | Meeting of Babes Who Book at Sour Cherry Comics

TUESDAY Robert Moor on In Trees: An Exploration at the SF Botanical Garden with Green Apple Books on the Park | Ann Liang on her YA novel I Could Give You the Moon at On Waverly | Sheldon Simeon, two-time Top Chef fan favorite, on Ohana Style at Omnivore | On the Page, Off the Page at SFPL Park | Meeting of the Manga Book Club to discuss Wind Breaker Vol. 8 at Sour Cherry Comics | Dr. Rebecca Thompson on Held Together: A Shared Memoir of Motherhood, Medicine, and Imperfect Love via SFPL Zoom

WEDNESDAY Irena Smith on her memoir Troika: Three Generations, Three Days, and a Very American Road Trip at Book Passage | The Planet Money team on Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life, in conversation with Chef Brandon Jew and Anthropic’s Jack Clark, at Sydney Goldstein Theater

Read on for the complete ALSO section, plus a week-in-the-life of my reading: everything I read and why.

Read more

Welcome back to Same Page SF, your home for all things local and literary!

I’m Christina, your friendly, well-informed, and unabashedly nerdy bookseller. Every Monday, I share author events, book clubs, and new releases happening across our city.

I’m especially excited about this week’s issue - I’m still riding high from last Wednesday’s CALIBA gathering, and I’ve had the good fortune to read all five of the exceptional books featured below. Here’s what you’ll want to do if:

1) You’re craving “a testimony to the unwieldy shape of mourning”

Leigh Lucas on Splashed Things at Green Apple Books on the Park and live online. Tuesday 4/7, 7pm, free (RSVP requested).

Splashed Things is a collection about death that’s full of life. Fifty-six poems on grief in the wake of a former boyfriend’s suicide, it’s “not a neat arc toward healing, but a testimony to the unwieldy shape of mourning and the persistence of love in its wake.” I found it sharp, moving, and, at times, laugh-at-a-funeral funny; it’s nestled alongside Amy Lin’s Here After and Sloane Crosley’s Grief is for People on my bookshelf.

2) You’re interested in a debut that honors a near-forgotten story

Jiyoung Han on Honey in the Wound at Book Passage. Tuesday 4/7, 5:30pm, free.

Jiyoung Han didn’t consider herself a writer. But a few years ago, when she learned there were only nine surviving “comfort women” - a euphemism for those forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese pre and during WWII - she found herself compelled to memorialize their lives. Historical fiction with touches of magical realism, Honey in the Wound centers on the women and girls in one Korean family split by Japanese imperialism. It’s devastatingly memorable in the vein of Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead - I might have stopped reading if I wasn’t so riveted.

3) You love a peek into the process

Brontez Purnell with Tess Pollok at Booksmith. Wednesday 4/8, 7pm, RSVP requested.

Brontez Purnell has the best titles - his debut 100 Boyfriends, his memoir-in-verse Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt. Not coincidentally, he also has the best stories. With a remarkable mix of brashness and vulnerability, his musings on sex, trauma, family, Blackness, and queerness are basically unclassifiable; as the SF Chronicle admiringly put it in a 2024 review, “Purnell is a genre unto himself.” In what’s sure to be a fascinating chat, he’ll speak with Tess Pollok, editor of Animal Blood Magazine, about his writing practice and inspirations.

4) You want to celebrate the wildest ride of 2025

Kate Folk on Sky Daddy at Green Apple Books on the Park. Wednesday 4/8, 7pm, free (RSVP requested).

If you’ve read Same Page for a while, you’ve heard me rave about Sky Daddy. Yes, it’s about a woman who’s sexually obsessed with planes, and it’s as unhinged as you’d expect - but what took it from a fun read to a favorite is Folk’s tenderness toward her protagonist. Join her to celebrate the paperback - with bonus material!! - at Green Apple Books on the Park, where Sky Daddy was their 2025 Bookseller Pick of the Year. Inspired by events of the book, expect vision-boarding and mini-donuts, plus a reading and signing.

5) You’re looking for a big-hearted beach read

Emma Straub on American Fantasy at Sydney Goldstein Theater. Saturday 4/11, 7:30pm, $49+.

My taste in fiction has always skewed literary - speculative, dystopian, post-apocalyptic, sign me up. But lately I've been gravitating toward positive escapism, and I'm increasingly convinced that a really good “light” book just might be the hardest to write. Enter American Fantasy. Emma Straub’s latest follows a 49-year-old woman who finds herself on a cruise ship devoted to the boy band of her youth and makes an unexpected connection with the lead singer. It’s nostalgic, earnest, and unapologetically fun.

✨ BONUS: Your ideal Saturday takes place at an art museum and a library

Afternoon + Night of Ideas at the Asian Art Museum and the SFPL with Villa Albertine, Circuit Network, and KQED. Saturday 4/11, 3-6pm and 6:30pm-12am.

The theme of this year’s Afternoon + Night of Ideas - an eight-years-running celebration of art, innovation, and culture - is “Lighting the Way,” exploring how creativity and collective action can illuminate paths forward. Highlights from the family-friendly afternoon programming include Drag Story Hour and an “instrument petting zoo” with the SF Symphony. At night, don’t miss Litquake’s panel on feminist reclamations, Because the Night (Belongs to Women Writers), or the closing dance party in the Main Library.

Book-adjacent events

• 💬 Bookshop West Portal is kicking off their Q&A series with congressional candidates with Connie Chan. These aren’t debates, but rather a chance for each candidate to share their platform and connect with the community. Thursday April 9, 7pm, free.

• 🎨 Black Bird is hosting an art opening party for Sharon Sakura’s Hawaiian Comfort, an oil-painting exhibit that encourages finding solace in animals and heritage crafts. Come hungry - there’ll be Hawaiian pies from Beck’s Bakeshop. Friday April 10, 7pm, free.

• 🌉 I don’t often feature East Bay events, but I’m bending the rules for the West Berkeley Community Print Festival, an afternoon of all-ages art-making, studio tours, artist demos, and more. (Plenty of San Francisco organizations are participating, so that’s my tie-in!) Saturday April 11, 12-4pm, free.

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News & needs

Staff at Silver Sprocket are raising funds to support themselves after the shop abruptly closed last month | Bookshop West Portal is offering 20% off all poetry in celebration of National Poetry Month | Broccoli Club, a four-week writing group centering mutual accountability and inspiration, is seeking new members for their May circle | The Bay Area Book Festival wants volunteers for next month’s festivities | The Center for the Art of Translation is seeking Bay Area event proposals that engage with translation while creating opportunities for community conversations | I’m continuing to collect local bookstore testimonials for our crowdsourced bookstore database

Excited about one of this week’s features? Invite a friend to join you (or a full crew, but let’s be real, we’re all introverts here).

Share Same Page SF

MONDAY Karen Russell on the paperback release of her historical novel The Antidote, a national bestseller and finalist for the National Book Award, at Booksmith | Translator Max Lawton on Antonio Moresco’s The Beginnings at City Lights, co-presented by the Center for the Art of Translation and Deep Vellum Books | Journalist Victoria Law on Corridors of Contagion: How the Pandemic Exposed the Cruelties of Incarceration at Medicine for Nightmares | Mix, Mingle & Be Moved, an evening with San Francisco Poet Laureate Genny Lim, at the Commonwealth Club | Analog Mondays at Manny’s

TUESDAY Pushcart Award-winning writer Kim Samek on her story collection I Am the Ghost Here at Booksmith | Science historian Jessica Riskin on The Power of Life: The Invention of Biology and the Revolutionary Science of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck at the Commonwealth Club | Meeting of Christopher’s Book Club for Tayari Jones’ Kin at Goat Hill Pizza | Law professor Khiara M. Bridges on Expecting Inequity: How the Maternal Health Crisis Affects Even the Wealthiest Black Americans via City Lights Zoom

WEDNESDAY “A necessary and restorative evening of poetry” with Tyehimba Jess and Tongo Eisen-Martin at the Minnesota Street Project | Tamika Thompson on The Curse of Hester Gardens at Telegraph Hill Books | Maya Shankar on The Other Side of Change: Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans at the Commonwealth Club | Mariana Velásquez on Revel: A Maximalist’s Guide to Having People Over at Omnivore | Meet-and-Greet with uru-chan for her graphic novel unOrdinary Volume 4 at Book Passage | Open Mic Night at Black Bird | Silent Reading Time at Sour Cherry Comics

Read more

Yesterday was CALIBA’s NorCal Spring Forum (the CALifornia Independent Booksellers Association, for those of you who like to know the origins of acronyms). Picture the most avid reader you know, then multiply by 100! It’s a goofy dynamic of introverts on extrovert mode; I simultaneously wanted to hug all my bookseller friends, compliment a stranger on her miniature bookshelf earrings, and surreptitiously read galleys under the table.

The day kicked off with a talk between beloved author-illustrator Mac Barnett and Black Bird owner Kathryn Grantham about Mac’s forthcoming Make Believe: On Telling Stories to Children. A slip of a book with a dreamlike cover, it’s his first foray into adult audiences, but like the rest of his work, it centers - and celebrates - the needs of kids.

Next the group split off, and I had the good fortune to wind up in what might be the best author panel I’ve ever attended.

Read more

Welcome back to Same Page SF, your home for all things local and literary!

I’m Christina, your friendly, well-informed, and unabashedly nerdy bookseller. Each week, I share author events, book clubs, and new releases happening across our city.

I’m on the mend from food poisoning - not naming names, but if something seems funky about the aioli on your very cute, very expensive sandwich, trust your instincts!! - so I wrote and edited this more quickly than usual. As always, double-check with event organizers; even when I’m fully functional, I make mistakes (the human condition, alas) - plus, times, venues, and details are subject to change.

We’re on the cusp of a new week and a new month - a particularly exciting one for readers. In the publishing industry, April and September are heavy hitters! Here’s what you’ll want to do if:

1) Your favorite childhood series was Sherlock Holmes or Nancy Drew

Getting the Scoop: The Highs and Lows of Undercover Reporting at SFPL Main. Tuesday 3/31, 6-7:30pm, free.

Go undercover, sniff it out, get the scoop - as someone who’s only too aware of having a body at the moment, it strikes me that the idioms of investigative journalism are quite physical. But what do they actually entail? The SFPL and the Writers Grotto are convening a panel of experienced journalists covering mental health, homelessness, and technology for a candid conversation about the work of undercover reporting.

2) You’d like a night that starts with silence and ends with socializing

Lit Lounge: The Power of Life with Dr. Jessica Riskin at Mechanics’ Institute. Thursday 4/2, 6-9pm, $10 (free for members).

Lit Lounge is a new series celebrating the joy of analog connection - reading together, discovering new voices, and sharing a drink with fellow book lovers. Love the concept! For their second installment, they’re welcoming Dr. Jessica Riskin for a talk on The Power of Life with KQED climate reporter Laura Klivans. Come at 6pm for an hour of quiet reading - BYO book or borrow from their collection - then stick around after the discussion to socialize.

3) You want to deepen your understanding of the natural world

Suzanne Simard on When the Forest Breathes at the San Francisco Botanical Garden with Green Apple Books. Thursday 4/2, 7pm, free with RSVP.

Suzanne Simard, the scientist who pioneered the concept of communication between trees, has written a new book on ecological interconnectedness - and where better to discuss it than the Botanical Garden? When the Forest Breathes “reveals the forest as a symphony of finely honed cycles of regeneration,” from mushrooms breaking down logs to dying elder trees passing along their genetic knowledge. She’ll be in conversation with Manjula Martin, whose The Last Fire Season was a finalist for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award.

4) You’re eager for a storied writer’s third collection

Colm Tóibín on The News from Dublin at the United Irish Cultural Center. Friday 4/3, 7pm, $40 includes book.

Prolific novelist Colm Tóibín - called “his generation’s most gifted writer of love's complicated, contradictory power” by The LA Times - is on tour for his third story collection The News from Dublin. Composed of nine tales spanning continents and decades, including one 100+ page novella, it’s an intimate exploration of family, longing, and loss. Bookshop West Portal will be on hand - a copy of the book comes with your ticket - and there’ll be a cash bar.

5) You might have enough books can never have enough books

The Asian Art Museum is holding a four-day book sale Thursday through Sunday, with extended hours Thursday night and free museum admission on the first Sunday of the month. Expect titles ranging from Asian art to cooking to textiles, and even a few collector’s items. Meanwhile, Friends of the SFPL is holding a book sale at their donation center on 17th, with more than five thousand bargain books and other media to choose from.

✨ BONUS: You’re joining our book club

The Same Page x Black Bird Book Club’s April selection is Evil Genius by Claire Oshetsky - “deeply charming, highly original, and fiendishly clever,” per a starred Kirkus review. Set in 1970s San Francisco, it follows a 19-year-old telephone operator married to a controlling man ten years her senior. When her boss’s boss’s boss’s boss is murdered in a fit of passion, it unlocks a morbid curiosity within her…

We’ll meet to discuss on Sunday, April 19 at 7pm - the first hour will be an internal discussion, and then we’ll be joined by Oshetsky for a deep dive into their process. We’ve got a few seats left. Reserve yours here!

Excited about one of this week’s features? Invite a friend to join you (or a full crew, but let’s be real, we’re all introverts here).

Share Same Page SF

MONDAY South Asians on Writing & Resistance with Anjali Enjeti, Anita Felicelli, Devi S. Laskar, and Simona Supekar at Green Apple Books on the Park | Daniel Grace on his literary thriller In the Wake of Golgotha at Book Passage | NYC-based Ham El-Waylly on Hello, Home Cooking: Do-Able Dishes for Every Day at Omnivore

TUESDAY Judith A. Peraino and Tom McEnaney on We’re Having Much More Fun: Punk Archives for the Present from CBGB to Gilman and Beyond at City Lights, with an After-Party at the Mab | Economist Jennifer Doleac on The Science of Second Chances: A Revolution in Criminal Justice at the Commonwealth Club | Susan Stryker on her revised and updated edition of Transgender History at Fabulosa is sold out

WEDNESDAY Wayne Koestenbaum on My Lover, the Rabbi: A Novel, the long-awaited saga of a psychosexual relationship that goes off the rails, via City Lights Zoom | Meeting of the Black Bird Writing Club

THURSDAY Sunnylyn Thibodeaux on Lucky Charms: New & Selected Poems, a Publishers Weekly most-anticipated release, at City Lights | Chef and writer TW Lim on Little Perfections: Eating in Singapore at Omnivore | Political scientist Taeku Lee on Billionaire Backlash: The Age of Corporate Scandal and How It Could Save Democracy at the Commonwealth Club | Gen Blend, an intergenerational open mic and potluck, at Ruth’s Table | First Thursday Poets with David Holper and Kimi Sugioka, followed by an open mic, at Bird & Beckett | Launch Party for Preeti Vangani’s Fifty Mothers at Medicine for Nightmares | Launch Party for Claire Wrenn Bobrow’s picture book Cowboys at the Ballet at Bookshop West Portal (where she works as a bookseller!)

FRIDAY Actress Gina Gershon on AlphaPussy: How I Survived the Valley and Learned to Love My Boobs at Sydney Goldstein Theater | Poetry in the Alley before the Launch Party for Will Brewer’s Nocturama at Golden Sardine | Get Hype Open Mic, a poetry showcase hosted by J.R. Rice, at Clarion Performing Arts Center

SATURDAY Gary Romano on City Within a City: Life at the San Francisco Flower Market at Book Passage

SUNDAY First Sunday Writers Salon featuring poets Rhoni Blankenhorn, Stephanie Horvath, Natalya Sukhonos, and Preeti Vangani at Bazaar Cafe | Sunnylyn Thibodeaux on Lucky Charms: New & Selected Poems at Bird & Beckett

🗓️ April Sneak Peek

Book recommendations are my love language, but advance notice is a close second! Here’s what’s most likely to fill up or sell out this month, organized by FICTION, NONFICTION, POETRY, and - last but certainly not least - FUN.

April Fiction

On the FICTION front, let’s start with paperback-release parties for two extraordinary books: Karen Russell’s The Antidote at Booksmith (Monday 4/6, 7pm, free with RSVP) and Kate Folk’s Sky Daddy at Green Apple Books on the Park (Wednesday 4/8, 7pm, free with RSVP). Like pretty much every bookseller I know, Sky Daddy was one of my 2025 standouts. If you haven’t read it yet, prepare to be enamored. Yes, it’s hilarious - but more remarkably, it’s compassionate and tender, managing to make a woman lusting after planes almost too relatable.

Read more

I’m Christina, your friendly, well-informed, and unabashedly nerdy bookseller. Each week, I share author events, book clubs, and new releases happening across our city.

Yesterday, I joined forces with fellow bookseller Chelsea Brown - who’s nearly halfway to her fundraising goal to open Celestial Books in the Outer Richmond - and set up shop at the Outer Sunset Farmers Market. It was a comically beautiful day, made even better through conversations about books, bookstores, and Same Page. If you missed it, never fear - you can snag your VERY COOL HAT by mail or in person at an upcoming event.

Speaking of upcoming events! Same Page is partnering with local lit-mag ZYZZVYA for a Spring Cleaning for Bookworms Party - come with one book, leave with a few! - on Tuesday, April 7th. Details in the Bonus section below. And our next Same Page x Black Bird Book Club will meet to discuss the wickedly funny Evil Genius by Claire Oshetsky - with an appearance by the author themself! - on Sunday, April 19. As always, the meeting’s free but capacity’s limited, so reserve your spot here.

In the meantime, it’s another great week to be a reader in San Francisco. Here’s what you’ll want to do if:

1) You commemorate the birthday of a local literary legend

Ferlinghetti Day throughout the city. Tuesday 3/24, all day, free.

To celebrate the birthday of Lawrence Ferlinghetti - poet, translator, activist, painter, and co-founder of City Lights Bookstore & Publishers - don your comfiest shoes and join the “literary walkabout” from dawn through dusk. It’ll kick off at with the sunrise - 7:06am, to be precise - at his former family home in Potrero and wind down at the Palace of Fine Arts, with readings at bookstores, bars, and baseball fields in between.

2) You’re looking for an intimate yet expansive tale

Hannah Lillith Assadi on Paradiso 17 at City Lights in partnership with Litquake. Tuesday 3/24, 7-8:30pm, free.

Hannah Lillith Assadi’s Paradiso 17 is the story of one Palestinian man - loosely inspired by her father - born on the eve of the 1948 Nakba and his lifelong search for home. I was shaken by the intimacy and quiet power of my advance copy - it’s one of those books I know I’ll return to again and again. In the words of Omar El-Akkad (One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This), it’s “an unforgettable story … a deeply nuanced exploration of exile as both event and inheritance.”

3) You want to better understand how we got here (and how we get out of it)

Dr. Ibram X. Kendi on Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age at the Commonwealth Club. Tuesday 3/24, 6pm, $55 includes book ($5 entry-only with student ID).

Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s latest work of nonfiction charts how the “great replacement theory” - an ugly term coined by a French novelist who posited that Black and Brown immigrants were brought in by shadowy elites aiming to replace Europe’s white population - went from a fringe to mainstream idea and ushered in our increasingly antidemocratic age. He’ll discuss it with local author Kate Schatz, whose new novel Where the Girls Were is flying off Black Bird’s shelves.

4) You’re intrigued by an Indian-American Succession

Karan Mahajan on The Complex at Mechanics’ Institute. Wednesday 3/25, 7pm, $5-15.

The Complex is National Book Award finalist Karan Mahajan’s third book in nearly as many decades, and from what I hear, it’s worth the 10-year wait. The sweeping saga of a prominent Delhi family’s political ambitions, machinations, and betrayals, it tops many Most Anticipated lists, with Kirkus calling it a “testament to Mahajan’s genius” in a starred review. He’ll be in conversation with Rita Bullwinkel of Headshot and McSweeney’s new arts and culture calendar.

• Can’t make it Wednesday? I highlighted this talk because Tuesday’s so busy - booked, one might say 🤓 - but Mahajan will also be at Booksmith that night for a free event.)

5) You’re in the mood for poetry and connection

Dean Rader and Matthew Zapruder at City Lights and live online. Thursday 3/26, 7pm, free.

Join two acclaimed and beloved local poets as they read from their latest collections: Dean Rader’s music-centric Notes - “a collection of poems that listens to fugues, threnodies, and lullabies, as well as Miles Davis, The Velvet Underground, and Prince” - and ’s gorgeous chapbook How to Continue. In his own words, “The title is a question I am asking myself all the time. What is the best, most meaningful, most helpful, kindest, most creative way to continue to write and create and live?”

✨ BONUS: Spring Cleaning for Bookworms Party

Last week’s weather was disturbingly late-summer-esque, but to celebrate the (actual) season, I’m thrilled to partner with local lit mag ZYZZVYA for a Spring Cleaning for Bookworms Party at Black Bird Bookstore + Cafe.

Your $15 ticket - $10 for paid subscribers - includes snacks, drinks, and a generous 15% discount on all Black Bird books. Because in true bookworm fashion, we bid farewell to one only to bring home a few.

Book-adjacent events

• 🌼 On Waverly is welcoming Gwen Snider for a Craft & Yap focused on dried florals. Learn about their surprising history - codes and secret messages! - and bring supplies to make your own bouquet. Thursday 3/26, 7pm, free with RSVP.

• 🔄 Medicine for Nightmares is holding a Clothing and Book Swap: bring clean, gently used items and leave with something new-to-you. Hang out and make a zine while you’re at it! Saturday 3/28, 1:30-4pm, free.

• 👟 Christopher’s Books is holding their very first all-levels Run Club! Meet at the store and jog three miles along the water, then grab coffee at Farley’s. Join the WhatsApp group for more details. Sunday 3/29, 9:30am, free.

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News & needs

After nine years on Valencia Street, Silver Sprocket announced last Friday that they’re closing their storefront - today will be their last day 😢 | Fabulosa is starting a Trans Book Club (“better book club name pending”) - their first selection, to be discussed mid-April, is Dolki Min’s Walking Practice | The Bay Area Book Festival is seeking volunteers for their May festival | The SF Art Book Fair has opened applications for their July festival | The Center for the Art of Translation is seeking Bay Area event proposals that engage with translation while creating opportunities for community conversations | The Storyboard Residency - “for writers in any genre working on what we think of as fact based creative projects,” says Lauren Markham - is accepting applications through April 1 | I’m continuing to collect local bookstore testimonials for our crowdsourced bookstore database

Excited about one of this week’s features? Invite a friend to join you (or a full crew, but let’s be real, we’re all introverts here).

Share Same Page SF

MONDAY Wordnight, a collaborative reading series celebrating the works of USF Creative Writers, at Green Apple Books on the Park | Jon Bonné on The New French Wine with Omnivore at Copra | Meeting of Babes Who Book at Sour Cherry Comics

TUESDAY Linda Rosewood on A Circle Outside, a subversive comedy of manners about a commune of lesbian witches, at Fabulosa | Dr. Maya Kornberg on Stuck: How Money, Media, and Violence Prevent Change in Congress at the Commonwealth Club | Catherine Cogliandro Alioto on Tapas España: 70 Easy Recipes for Gathering and Sharing at Omnivore | Readings by the Living Poets Society, a collaboration with the SF Youth Poet Laureates program, at SFPL Noe Valley | Books Not Bans Poetry Jam, featuring a “poetry game station,” with Kevin Dublin at Medicine for Nightmares

WEDNESDAY Crystal Simone Smith on Common Sense (1776) Addressed to Today’s Citizens of America, a bold work of erasure poetry that exposes the contradictions in Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and calls for a new definition of citizenship, at City Lights | Poets Emilie Lygren and Deema K. Shehabi on their new collections Once I Was a Stone and Water to Water: Gaza Renga at Green Apple Books on the Park | After-Hours Reading Club at Black Bird

Keep reading for the full ALSO section, including discount codes.

Read more

Welcome back to Same Page SF, your home for all things local and literary!

I’m Christina, your friendly, well-informed, and unabashedly nerdy bookseller. Each week, I share author events, book clubs, and new releases happening across our city.

It’s another great week to be a reader in San Francisco - especially if you’re free Sunday (hint, hint). Here’s what you’ll want to do if:

1) You’d like to upgrade your sentences (and maybe your partnership?)

Anne Lamott and Neal Allen on Good Writing: 36 Ways to Improve Your Sentences at the Curran Theatre. Tuesday 3/17, 7pm, $35+.

The prolific Anne Lamott, best known for her enduring classic Bird By Bird, and her husband Neal Allen are on tour for their coauthored guide Good Writing, “the 36 ways to turn a worthy sentence into a memorable one.” Along with discussing - and occasionally debating! - literary advice, they’ll speak to the joys and perils of co-writing as a couple. Book Passage will be on site with copies for sale.

2) You’re interested in a deep dive into (ir)rationality

Ben Recht on The Irrational Decision: How We Gave Computers the Power to Choose For Us at Bloomberg Beta. Tuesday 3/17, 5:30-7:30pm, free with registration.

“Rational” is one of those terms that sounds objective, but as Berkeley professor Ben Recht explains, it’s heavily influenced by a narrow mathematical framework from the 1940s - and perhaps not as applicable to present-day policy as we’ve assumed. In partnership with , a fascinating local publication about technology and humanity - everything they write makes me feel simultaneously brilliant and clueless! - he’ll discuss the limits of computational tools and reclaiming agency in the age of automation.

3) You want to hear from an iconic author and translator

Brenda Navarro and Megan McDowell on Eating Ashes at Medicine for Nightmares. Wednesday 3/18, 7-9pm, free.

My friend is earning her MFA in translated literature, and when I told her I’d have the opportunity to hear from the legendary Megan McDowell - basically a celebrity in the contemporary Latin American canon - she seriously considered hopping a flight. McDowell will speak with acclaimed author Brenda Navarro, whose Eating Ashes, now accessible to English-language readers thanks to the former’s translation, won the Cálamo and CEGAL prizes and was a finalist for the Mario Vargas Llosa Biennial Novel Prize.

4) You can’t resist a book event with a dress code

• If you haven’t yet had the pleasure of attending Decentered Arts’ Poolside Poets, picture a traditional reading, then imagine its opposite! There’ll be music, dance, and an unveiling of the Forbidden Words Quilt Project, which highlights words currently banned from U.S. government communications 🫠. Accordingly, the dress code is Forbidden Fruit - think “mysterious masquerade, red velvet, black lace.” Wednesday 3/18, 6:30pm, $25.

• Noe Valley Books is holding a themed launch party for local author S. E. Wendel’s steamy gargoyle romance Heartsong. (Attentive readers will note this is not the first gargoyle book event this month!) Fairy wings, flower crowns, and devil horns encouraged. Friday 3/20, 7pm, free.

5) You’re intrigued by a launch in a haunted house

The Loose-Haired Women: A Haunted Reading Room at KALW. Thursday 3/19, 7pm, $0-20.

Bat Witch Ghost, Cuentero Productions, and the Center for the Art of Translation are teaming up for an artist-made haunted reading room (!!) in the KALW lobby. It’s inspired by Salomat Vafo’s short story “The Loose-Haired Women,” translated from the Uzbek by Sabrina Jaszi and published by Two Lines Press’ ghost-story anthology I Was Alive Here Once. There’ll be a reading followed by a talk with editor Sarah Coolidge, with plenty of time to explore the installation. (Can’t make it Thursday? It’s open to the public through Sunday!)

✨ BONUS: You’re shopping for fruit, veggies, and Same Page!

On Sunday, catch me at the Outer Sunset Farmers Market on 37th from 9am-2pm. I’ll be sharing a table with the delightful Chelsea Brown, the former Black Bird and Green Apple bookseller working to open a bookstore in the Outer Richmond. Stop by friendly conversation, a selection of books and merch for sale, and a free bookmark! (And if that doesn’t tempt you, the birria pupusas at Adelina’s stall should.)

Book-adjacent events

• 🐦 In one of the most delightful events I’ve had the pleasure of highlighting, you’ll want to flock (get it?) to The Booksmith for their pigeon-painting party led by prolific author/illustrator, with proceeds to The Immigrant Defense Project. Wednesday 3/18, 7pm, $3-10.

• 🍿 Litquake is hosting film historian Rachel Walther for a talk on Born to Lose: The Misfits Who Made Dog Day Afternoon, a deep dive into the 1975 blockbuster’s backstory, followed by a screening. Thursday 3/19, 7:30pm, $15.

• 🎨 Black Bird is holding an art opening party for Devyn Passaretti’s “Rooted Together,” a gloriously vibrant celebration of interconnectedness through oil paint and pastel. (The work’s already on the walls and I can’t stop staring!) Friday 3/20, 7-9pm, free.

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News & needs

Trans Rights Readathon kicks off Tuesday; here’s a great list of book recs from a local bookseller (if you’re feeling ambitions, I’d add Torrey Peters’ classic Detransition, Baby, Natalia Theodoridou’s haunting Sour Cherry, and Nicola Dinan’s recent Disappoint Me) | The Bay Area Book Festival is seeking volunteers for their May 2026 festival - they recently released the programming, and it looks extraordinary | The Center for the Art of Translation is seeking event proposals that engage with literary translation while creating opportunities for community conversations in the Bay Area | The Storyboard Residency - “for writers in any genre working on what we think of as fact based creative projects,” says Lauren Markham - is accepting applications through April 1 | I’m continuing to collect local bookstore testimonials as I prepare to publish V1 of our crowdsourced bookstore database

Excited about one of this week’s features? Invite a friend to join you (or a full crew, but let’s be real, we’re all introverts here).

Share Same Page SF

MONDAY Ella Quittner on Obsessed with the Best, a charmingly competitive collection of 100+ recipes perfected via head-to-head tests, at Omnivore | Author Talk on the counterculture’s influence on Apple’s origin story with John Markoff, Steven Levy, and Peter Richardson at Manny’s | Kate Murphy on Why We Click: The Emerging Science of Interpersonal Synchrony at the Commonwealth Club | La Piazza San Francisco Italian Literary Festival Launch featuring Strega Prize winner Andrea Bajani at IICSF

TUESDAY Amon and Jenna Mueller on Full Belly Farm & Kitchen: Recipes and Stories from a Family Farm at Omnivore

WEDNESDAY D.S. Waldman on his “thoughtful, meditative, lyrical” (Victoria Chang) poetry collection Atria at Green Apple Books on the Park | Bob Crawford, Avett Brothers bassist with a graduate degree in history, on his John Quincy Adams biography of America’s Founding Son at Book Passage | Benjamin Bratton on the 10th anniversary paperback edition of The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty at Gray Area | Marc Francis on Curating Deviance: Programming the Queer Film Canon, a look back at queer and deviant art house from 1968 to 1989, online via City Lights

Keep reading for the full Also section and a recommendation for a wildly ambitious satire from a small press that’s not getting nearly as much attention as it should!

Read more

I’m Christina, your friendly, well-informed, and unabashedly nerdy bookseller. Each week, I share author events, book clubs, and new releases happening across our city.

It’s another great week to be a reader in San Francisco. Here’s what you’ll want to do if:

1) You want to deepen your understanding of the internet

Cindy Cohn on Privacy’s Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance at City Lights and live online. Tuesday 3/10, 7pm, free.

Join Cindy Cohn, Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Corey Doctorow, whose many achievements include coining 2023’s word of the year enshittification, for a conversation on her book Privacy’s Defender. Part legal history and part memoir, it chronicles key privacy battles as well as personal stories, like how her participation in the early digital rights movement helped her find her birth parents.

2) You dream of deleting Instagram

Amelia Hruby, PhD on Your Attention is Sacred (Except on Social Media) at Black Bird. Thursday 3/12, 7-9pm, free with RSVP.

As Annie Dillard famously said, how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives - and it’s ever more apparent that our attention is the lens through which everything else follows. A “philosophical and spiritual manifesto” for reclaiming your creative energy, Your Attention is Sacred suggests practical solutions for sharing off-platform. I’m curious to hear Hruby’s take on leaving social media as a businessperson, a topic near and dear to my small-business heart.

3) You agree bookstores get birthday parties

Anniversary Party at Sour Cherry Comics. Friday 3/13, 4-9pm, free.

Help Sour Cherry celebrate their fourth anniversary with a party and fundraising drive! There will be light refreshments, clearance manga and graphic novels, a raffle, and the first-ever edition of their free zine. If you join their Patreon at the Discount tier ($16/month), in addition to a perpetual 15% off, you’ll get a hand-screenprinted tote.

4) You’re invigorated by Rebecca Solnit’s definition of hope

“Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. Hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth’s treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal... To hope is to give yourself to the future - and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.”

Rebecca Solnit on The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change at Grace Cathedral in partnership with Green Apple. Sunday 3/15, 9:30am, $10 suggested donation.

Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit’s The Beginning Comes After the End, a sequel to her enduring bestseller Hope in the Dark, reflects on the profound shifts that have unfolded since 1960 and “the long vibrations of change that often go unheard in the moment.” In conversation with Malcolm Clemens Young, Dean of Grace Cathedral, she’ll discuss our current moment and how we might move towards a more moral and interconnected world.

5) You’d like to read, write, and listen in community this weekend

• 📖 The Western Neighborhoods Project is holding a salon-style book discussion in Problem Library’s stunning space (if you like sunlight, wood, and gorgeous handwriting, prepare to be awed). The talk will center on Jack London’s The Sea-Wolf (1904), with an art activity, archival photographs, and light refreshments. Saturday 3/14, 11am-1pm, free with RSVP.

• 👂 Babylon Salon’s Spring Show boasts another superb lineup: Charlie Jane Anders, Grant Faulkner, Lauren C. Johnson, Mark Ernest Pothier, and Grayson Thompson. As always, they’ll set up on The Sycamore’s outdoor patio - come early to grab a drink and a seat. Saturday 3/14, 5:30pm, free.

• ✏️ Thirst Draft, “a writing event for everyone,” is back! Everyone gets the same prompt, and you’re invited to work alone or collaboration; the only rules are no editing and no AI. After an hour of writing time, there’ll be an optional open mic followed by mingling. Sunday 3/15, 6-9pm, free.

✨ EAST BAY BONUS ✨

Same Page is a one-woman labor of love, and while I’d love to cover the broader Bay, I simply don’t have the capacity to go beyond the city. That said, I couldn’t let the brilliant Namwali Serpell’s talk on On Morrison pass without mention (Thursday 3/12, 6:30pm, $25). I’ll also take this opportunity to shout out the Oakland Review of Books, Same Page’s astonishingly comprehensive East Bay counterpart - I’m consistently impressed and delighted by their write-ups.

Book-adjacent events

• ✒️ Pen Friends, a queer and BIPOC friendly space for the fountain-pen curious, is holding INKSTRAVAGANZA. Expect a lesson on ink types, an ink swatch demo, an ink swap station, and lively ink-related debate! Thursday 3/12, 6:30-8pm, free with RSVP.

• 🍿 Adobe Books is welcoming the Lucky Cat Cinema Club for a screening of Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation, a metafictional dramedy about adapting the script of a book for a movie. Friday 3/13, 7:30pm, free.

• 🧵 SFPL Glen Park is hosting a Sewing Swap. Bring new or gently used thread, needles, scissors, and other supplies (no fabric, please!), then leave with something new-to-you. Sunday 3/15, 2-4pm, free.

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News & needs

Bookseller Pete von Petrin is holding three themed pop-ups at HUNTED Vintage Jewelry this weekend, with vintage pulp Friday, aesthetic non-fiction Saturday, and fire-sale prices Sunday | Former Black Bird and Green Apple bookseller Chelsea Brown, who’s been running a lending library out of her driveway, is fundraising to open a brick-and-mortar bookstore in her Outer Richmond neighborhood | The Bay Area Book Festival is seeking exhibitors for their May 2026 festival - they just released the programming, and it looks extraordinary | “Play Space,” an evening of new, previously unproduced one-act plays by Bay Area writers, is calling for submissions | The Eyes & the Impossible by Dave Eggers, adapted for the stage by Z Space and Word for WordPLAY, has its final showing this Sunday

Excited about one of this week’s features? Invite a friend to join you (or a full crew, but let’s be real, we’re all introverts here).

Share Same Page SF

MONDAY Meeting of Babes Who Book at Sour Cherry Comics | Judith Enck and Adam Mahoney on The Problem with Plastic: How We Can Save Ourselves and Our Planet Before It’s Too Late via City Lights Zoom

TUESDAY Savala Nolan on Good Woman: A Reckoning, a raw and personal tale of rejecting the expectations of womanhood, at Book Passage | Marta Lindsey and Nancy Botkin on Discovering Golden Gate Park: A Local’s Guide at Bookshop West Portal | Carly Schwartz on I’ll Try Anything Twice: Misadventures of a Self-Medicated Life at the Commonwealth Club | Author Signing and Soiree with Nadine Takvorian for Armaveni: A Graphic Novel of the Armenian Genocide at Green Apple Books on Clement | On the Page, Off the Page at SFPL Park

WEDNESDAY Dan Simon, founder and editor-in-chief of Seven Stories Press, on his family saga Ashland at City Lights | Lauren C. Johnson on her debut novel The West Façade, a historical fantasy in which a Notre Dame Cathedral statue discovers what it means to be human, at Green Apple Books on the Park | Maxine Sharf on Maxi’s Kitchen: Easy Go-To Recipes to Make Again and Again JCCSF with Omnivore | Open Mic Night at Black Bird | Writing Night at Sour Cherry Comics

Keep reading for the full Also section and two reviews of new novels I love - one friendship story and one anti-romance.

Read more

Welcome back to Same Page SF, your home for all things local and literary!

I’m Christina, your friendly, well-informed, and unabashedly nerdy bookseller. Each week, I share author events, book clubs, and new releases happening across our city.

But first, I’m thrilled to give an update on our community-sourced bookstore guide: we have a work-in-progress website! 🎉 It’s a comprehensive grid of our city’s 40+ bookstores, sortable and filterable on all sorts of dimensions. A smattering:

When you click into a bookstore’s profile, you’ll see more detail, and - this is the part I’m most excited about!!! - hear from Same Page readers why they love it. For example:

I’m beyond proud of what we’re creating, and I can’t wait to share the live version. Two favors to help us get there:

• ✏️ Write a testimonial for a bookstore you adore here. I’m especially looking for love for our smaller, newer, and generally less well-known shops. As a thank-you, I’ll gift the next five folks a monthlong subscription to the iconic Ron Charles’ post-WaPo book newsletter.

• 📸 Next time you pass by a bookstore, snap a photo of the storefront and send it to me (hello@samepagesf.com). Or if you’re a local photographer interested in partnering - please reach out!

Back to the present: what a week! This lineup, particularly on the fiction front, is an embarrassment of riches.

1) You’re intrigued by a feminist coming-of-age novel

Kate Schatz on Where the Girls Were at the Booksmith. Tuesday 3/3, 7pm, free with RSVP.

You know I love a deeply researched and locally anchored story, and Kate Schatz’s Where the Girls Were emphatically checks that box. It’s about a pregnant teenager sent to a home for unwed mothers in 1960s San Francisco, though its themes of autonomy and reproductive freedom are disturbingly timely. I’m unwilling to part with my copy, so I’m grateful to the folks at Penguin Random House for offering another for giveaway - if you’re a paid subscriber, enter here.

2) You’ve been counting down to Lauren Groff’s latest

Lauren Groff on Brawler: Stories at the United Irish Cultural Center in partnership with Bookshop West Portal. Thursday 3/5, 7pm, $40.

Lauren Groff needs no introduction, but allow mine anyway: she’s a NYT bestselling author, three-time National Book Award finalist, and - be still, my heart - an indie bookstore owner. She’s on tour for her just-released story collection Brawler, which Kirkus called “audacious … incandescent” in an especially effusive starred review. She’ll discuss it with R. O. Kwon, then host a signing line. (Pro tip: Fold the jacket over the title page to avoid last-minute scrambling, then accidentally flinging the book across the room. Ask me how I know.)

3) You love a thought-provoking alternative history

Álvaro Enrigue on Now I Surrender at the Booksmith. Thursday 3/5, 7pm, free with RSVP.

Álvaro Enrigue’s impossibly vivid You Dreamed of Empires is one of Black Bird’s bestsellers, so I can’t wait to dive into his latest historical reimagining. Part epic and part alt-Western, Now I Surrender, translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer, is a Mexico-US border war saga that radically recasts the story of how the West was “won.” He’ll discuss it with Ingrid Rojas Contreras of the dazzling The Man Who Could Move Clouds.

4) You’ve never heard of Charlotte L. Brown, Tien Fuh Wu, or Judy Heumann

Launch Party for Unsung Heroines: 35 Women Who Changed the Bay Area at City Lights. Thursday 3/5, 7pm, free.

In 2018, Rae Alexandra of KQED’s Rebel Girls from Bay Area History learned that just 12% of our city’s public space - street names, statues, parks, public art - honored women. She’s since devoted years to researching “unsung heroines” of the Bay Area, thirty-five of whom were profiled in this illuminating book. It’s vividly illustrated by Adrienne Simms - a special challenge considering images of some of the women have been lost to history - and published by City Lights Press.

5) You like poetry and (want to) like talking to friendly strangers

ZYZZYVA Issue 131 Poetry Reading at Golden Sardine. Friday 3/6, 6pm, free.

Beloved local lit-mag ZYZZYVA is celebrating its latest issue with a poetry reading at Golden Sardine. Hear from Nica Giromini, Kelly Gray, and Brian Ang, and say hello to the magazine’s newest assistant editor Annie Delmedico, longtime Same Page reader and one of the warmest people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting through this work. As an incentive for introverts, the first three folks to find her and mention “Same Page” get a free copy of #131!

Book-adjacent events

• 📵 Manny’s is hosting Analog Mondays, this time with sliding-scale bibliomancy readings (!) and, as always, plenty of games, quiet corners, and phone pouches. Monday 3/2, 7-10pm, free.

• 🎨 Adobe Books & Art Cooperative is holding an opening party for “Carnival,” a 30-person group show curated by Kate Ortega celebrating our city and community. Friday 3/6, 6-9pm, free.

• 🥐 On Waverly is welcoming Hali Home Bakes, a microbakery specializing in Asian-French fusion pastries, for a pop-up. Saturday 3/7, 11:30am-2pm.

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News & needs

Former Black Bird and Green Apple bookseller Chelsea Brown, who’s been running a lending library out of her driveway for the last three years, is raising funds to open a brick-and-mortar bookstore in her Outer Richmond neighborhood | The Bay Area Book Festival is seeking exhibitors for their May 2026 festival - they just released the programming, and it looks extraordinary | The Eyes & the Impossible by Dave Eggers, adapted for the stage by Z Space and Word for WordPLAY, is running through mid-March | It’s your last chance to see San Francisco Center for the Book’s Who Is America at 250? Artists’ Books on the State of Democracy before it closes Sunday

Excited about one of this week’s features? Invite a friend to join you (or a full crew, but let’s be real, we’re all introverts here).

Share Same Page SF

MONDAY Rebecca Solnit on The Beginning Comes After the End at the Internet Archive is sold out

TUESDAY Naomi Hirahara on her latest historical mystery Crown City at Bookshop West Portal | Local guide Marta Lindsey on Discovering Golden Gate Park at Green Apple Books on the Park | Jenna Nicolas on Enlightened Bottom Line: Exploring the Intersection of Spirituality, Business, and Investing at the Commonwealth Club | Ticketed meet-and-greet with Berner for Becoming a Legend: The Billion-Dollar Blueprint to be a Whale in a Sea of Sharks at Book Passage

WEDNESDAY Michael Pollan on A World Appears, an investigation of consciousness through scientific, philosophical, literary, spiritual and psychedelic perspectives, at Sydney Goldstein Theater | Bestselling YA author Kalyn Josephson on her adult fantasy debut The Library of Amorlin, in which a brilliant con artist and a secretive librarian collide, at Telegraph Hill Books | Sandip Roy on Chapal Rani, the Last Queen of Bengal: The Life and Times of a Female Impersonator at City Lights | Sophie Wan on The Social Circle, about a group of estranged college friends who founded a social media company - “think Daisy Jones & The Six meets The Social Network” - at Book Passage | C-Y Chia and Shane Stanbridge on Authentic, Not Traditional: The Lion Dance Cafe Cookbook at Omnivore | Meeting of the SFPL Silent Book Club at Magnolia | Meeting of the Black Bird Writing Club

Keep reading for the full Also section and my review of a re-released dystopian novel, a must-read for fans I Who Have Never Known Men.

Read more

Welcome back to Same Page SF, your home for all things local and literary!

I’m Christina, your friendly, well-informed, and unabashedly nerdy bookseller. Each week, I share author events, book clubs, and new releases happening across our city.

It’s another great week to be a reader in San Francisco (and, this evening, in the East Bay!). Here’s what you’ll want to do if:

1) You’re up for some friendly competition

Literary Pub Trivia at Gilman Brewing Company. Monday 2/23, 6pm, $25.

Liven up your Monday with the eagerly anticipated return of Litquake’s Literary Pub Trivia. Hosted by 40-time Jeopardy! champ Amy Schneider, it’ll test your knowledge of classic and contemporary books along with local literary lore. Come solo or with a team to compete for prizes contributed by Bay Area bookstores, small presses, and libraries and other cultural institutions - not to mention bragging rights!

2) You’re into poetry readings with a twist

Last month I crossed town to Golden Sardine for a poetry reading, where I couldn’t wedge my way up the stairs. (Happy ending for this chronically ill introvert: I snagged a table outside, where I could hear it all sans crowds!) Clearly, I’m not the only one who feels poetry is having a moment. This week, I’m excited about the launch of Preeti Vangani’s Fifty Mothers, a narrative and elegy for the mother figure, at Green Apple Books on the Park (Wednesday 2/25, 7pm, free) and Julia B. Levine on Lullaby for the Sixth Extinction plus a broader talk with Rebecca Foust on the art of publishing a chapbook (Saturday 2/28, 3pm, free).

3) You’re intrigued by a memoir mixing heartbreak with physics

Caroline Paul on Why Fly: Seeking Awe, Healing, and our True Selves in the Sky at Bookshop West Portal. Thursday 2/26, 7pm, free with RSVP.

One of my earliest memories is staring out a plane window, marveling at the wispy clouds around and the vast expanse below. Local author Caroline Paul, whose The Gutsy Girl was a NYT bestseller, has also found awe in the air; her latest memoir Why Fly explores “the descent of love through the ascent of flight,” blending the dissolution of her long-term marriage with her personal piloting journey, aviation history, and the long odds of airline disaster.

4) You love a stage adaptation of a beloved book

Opening Night of The Eyes & the Impossible by Dave Eggers, presented by Z Space and Word for WordPLAY. Saturday 2/28, 7pm, $55 ($35 for kids).

For over 30 years, Word for Word has brought fiction to the stage, and their latest adaptation is Dave Eggers’ The Eyes & The Impossible, the tender tale of dog Johannes and his job as the “eyes” of an urban park by the sea. It was awarded the 2024 Newbery Medal for excellence in children’s literature (but if sales at Black Bird are anything to go by, it delights readers of all ages!). It officially opens this Saturday - with Pay-What-You-Can previews Thursday and Friday - and runs through mid-March.

🎟️ The artistic directors have generously offered two tickets for opening night to Same Page readers. If you’re a paid subscriber, enter the raffle here. The winner will be drawn and notified this evening.

5) The word “ephemera” is your bat signal (or you love stairs)

57th California International Antiquarian Book Fair at Pier 27, Embarcadero. Friday 2/27 through Sunday 3/1, hours vary, $10.

The CIABF, host to more than 100 exhibitors, promises “a vast array of materials, including books, maps, ephemera, drawings, manuscripts, autographs, and more, available on TWO FLOORS.” I’m not sure why that warrants all-caps, but I love the enthusiasm! It’ll run all weekend, and if you’re there Sunday, swing by the Ferry Building to explore KQED’s Handmade Home Market, with a curated selection of home goods by local makers.

Book-adjacent events

• 🎵 As part of their Music Week series, Manny’s is holding a discussion on sustaining San Francisco’s creative class with folks from government, real estate development, and artist advocacy. Wednesday 2/25, 6-7pm, $9+.

• ✏️ Fabulosa is welcoming instructors Sean Owens and Bennet Freyer for an intimate five-week Trans Writing Workshop, culminating in a Trans Reading Party at Queer Arts Featured. Wednesdays starting 2/25, 8-10pm, $200.

• 🔤 Arion Press - the last type foundry, letterpress workshop, and bindery operating under one roof in the US - is opening their doors for a public tour. See how they hand-craft their books and what they’re currently creating! Saturday 2/28, 1pm and 3pm, $15 suggested donation.

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Excited about one of this week’s features? Invite a friend to join you (or a full crew, but let’s be real, we’re all introverts here).

Share Same Page SF

MONDAY Law professor Jonathan Turley on Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution at the Commonwealth Club | Meeting of Babes Who Book at Sour Cherry Comics | Celebrated chef Yotam Ottolenghi at Sydney Goldstein Theater is a few seats from sold out

TUESDAY San Francisco Poet Laureate Emeritus Alejandro Murguía on The Other Barrio: New and Selected Stories at CCSF Mission | Eirinie Carson on her debut novel Bloodfire, Baby, about a mother and her newborn haunted by an intergenerational inheritance, at SFPL Main | Naoko Takei Moore on Simply Donabe: Japanese One-Pot Recipes at Omnivore | Michael Shermer, founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, on Truth: What It Is, How to Find It, and Why It Still Matters at the Commonwealth Club | Nicola Griffith on She is Here, a collection of short fiction, essay, art, poetry, and interviews, via City Lights Zoom | Spirits of San Francisco: An Evening with Gary Kamiya and Paul Madonna, coauthors of Spirits of San Francisco, is down to its last few tickets | Devils and Dreamers: Russian Literature & the Big Questions, a six-week course taught by Scott Laughlin, at Green Apple Books on Clement is sold out, but you can add yourself to the waitlist

WEDNESDAY After-Hours Reading Club at Black Bird

Keep reading for the full Also section and your complete March Sneak Peek. If you’re intrigued by a literary speakeasy, a pigeon painting party, or the undeniably colorful combo of free matcha x fake blood, you’re in luck!

Read more

Welcome back to Same Page SF, your home for all things local and literary!

I’m Christina, your friendly, well-informed, and unabashedly nerdy bookseller. Each week, I share author events, book clubs, and new releases happening across our city.

It’s another great week to be a reader in San Francisco. Here’s what you’ll want to do if:

1) You want to read alone, together (and for a cause!)

Silent Reading Party at the Booksmith. Tuesday 2/17, 7pm, $5+.

“No small talk. No awkward silences. Just reading in a bookstore afterhours with a few dozen strangers.” Bring or buy something to read, sip free tea, and bask in the quiet. Tickets start at $5, with sales benefiting Community Aid Network MN.

2) You didn’t get your fill of romance last week

Brenna Bos on This Means War at Fabulosa. Tuesday 2/17, 7pm, free.

Join the widely credentialed Brenna Bos - museum director, grant writer, college professor, and sapphic romance author - to celebrate This Means War, an “enemies-to-lovers, second-chance romance that proves some fires were never meant to be tamed.” (And if you’ve got your own idea for a steamy story, head back to Fabulosa for screenwriter Erik Patterson’s Romantasy Writing Workshop Sunday!)

3) You’re intrigued by the overlap of Olympics x pelvic floors

Shannon Rowbury on Strong as a Mother at Sports Basement Presidio. Tuesday 2/17, 7pm, $0-20 (RSVP required).

Join three-time Olympian and San Francisco native Shannon Rowbury on pub day for Strong as a Mother, her evidence-based guide to prenatal and postpartum fitness. Come early for a three-mile fun run with Run Club SF, then stick around for refreshments, a raffle, and a signing line supplied by Green Apple Books.

4) You’d like to learn about the history of a literary institution

Gioia Woods on City Lights: Lawrence Ferlinghetti and the Biography of a Bookstore at City Lights. Wednesday 2/18, 7-8:30pm, free.

When you hear “City Lights,” you might think Howl, free speech, the Beat Generation … or, as I recently learned when I joined what I erroneously assumed was a book-related conversation, maybe you’re talking about actual lighting.

Regardless of where your mind went, it’s a safe bet we’ve all got something to learn from humanities professor Gioia Woods’ City Lights: Lawrence Ferlinghetti and the Biography of a Bookstore.

5) You love a book that shouldn’t be funny but is

Kashana Cauley on The Survivalists at SFPL Main. Sunday 2/22, 3-4pm, free.

The SFPL’s bimonthly citywide read is Kashana Cauley’s “lethally witty debut” (NYT) The Survivalists. The tale of an ambitious Black lawyer who moves in with her entrepreneur boyfriend and his doomsday-prep roommates, it’s a darkly comic exploration of race, class, and what it means to feel safe in a scary world. She’ll discuss it with Audrey T. Williams of Ancestral Futures, a speculative literary arts organization.

News & needs

Niebla Librería is seeking a part-time bilingual bookseller | Litquake is accepting submissions for their main festival and Lit Crawl this October, as well as applications for their first official Curator Residency | The Center for the Art of Translation (CAT) is soliciting event proposals | The SFPL is releasing three new library cards | Books and Bookshelves has been around since 1985, but they only created an Instagram account last week (more power to them!) | Help me collect testimonials about your favorite local bookstores to build our work-in-progress community database

Excited about one of this week’s features? Invite a friend to join you (or a crew, but let’s be real, we’re all introverts here).

Share Same Page SF

MONDAY Tayyba Kanwal on her debut short story collection Talking with Boys at Green Apple Books on the Park | Rob Osler on his historical mystery The Case of the Murdered Muckraker at the Best Bookstore in Union Square (their first-ever event!)

TUESDAY Food writer Evie Harbury on My Bohemian Kitchen at Omnivore | Gil Z. Hochberg on My Father, The Messiah: A Memoir via City Lights Zoom | Meeting of the No Homework Book Club - “we read a story together and talk about it” - with Books Not Bans at The Willows

WEDNESDAY Anne Whiteside on The Moon in Splinters, the true history of her uncle’s work as a British secret agent with the French Resistance, at SPFL Bernal | Meeting of the Contemporary Translated Book Group for Geetanjali Shree’s Tomb of Sand, translated from the Hindi by Daisy Rockwell, at Mechanics’ Institute

Keep reading for the full Also section, including a free talk with a Booker-longlisted author and a peek at what’s filling up next week, and Book-Adjacent Events like an inaugural Game & Pie Night.

Read more

Welcome back to Same Page SF, your home for all things local and literary!

I’m Christina, your friendly, well-informed, and unabashedly nerdy bookseller. Each week, I share author events, book clubs, and new releases happening across our city.

It’s another great week to be a reader in San Francisco. Here’s what you’ll want to do if:

1) You’re looking for a novel that celebrates - and interrogates - friendship

Emily Nemens on Clutch at Green Apple Books on the Park and live online. Monday 2/9, 7pm, free.

“Finally, we have a collective noun for a group of aging female friends, and only the great Emily Nemens could have declared it,” raves Hilary Leichter of Nemens’ latest novel Clutch. The tale of five middle-aged friends who converge on Palm Springs for an overdue reunion, it’s a tribute to the love and complexity of long-term friendship. (You know it’s culturally relevant when the publisher commissions custom merch!)

2) You want to hear from an iconic photographer

Sally Mann on Art Work: On the Creative Life at Sydney Goldstein Theater. Wednesday 2/11, 7:30pm, $49+.

Over the forty-plus years of Sally Mann’s storied career, she’s explored childhood, family, memory, mortality, and the passage of time. With her new memoir Art Work, she’s turning her lens inward, reflecting on the challenges and pleasures of the creative process. She’ll be speaking with fellow photographer/author Ted Orland in City Arts & Lectures’ fireside-style format.

3) You’re curious about a story 20 years in the making

Jasmin ‘Iolani Hakes on The Pohaku at City Lights and live online. Thursday 2/12, 7pm, free.

Join Jasmin ‘Iolani Hakes to celebrate her sophomore novel The Pohaku, which, per an interview with Writer’s Digest, has been in the works for two decades and actually preceded her award-winning debut Hula. Inspired by a true story, The Pohaku spans 300 years across Hawai’ia and California, following generations of women tasked with protecting a sacred stone. She’ll discuss it with local author Susan Kiyo Ito, whose I Would Meet You Anywhere remains one of my most memorable memoirs.

4) You find nothing more romantic than books and book people

• 📖 On Tuesday, The Booksmith is hosting an evening of queer love readings: “expect the gushy and the poetic and the messy and everything in between” (2/10, 7pm, RSVP requested).

• 💬 On Thursday, Mechanics’ Institute is holding a romance author panel moderated by Jasmine Guillory, “the reigning queen of contemporary romance” according to Oprah (2/12, 6:30pm, $10-20).

• 💕 Also Thursday, our museums are getting in on the love! Josh Aronson is hosting a photo book speed date at SFMOMA (2/12, 6pm, free with museum admission), and - this isn’t strictly literary, but it’s so good I have to include it - Cal Academy is partnering with Date My Friend for a night of romantic pitches (2/12, 6-10pm, $25).

• 🎶 On Friday, swing by Noe Valley Books for a Valentine’s Day Party featuring live music, activities, and Blind Dates aplenty (2/13, 7pm, free entry).

• 💌 On the holiday itself, take your love notes to the next level through the Letterform Archive’s zine-making workshop (2/14, 11:30am-1pm, $70).

5) You’d like to get behind the scenes of a superb debut

Yesterday, the Same Page x Black Bird Book Club meeting gathered over The Volcano Daughters by Gina María Balibrera. Our conversation ranged from polyphonic narrators to Spanish slang, the vibrancy of the ghost characters to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry... Thank you, as always, for a wonderful evening!

This Sunday, Gina will join us for an author talk and place-based writing workshop (2/15, 7-8:30pm, $10 / $5 for paid subscribers). Everyone’s welcome to attend, whether you’ve read the book or not! While it’s a follow-on to book club in that we’ll raise some questions that arose, the discussion will focus on the process and research that goes into writing another place and time, with an emphasis on San Francisco of the 1930s. From there, we’ll move into a generative writing activity.

I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with a great many authors, but Gina stands out for her kindness, creativity, and enthusiasm, and I couldn’t be more excited for this event. There’ll be food, tea, wine, nonalcoholic beverages, and even specially composed live music - all you need to bring is your notebook!

Excited about one of this week’s features? Invite a friend to join you (or a full crew, but let’s be real, we’re all introverts here).

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Book-adjacent events

• 💬 Medicine for Nightmares is welcoming Bay Area Demonstrations Legal Support Collaborative for a conversation on the history of political repression in the US (Thursday 2/12, 7pm, free).

• 🖌️ The SFPL is holding a panel on tattoos as personal archives in conjunction with their exhibit “Living Tattoo Traditions: American Irezumi and Beyond,” which closes next month (Thursday 2/12, 6-7:30pm, free).

• 😋 On Waverly is welcoming HEYDOH for a pop-up of their single-origin Taiwanese soy sauces (Sunday 2/15, 11:30am-4pm, free).

Also

MONDAY Greer Stothers on Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die, a gay fantasy romance in which a reclusive sorcerer is forced to protect a cowardly knight, at Blush! Wine Bar with Fabulosa | Meeting of Babes Who Book at Sour Cherry Comics

TUESDAY Look at this Photograph, five readings by local authors on “old family photos, steamy Polaroids, images that stick with us,” at Make Out Room | Nicki Sizemore on Mind, Body, Spirit, Food: Adaptable Recipes and Grounding Meditations for Preparing Meals with Joy and Intention at Omnivore | On the Page, Off the Page at SFPL Park

WEDNESDAY Haley Hutchinson on Her Womanhood of Mine: Poems, “a chronicle of a girlhood painted by the tastes, pains, and folds of the body,” at Green Apple Books on the Park | Ukraine-born Polina Chesnakova on Chesnok: Cooking from My Corner of the Diaspora at Omnivore | Media scholar Dr. Artel Great on The Black Pack: Comedy, Race, and Resistance at SFPL Main | Ericka Knudson introducing Nouvelle Femmes: Modern Women of the French New Wave and Their Enduring Contribution to Cinema, with a screening of Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le Fou!, at the Balboa Theater | Open Mic Night at Black Bird | Poetry Workshop at Sour Cherry Comics | Who is America at 250?: A Conversation with the Artists and Curators at San Francisco Center for the Book

Keep reading for the full Also section, including publisher office hours and a birthday party for Clifford the big red dog, and romance recommendations - including one by a Same Page reader! - from someone with an unreasonably high bar for the genre.

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