Same Page SF | A time-travel mystery, a flooded dystopia, and a Palestinian-American Sex in the City
Plus, an ambitious goal for Same Page
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 write Same Page to publicize and signal-boost 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 attend if:
1) You love a time-travel mystery with a clever cover
Kirsten Menger-Anderson on The Expert of Subtle Revisions at Bookshop West Portal. Tuesday 3/18, 7pm, free.
Local author Kirsten Menger-Anderson’s The Expert of Subtle Revisions has two protagonists: a young Wikipedia hobbyist whose father has mysteriously gone missing and a mathematics professor in 1930s Vienna, where, against a backdrop of rising fascism, there are rumors of a time machine. (Anyone else getting The Ministry of Time vibes?) And if the cover wasn’t compelling enough, Daphne Kalotay’s review sold me:
“If, like me, you become riled up over the difference between ‘accepted’ versus ‘chose’ or ‘killed’ versus ‘murdered’ then you too will absolutely love the brainy, vigilante spirit of The Expert of Subtle Revisions.”
2) You want to understand the world through a single city
Alexis Madrigal on The Pacific Circuit: A Globalized Account of the Battle for the Soul of an American City at Green Apple Books on the Park and via Zoom. Thursday 3/20, 7pm, free.
NPR host and award-winning journalist Alexis Madrigal’s The Pacific Circuit deep-dives into Oakland as a microcosm of the world, holding a magnifying glass to systemic segregation, the rise of Silicon Valley, and the unholy alliance of venture capital and hedge funds. Hua Hsu called it “a marvel of real-life storytelling.”
3) You’re looking for a dark yet tender dystopia
Muriel Leung on How to Fall in Love in a Time of Unnameable Disaster at Green Apple Books on the Park and via Zoom. Wednesday 3/19, 7pm, free.
I’ve joked that my favorite genre is “post-apocalyptic novels with resilience and joy” (think Station Eleven), so Muriel Leung’s How to Fall in Love in a Time of Unnameable Disaster - set in a New York City transformed by acid rainstorms, centering on an apartment home to an unlikely family of humans and ghosts - falls right in my wheelhouse. She’ll be in conversation with award-winning novelist K-Ming Chang.
4) You’re intrigued by the “Palestinian American Sex in the City”
Betty Shamieh on Too Soon at Bookshop West Portal. Thursday 3/20, 7pm, free.
Palestinian-American playwright Betty Shamieh’s hotly anticipated Too Soon thoughtfully explores exile, ambition, and love through three generations of women; as someone who scored an advance copy, it’s also raucously funny. In a fascinating interview, Shamieh explained that in a sea of grief-centered literature, she set out to write “a Palestinian-American Sex in the City” - something that embraced the full humanity of her characters, including but not limited to loss.
5) Capital in the Twenty-First Century has been languishing on your TBR for years
Tim Redmond on economic inequality at SFPL Golden Gate. Saturday 3/22, 2-3:30pm, free (seats limited, first-come first-served).
I’ve attempted Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century a few times now, but even as someone who reads for a living, the 700+ page tome is intimidating. But Piketty’s thesis - that the rise of fascism and populist authoritarianism are direct consequences of wealth hoarding - is too timely to ignore. Luckily, journalist Tim Redmond’s considered Capital in its entirety, and his class on economic inequality will unpack how decades-old tax policies drive present-day crises like homelessness, student debt, and inaccessible medical care.
Also
MONDAY Muralist and picture book creator Katie Yamasaki on Mural Island at City Lights
TUESDAY 40 Years of the Whiting Award with winners Rita Bullwinkel, A. Van Jordan, and Brontez Purnell at Green Apple Books on the Park | Colombian culture writer Manuel Betancourt on Hello Stranger: Musings on Modern Intimacies at Fabulosa | KQED Live and AAJASF present Hella Asian: Bridging the Bay at The Commons | Queer genre fiction writing class - the first in a free six-week series! - with Johnny Alvarez at Medicine for Nightmares
WEDNESDAY Journalist Michael Lewis, comedian W. Kamau Bell, novelist Dave Eggers, and historian Sara Vowell on government and the untold story of public service via City Arts & Lectures | USF WordNight at The Booksmith | Celebration of the English-language publication of Clarice Lispector’s Covert Joy: Selected Stories with CAT and Two Lines Press at City Lights | Sri Lankan-American poet Indran Amirthanayagam on Seer at Medicine for Nightmares
THURSDAY Poolside Poets at The Phoenix Hotel via Decentered Arts | Launch party for Philip Lamantia’s Selected Poems: 1943-1966 at City Lights | Urban planner and historian James Michael Buckley on City of Wood: San Francisco and the Architecture of the Redwood Lumber Industry at Book Passage | Poets Rachel Richardson and Forrest Gander on their recent collections SMOTHER and Mojave Ghost at Mechanics’ Institute | Founders of Zareen’s Restaurants on Zareen’s Pakistani Kitchen: Recipes from a Well-Fed Childhood at Omnivore | The Cornelius Cardew Choir, Thingamajigs Performance Group, and Pet the Tiger Instrument Inventors Collective on A Year of Deep Listening: 365 Text Scores for Pauline Oliveros at Bird & Beckett | Speaking Axolotl, a BIPOC reading series, featuring Zander Moreno Lozano at Medicine for Nightmares
FRIDAY Torrey Peters (!) at City Arts and Lectures is 99% sold out, but there are a few seats left at the time of this writing | Reading the News with “Print Princess” Kelsey Russell via SFPL Zoom
SATURDAY Josh Duboff on his “painfully relatable” debut novel Early Thirties at Book Passage | Poetry in the Window featuring Preeti Vangani, Connie Mae Oliver, and Sara Borjas at Medicine for Nightmares | Celebration of World Water Day with local poets at SFPL North Beach | Launch party for Yerrie Choo‘s 1 Joke 2 Tears at Silver Sprocket | The Writers Grotto 30th Anniversary Party at Verdi Club (volunteer for a complimentary ticket and drink!)
SUNDAY Cynthia Weiner on her debut novel A Gorgeous Excitement at Book Passage | Crime fiction panel via Litquake | Launch party for Laura Gao’s Kirby’s Lessons for Falling (In Love) at Silver Sprocket | Nicholas Mirzoeff on To See in the Dark: Palestine and Visual Activism Since October 7, with poet Omar Zahzah and the Center for Convivial Research and Autonomy, at Medicine for Nightmares
Book-adjacent gatherings
Not *about* books, but around them
✨ Adobe Books is hosting Astro Lab SF for an “astro social” (thanks to my patient Gen Z colleagues who have repeatedly explained to me why I am a classic Libra). Wednesday 3/19, 7-9pm, free.
🎵 Telegraph Hill Books is welcoming Sofar Sounds, a community that connects artists and audiences through live music in intimate spaces, for a surprise-lineup show. Saturday 3/22, 7:30pm, $34.
🌱 If you have a green thumb (or aspire to), the SFPL’s got you covered! They’re holding a macramé planter workshop at Excelsior (Thursday 3/20, 4-5pm), launching their Seed Library at Ortega (Saturday 3/22, 11am-12pm), and teaching a succulent planter workshop at Visitacion Valley (Saturday 3/22, 2-3pm), all free.
Let’s keep Same Page going, together.
Did you reach the end of this issue and think, wow, Same Page must be a lot of work!?
It is! Same Page is a labor of love, but it’s still a labor - one that requires time and focus in order to do well. No one works in books to get rich, but the opportunity cost of my time has never been clearer: to keep Same Page going, it needs to earn enough to justify the cost of childcare.
So I’m setting a goal: 200 paid subscribers by July to make Same Page sustainable.
If you feel that each issue of Same Page gets you at least a dollar’s worth of value - or you’re part of the the 81% who said you missed Same Page “a lot” or “so much that I’ll upgrade” in last week’s poll - please contribute!
For $5 per month or just over $1 per issue, paid subscribers get weekly book recommendations, priority access to giveaways, and sneak peeks for events likely to sell out. (Founding subscribers get all that, plus personalized book recommendations on request!)
If paying’s not feasible, it would mean a lot if you pass Same Page along to a bookish friend or two - or more, but let’s be real, we’re all introverts here!
As always, if you have questions, ideas, or events to share, just reply to this email.
Cheers,
Christina
Advance notice is my love language.
Each issue of Same Page shares what’s happening that week - but if you want plan ahead, here’s what’s likely to fill up or sell out.
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