Same Page SF | A real-life spy thriller, an existential debut, and '70s photography 📸

Yes, Same Page is back (for now!)

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 week from October 2023 to November 2024, I wrote this newsletter to publicize and signal-boost author events, book clubs, new releases, and literary gatherings happening across our city.

Three and a half months ago - an eternity and a blink - I had a baby, and I’ve never been more [X] in my entire life, where [X] can basically mean anything other than “well rested.” Invigorated and exhausted, delighted and devastated, anxious and calm … the list and the paradoxes go on.

I’ve debated whether it’s the right time to restart Same Page, but done is better than perfect. I can’t promise I’ll publish every section every week, but I’ll do my best. Always, but especially now, I believe anything that elevates and celebrates books is worth doing.

On to the goings-on!

It’s a great week to be a reader, writer, or book-lover in San Francisco. Here’s what you’ll want to attend if:

1) Digital authoritarianism is on your mind (for some strange reason)

Ronald J. Deibert on Chasing Shadows: Cyber Espionage, Subversion, and the Global Fight for Democracy at City Lights and via Zoom (registration required). Monday 3/10, 7pm, free. 

Hear Ronald J. Deibert, founder and director of globally renowned cyber-watchdog The Citizen Lab, discuss his new book Chasing Shadows with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. A “real-life spy thriller” deemed essential reading by Margaret Atwood, it investigates how autocrats and dictators leverage digital ecosystems and high-tech surveillance to advance authoritarianism.

2) You’re curious about the debut Bryan Washington called “a literal triumph”

Jeremy Gordon on See Friendship at Green Apple Books on the Park and via Zoom. Wednesday 3/12, 7pm, free. 

Join cultural critic Jeremy Gordon, in conversation with New Yorker’s Jay Caspian King, to celebrate his hotly anticipated debut See Friendship. The tale of a writer who starts a podcast about his high school friend’s tragic death, it explores grief in the digital age, the limits of memory, and the meaning of friendship; Brandon Taylor called it “The Savage Detectives for the post-Facebook era.”

3) You’re a Niall Williams fan 

Niall Williams on his extensive literary oeuvre at the United Irish Cultural Center in partnership with Bookshop West Portal. Thursday 3/13, 6-8:30pm, $15. 

Bestselling author Niall Williams, whose understated novels “invest specificity and life in characters and places easily reduced to clichés” (NPR), is visiting all the way from County Clare, Ireland. He’ll be discussing his work with local Irish-American author Ethel Rohan, whose quietly lovely Sing, I was one of my favorite Same Page giveaways last year. There will be a cash bar and a signing line - bring your own books or buy them there!

4) You’re seeking a meditation on motherhood, selfhood, and faith 

Samina Ali on Pieces You’ll Never Get Back: A Memoir of Unlikely Survival at Green Apple Books on the Park and via Zoom. Thursday 3/13, 7pm, free. 

Samina Ali nearly died giving birth to her son. Then she awoke from a coma with only her deepest memories intact: her husband was a stranger, she didn’t know she’d had a baby, and she could only communicate in her native Urdu. Pieces You’ll Never Get Back recalls her arduous recovery in the context of her Islamic upbringing and fluctuating relationship to faith; she’ll be discussing it with novelist Kathryn Ma, whose Chinese Groove was a One City, One Book pick last year.

5) You’re into street photography from the ‘70s

Pop-up exhibit and celebration for A Fearless Eye: The Photography of Barbara Ramos at Medicine for Nightmares. Saturday 3/15, 3-6pm, free. 

As a student at the San Francisco Art Institute, Barbara Ramos roamed the city with her camera; she was shy, but as she recalls, “I had no problem going up to strangers and taking their photograph.” Five decades later, she began posting those photos to social media - and now, Chronicle Books has published her collection. Celebrate A Fearless Eye and browse the photos that “immortalized everyday San Franciscans.”

Barbara Ramos’s "Couple With Baby, 16th Street Bus Stop," "Boy and Salesman at Emporium Counter, Market Street," and "Shoe Salesman," courtesy of the photographer via The New York Times.

Also 

MONDAY  TTBC Writer’s Salon for blind and low-vision writers at SFPL Main

TUESDAY  Coauthors Scott Clark and Betsy Andrews and photographer Cheyenne Ellis on Coastal: 130 Recipes from a California Road Trip at Omnivore  |  Jane Rosenthal on her WWII thriller and romance The Serpent Bearer at Book Passage  |  Open Mic Night at SFPL Park

WEDNESDAY  Open Mic Night at Black Bird  |  John Freeman on his short story collection Sacramento Noir at City Lights  |  Dr. Rupa Marya on Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice and its relevance to the genocide in Palestine at Medicine for Nightmares  |  Joan Gelfand on Outside Voices: A Memoir of the Berkeley Revolution at SFPL Main  |  Eddie Ahn on Advocate: A Graphic Memoir of Family, Community, and the Fight for Environmental Justice at SFPL Visitacion Valley  |  Spoken Word Tour for Randy Blythe’s Just Beyond the Light: Making Peace with the Wars Inside our Head  |  Writing the Heroine’s Journey: Workshop with Kate Farrell at Mechanics’ Institute 

THURSDAY  Local archivist and poet Tate Swindell on his first full-length collection Solar Hits at City Lights  |  Felicia Martínez on her debut novella The Other Lives of Altagracia Sanchez at Medicine for Nightmares  |  SF Poet Laureate emerita Kim Shuck’s monthly poetry jam at SFPL Main  |  Graphic Novel Club meetup at Mission: Comics and Art 

FRIDAY  Yung Pueblo on How to Love Better at Sydney Goldstein Theater via City Arts & Lectures  |  Gary Krist on Trespassers at the Golden Gate: A True Account of Love, Murder, and Madness in Gilded-Age San Francisco at Green Apple Books on the Park  |  Kaveh Akbar and Tommy Orange on the paperback releases of their respective bestsellers Martyr! and Wandering Stars at The Booksmith is sold out, but you may be able to snag a last-minute standing-room spot 

SATURDAY  Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network (DVAN)’s quarterly reading series featuring Mai Der Vang, Anhvu Buchanan, Teresa Mei Chuc, and Trinh Lê at Medicine for Nightmares 

SUNDAY  Sociologist Brittany Friedman on Carceral Apartheid: How Lies and White Supremacists Run Our Prisons at Book Passage  |  How to Get Your Book Published: Online course with John J. Geoghegan via Book Passage

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Book-adjacent gatherings 

Not *about* books, but around them

• ❓Manny’s is hosting Jeopardy champ Amy Schneider for an evening of trivia and conversation. What can we learn from Schneider, who achieved a remarkable 40-episode run, about living a curious life? Wednesday 3/12, 6-7:30pm, $15. 

• 💬 Black Bird is welcoming Palestinian-American Sam Mogannam and Israeli-American Tal Mor for a candid conversation about the weekly dialogue group, where differing and complex lived experiences can co-exist. Thursday 3/13, 7pm, free (registration required).

• 🐟 Golden Sardine, in partnership with Omnivore Books, will celebrate the launch of The Fishwife Cookbook: Delightful Tinned Fish Recipes for Every Occasion by serving delectable dishes straight from the book. No reservations required; just show up and order! Thursday 3/13, 5-8pm, free entry.

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Thanks for reading!

If you enjoyed this issue of Same Page, show some love by passing it along to a bookish friend or two - or more, but let’s be honest, we’re all introverts here!

As always, if you have questions, ideas, or events to share, just reply to this email.

Cheers,

Christina

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Book recommendations are my love language.

I’ll be frank: the first six weeks after having a baby wrecked me. Whoever coined the term “sleep like a baby” has never met mine. Overwhelmed and beyond exhausted, it took me days to notice I’d developed mastitis and a roaring fever - I was so consumed by pain that new pain simply failed to register.

All that to say, I felt barely human - but even so, in minutes and moments, I still found myself wanting to read. And there was one book that was so precisely what I needed, I’ve already sent it to three of my expecting friends.