Same Page SF | Happy Independent Bookstore Week!
Featuring bike rides, bookmark contests, tarot readings, bookstore bingo...
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 and signal-boost author events, book clubs, new releases, and community gatherings happening across our city.
Same Page is a labor of love, but it’s still very much a labor - one that’s made possible by paid subscribers. By opting to pay just $5 per month, you’re saying that each issue gives you at least $1 worth of value. (For both our sakes, I hope that’s true!)
Paid subscribers get perks like curated sneak peeks, thoughtful book recommendations, and early access to book giveaways to support local and visiting authors - not to mention the warm fuzzies of knowing you’re helping make Same Page sustainable.
Hooray for Independent Bookstore Day!
This Saturday is Independent Bookstore Day - a celebration of the places and people that make being a reader so special. In San Francisco, we have a wealth of indie bookstores, from lovingly curated shops like Black Bird to eminently browsable ones like Green Apple, from paragons of history like City Lights to spectacular new additions like Book Castle.
Before getting into how to celebrate, I want to share why Independent Bookstore Day was created in the first place: to challenge Amazon’s growing chokehold over books. Some context:
Books on Amazon are treated as “loss leaders,” which means they’re priced below market value. On average, Amazon will sell them for a whopping 30-40% less than the price listed on the jacket.
How does this work in practice? Let’s say a just-published hardcover should be sold for $30 to compensate everyone who’s worked to bring it into the world. Publishers generally charge booksellers 50-60% of the list price, so an indie bookstore might pay $17 to stock it; when a customer buys it, the $13 profit goes to rent, salaries, and other essentials.
Amazon can afford to undercut and offer that same $30 book for $20. Sure, it’ll turn a smaller margin (though not by much - it leverages its market power to demand above-average discounts from publishers, a coercive strategy deemed “Project Gazelle” for obvious and ominous reasons). But unlike a bookstore, it’s not operating a commercial storefront, nor does it attempt to pay livable salaries. Also unlike a bookstore, it doesn’t support itself by selling books - not even close! While Amazon’s captured more than 50% of the US print book market, 83% of the e-book market, and 63% of the audiobook market, that dominance represents a single-digit fraction of its annual revenue.
In other words, Amazon preys on indie bookstores by taking losses on book sales so it can lure more customers, gather more data, and make more money on its other, higher-margin products. This isn’t just a threat to bookstores (though that’s bad enough!) - it systematically devalues literature as a whole.
So what does it mean for you? Without getting preachy - OK, I’ll get a little preachy - don’t buy books from Amazon! (While you’re at it, divest from Goodreads, which it’s owned since 2013. Try Italic Type instead!) It feels convenient and cheap in the moment - but the true cost more than outweighs any dollars you’re saving.
If you’re interested in learning more, I recommend How To Resist Amazon and Why by Danny Caine and The Everything Store by Brad Stone.
Whew - heavy stuff. And important information. But Independent Bookstore Day is about celebrating! Here’s how:
🚲 Partake by bike! Join Books Not Bans, Litquake, and the SF Bicycle Coalition in biking to as many participating bookstores as you can - here’s a handy map - and enter the raffle to win bookish prizes.
🎨 Enter the bookmark design contest co-run by Green Apple Books and yours truly. The winner will get their design printed on a limited run of bookmarks and a $50 gift card. Submit online or in-person at Green Apple Books on the Park Saturday morning, where I’ll be tabling from 10am-12pm - come say hi!
💻 Check your favorite bookstore’s website or Instagram account to see the most up-to-date info on their festivities - like tarot readings, live music, and bookstore bingo.
On to the other goings-on!
Aside from Indepedent Bookstore Day, here’s what you’ll want to attend if:
1) You’re fungi-curious
Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez on Let’s Become Fungal! at Omnivore Books. Thursday 4/25, 6:30pm, free.
Meet Mexico City-based curator and researcher Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez for the launch of her fascinatingly unclassifiable book Let’s Become Fungal!: Mycelium Teachings and the Arts, a series of lessons in “fungal activism, Indigenous knowledge and collaboration for anyone intrigued by the fascinating life and inspiring metaphors of the mycelium and the mushroom.” Wine will be provided!
2) You want to celebrate Black literature and National Poetry Month
Black Fire This Time Vol. 2 Readings at MoAD. Wednesday 4/24, 6:30pm, pay what you can.
Join MoAD and Litquake in celebration of the second volume of Black Fire This Time, which features over 75 writers on the ongoing theme of “Black is Beautiful, Black is Powerful, Black is Home.” There’ll be a poetry reading featuring poets Judy Juanita, Tureeda Mikell, Karla Brundage, Thurman Watts, Sheila Smith McCoy, and Katherine Takara.
3) You’re looking to work on craft in community
Poetry Workshop at Uzay Gallery. Saturday 4/27, 12-5pm, $25 (with one free ticket for a lucky reader!)
Join Hotspot Creatives and Decentered Arts, a nonprofit dedicated to building resilient communities through art of all mediums, for an all-levels poetry workshop with a Q&A panel, spoken-word performances, activities, and a raffle. They’ll have food and drink too - all you need is your notebook!
They’re generously providing one complimentary ticket to a Same Page reader - if you want it to be you, reply to this email letting me know. (As always, paid subscribers get priority!)
4) You’re inspired by How to Do Nothing
Christie George on The Emergency Was Curiosity at The Ruby. Thursday 4/25, 6-9pm, free.
The Emergency Was Curiosity is a body of art and personal essays inspired by Jenny Odell’s 2019 book How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy. Originally developed as a personal response, “what started as a book report … evolved into a series of events to practice doing nothing in community.” Join creator Christie George for an exhibition of the project, including interactive activities and a dance party. Not your average literary Thursday!
5) You’re interested in our collective interpretation of beauty - especially in relation to disability
Chloé Cooper Jones on Easy Beauty at Sydney Goldstein Theater via City Arts & Lectures. Friday 4/26, 7:30pm, $39.
Chloé Cooper Jones’ unforgettable memoir Easy Beauty begins with this: “I am in a bar in Brooklyn, listening to two men, my friends, discuss whether my life is worth living.” Born with a rare congenital condition that affects her stature and gait, she’ll interrogate disability, motherhood, and social acceptability in a fireside-style chat with Catherine Lacey, whose most recent book Biography of X might be the most ambitious novel I’ve read since Hernan Diaz’s Trust. Needless to say - I’m psyched for this one.
Also
The Writers Grotto, an inclusive community of professional writers offering co-working space, workshops, and networking, is open for membership applications through April 30 | Jess Damuck of Salad Freak on Health Nut: A Feel-Good Cookbook at Omnivore Books Monday | Ticketed book-signing with Rob Anderson for Gay Science at The Booksmith Monday | Giovanna Lomanto on poetry collection Driver’s Seat Echo at Green Apple Books on the Park Tuesday | Greg Sarris on short story collection The Forgetters at City Lights Wednesday | Gerri Lewin on The Last Word at Booksmith Thursday | Dr. Colman Ryan on Heart and Soul at Bookshop West Portal Thursday | Joel Gion on In the Jingle Jangle Jungle at City Lights Thursday | Literary speakeasy at Martuni’s Thursday | “Night of retail wellness” at Perch Thursday | José Vadi on Chipped: Writing from a Skateboarder’s Lens at Green Apple Books on the Park Thursday | Conjuring Poetic Words as Medicine for Nightmares reading series Thursday | Chanel Miller on Magnolia Wu Unfolds it All at Books Inc Chestnut Friday | Yuliya Patsay on Until the Last Pickle: A Memoir in 18 Recipes at Black Bird Sunday | “Modern pasta legend” Dan Pashman on Anything’s Pastable at the Swedish American Hall Sunday | Poetry reading with the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal Sunday
Book-adjacent gatherings
Not *about* books, but around them
👣 Celebrate I Love Tenderloin Week with the SFPL and Small Business Boogie through a “small business crawl.” Walk to five different businesses, hear stories from the owners, and take advantage of special discounts. Tuesday 4/23, 5-7:45pm, free (registration required).
🌳 Manny’s and the Cal Academy of Sciences are holding a talk on urban biodiversity. Join leading scientists, researchers, and educators for a conversation about the interconnectedness of humans, plants, and animals, even - especially! - in urban spaces. Tuesday 4/23, 5-6pm, $15 (comped tickets available).
🎶 Adobe Books & Arts Co-Op is hosting its monthly music improv night. Bring a music-making instrument - or just yourself! Thursday 4/25, 8-10pm, free.
Thanks for reading!
If you appreciated this issue of Same Page, please pass 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, I’d love to hear! Just reply to this email or message me on Instagram.
Cheers,
Christina
Book recommendations are my love language.
A bonus for paid subscribers: each week I feature a book I’ve recently read and wholeheartedly loved.
This week’s recommendation is for a book I first read in 2022 thanks to a spot-on suggestion from Lael at Christopher’s Books. I reread it this week and it held up; if anything, I love it even more now.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Same Page SF to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.