Same Page SF | Bookstore interviews, literary trivia, and resistance success stories

Plus, it's not too late to join a summer reading challenge!

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 summarize 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’re up for some friendly literary competition

Literary Pub Trivia at Gilman Brewing Company (Berkeley). Monday 7/14, 6-9pm, $25. 

Liven up your Monday night with the eagerly awaited return of Litquake’s Literary Pub Trivia! Co-presented by Berkeleyside and hosted by 40-time Jeopardy! champ Amy Schneider, the questions will test your knowledge of classic and contemporary literature, plus local literary lore. Come with a team of up to six readers - or show up solo to get paired - and compete for prizes like tickets to see RuPaul, tote bags from the SFPL, and gift certificates to local bookstores.

2) You’re curious for a paparazzo’s take two decades later 

Jeff Weiss on Waiting for Britney Spears: A True Story, Allegedly at Book Passage. Tuesday 7/15, 5:30pm, free. 

In 2003, Jeff Weiss was one of the innumerable paparazzi assigned to track twenty-one-year-old Britney Spears’ every move and mood. More than two decades later, the now-established music journalist is revisiting his time as a tabloid spy through a mix of memoir and fiction. Waiting for Britney Spears: A True Story, Allegedly follows America’s sweetheart through the chaos - inflicted in no small part by him and his ilk - and, more broadly, explores “a country whose decline is embodied by the devastating downturn of its former golden child.”

3) You’re looking for resistance guidance - and success stories 

On Tuesday, head to Manny’s for a discussion with journalist Miranda Spivack on Backroom Deals in Our Backyards: How Government Secrecy Harms Our Communities and the Local Heroes Fighting Back, which explores the essential role of local journalism and serves as a practical playbook for transparency activism (7/15, 7:30pm, $18+). And on Wednesday, Medicine for Nightmares is hosting Professor Nolan L. Cabrera for a talk on Banned! The Fight For Mexican Studies in the Streets and the Courts, which recounts the successful fight to reinstate the Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican-American Studies Program.

4) Your bucket list includes a visit to Shakespeare and Company

Editor Adam Biles on The Shakespeare and Company Book of Interviews via City Lights Zoom. Thursday 7/17, 12pm, free with registration. 

Located on the banks of the Seine, Shakespeare and Company is widely considered one of the world’s most beautiful bookstores - and it’s long served as a conversational watering hole for anglophone writers and readers. In that tradition, owner Sylvia Whitman and literary director Adam Biles have welcomed hundreds of writers for interviews, and The Shakespeare and Company Book of Interviews contains the best of the decade. Join Biles and Whitman, in conversation with City Lights’ Peter Margolis, for a chat about the collection.

5) You’re (still) nostalgic for a summer reading challenge 

You’re not the only one. And you’ve got options! 

The SFPL’s Summer Stride is open to readers of all ages - log 20 hours of reading or complete their Bingo challenge to win a custom tote. (And don’t forget the raffle - every day you visit a library branch, you’re eligible for a ticket!) 

For grown-ups only, Green Apple Books is partnering with Friends and Neighbors for their second annual Summer Reading Challenge. It runs through the end of September, with occasional gatherings like this Thursday’s black-tie “Summer Reading Challenge Formal” at SFPL Main (5:30pm, free).

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

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Also

MONDAY  Meeting of Babes Who Book at Sour Cherry Comics  |  Mindy Uhrlaub on Last Nerve: A Memoir of Illness and the Endurance of Family at UCSF Weill Neurosciences Building

TUESDAY  Readings by poets William Archila, Lori Bedikian, Leticia Hernández-Linares, and Dorianne Laux in celebration of Archila’s new collection S is For at The Booksmith  |  Tony Ramirez, aka TFTI BBQ, on Backyard BBQ with Fire and Spice: Filipino- and Cajun-Inspired Recipes for the Smoker and Grill at Omnivore  |  Soto Zen Buddhist priest and editor Abbot Jiryu Rutschman-Byler on the late Shunryū Suzuki’s Becoming Yourself: Teachings on the Zen Way of Life via Book Passage Zoom 

WEDNESDAY  Laborfest Writers Group at Bird & Beckett  |  Michael Grunwald on We Are Eating the Earth: The Race to Fix our Food System and Save our Climate at Book Passage  |  Omid Roustaei on Bitter & Sweet: Global Flavors from an Iranian-American Kitchen at Omnivore  |  Andréa Becker on Get it Out: On the Politics of Hysterectomy via City Lights Zoom  |  Roselle Lim on her YA fantasy Celestial Banquet - with Ayesha Curry! - at Green Apple Books on the Park (rescheduled from June)