Same Page SF | Love letters to mahjong, airplanes, and mistakes

Plus, a Magic 8 ball in book form 🔮

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 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 looking for a tribal-politics thriller

Jon Hickey on Big Chief at Green Apple Books on the Park and via Zoom. Tuesday 4/8, 7pm, free.

Join Jon Hickey to celebrate his first novel Big Chief, named a most-anticipated debut by the San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, and more. Set on a reservation in Wisconsin, it explores politics, power, and belonging, and it’s been intriguingly described as There, There meets The Night Watchman. He’ll be in conversation with Zach Williams, whose short story collection Barack Obama included among his favorite books last year.

2) You’re curious about the world’s most popular tile-based game

Nicole Wong on Mahjong: House Rules from Across the Asian Diaspora at On Waverly and via Zoom. Tuesday 4/8, 5:30-7pm, free (registration requested).

Nicole Wong was inspired to document her Chinese New Zealand family’s rules for mahjong after discovering how drastically the etiquette and play style could vary. Over time, her quest expanded into a broader investigation into the history and diaspora of the game, culminating in Mahjong: House Rules from Across the Asian Diaspora. She’ll be celebrating its publication with podcaster Tobin Low, whose work focuses on the intersection of queerness and Asian American identity.

3) You’re in the mood for a surreally sexy story 

Kate Folk on Sky Daddy at Booksmith. Wednesday 4/9, 7pm, free (registration requested). 

Kate Folk’s imagination is out there, and I mean that in the best possible way. Her hotly anticipated novel Sky Daddy follows Linda, a low-level content moderator with a secret: she’s irresistably attracted to commercial airliners. Yes, to the “aluminum embrace” and “girthy central spine” of the plane itself. She’ll be discussing her “unforgettable ode to the pursuit of desire” (Publishers Weekly starred review) with Rita Bullwinkel, whose Headshot was longlisted for last year’s Booker Prize.

4) You’re looking for poems that “make living an act of asking”

Lena Moses-Schmitt on True Mistakes at Green Apple Books on the Park and via Zoom. Thursday 4/10, 7pm, free. 

Lena Moses-Schmitt

is visiting from New York to celebrate her debut collection True Mistakes. A finalist for the 2025 Miller Williams Poetry Prize, it’s a powerfully evocative exploration of consciousness, identity, and choice. I’ve been thinking a lot about commitment lately, so this poem - which first appeared in literary magazine The Journal - especially resonated:

She’s generously gifted a signed copy of True Mistakes to a paid Same Page reader - details behind the paywall!

5) You’re looking for a Magic 8 ball in book form

Vicki Tan on Ask This Book a Question at Problem Library. Friday 4/11, 6-9pm, free (registration requested).  

Join longtime product designer Vicki Tan for the launch of Ask This Book a Question, a journey of self-discovery that blends cognitive science and interactive storytelling to make better decisions. The celebration will bring the book to life: browse risograph-printed mental maps, explore an “interactive question loom,” and submit a question for Vicki to analyze in real time! Appropriately, it’s hosted at Problem Library, a nonprofit supporting a renaissance towards beauty, goodness, and truth.

Also 

MONDAY  Poet Cedar Sigo on Siren of Atlantis, an “introspective odyssey” of learning to write again after a stroke, at City Lights

TUESDAY  Editors Nat Raha and Mijke van der Drift on Trans Femme Futures : An Abolitionist Ethic for Transfeminist Worlds at City Lights  |  Travel blogger Matt Kepnes on How to Travel the World on $75 a Day at Book Passage  |  On the Page, Off the Page at SFPL Park

WEDNESDAY  Open Mic Night at Black Bird  |  Daniel Breyer on Smokebirds at Green Apple Books on the Park  |  Lacey Ostermann on 3 Doughs, 60 Recipes at Omnivore  |  David Rieff on Desire and Fate at Mechanics’ Institute 

THURSDAY  Ray Nayler on Where the Axe is Buried, “a thrilling near-future world of geopolitical espionage,” at City Lights  |  Meeting of the Bound Together Book Club at Bound Together Books  |  Bob Ostertag on Encounters with Men at Fabulosa  |  Adam Plantinga on Hard Town (Argento #2) at Book Passage  |  Rakesh Khanna and Rashmi Ruth Devadasan on The Blaft Anthology of Gujarati Pulp Fiction at Medicine for Nightmares  |  Georgia Freedman on Snacking Dinners, with bites from the book and guest chef appearances, at Omnivore | Poetry reading hosted by SF Poet Laureate emerita Kim Shuck at SFPL Main. | Pulitzer Prize winner Viet Than Nguyen on To Save and To Destroy: Writing as an Other at Mill Valley Library is sold out, but you can add yourself to a waitlist

FRIDAY  Poems Under the Dome at City Hall  |  Boff Whalley, founding member of Chubawumba, on But Life Isn’t Like That, Is It? at Bound Together Books | Essayist Brianna Wiest signing copies of her new collection The Life That’s Waiting at Black Bird; pre-order to reserve your spot in line

SATURDAY  Ella deCastro Baron on Subo and Bacon: A Memoir in Bites at Medicine for Nightmares  |  Anders Nilsen on Tongues at Silver Sprocket  |  Margaret Juhae Lee on Starry Field: A Memoir of Lost History at SFPL Main  |   Launch party for The Cleaving: Vietnamese Writers in the Diaspora at Mechanics’ Institute | Salon-style book discussion of We Run the Tides by Vendela Vida at Problem Library

SUNDAY  SF in SF featuring Daryl Gregory & Nghi Vo at The Lost Church | Meeting of the QSF&F Book Club at Borderlands  |  Health journalist Murray Carpenter on Sweet and Deadly: How Coca-Cola Spreads Disinformation and Makes Us Sick at Book Passage

---

Book-adjacent gatherings 

Not *about* books, but around them

• ⚾ Into baseball and books? Library Night with the Giants is your chance to celebrate both! $5 of every ticket for the game against the Orioles will benefit the SFPL’s literacy and learning programs. Monday 4/7, 7pm, $18-110.

• 💬 Wondering what it’s like to be a kid these days? Manny’s is hosting a panel of Mission High School kids to talk through the trials and tribulations of teenagehood in 2025. Thursday 4/10, 6pm, $10.

• 🧵 SFPL Ocean View is partnering with SCRAP for a first-come first-served fix-it clinic. Bring one item of clothing in need of basic repair - they’ve got the materials and the expertise! Saturday 4/12, 2-4pm, 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. So I’m seeking 200 paid subscribers by July to make it sustainable.

Paid subscribers get weekly book recommendations, priority access to giveaways, and sneak peeks for events likely to sell out. (Founding subscribers also get personalized book suggestions on request!)

THANK YOU to those of you who have upgraded. I’m encouraged by your support and kind words.

I'm grateful to you for doing time-consuming but necessary work to help strengthen the fabric of the Bay Area's in-person literary community.

It would also 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 a question to ask or an event to share, I’d love to hear from you! Reply to this email or find me at hello@samepagesf.com.

Cheers,
Christina

---

Book recommendations (and giveaways) are my love language.

I’ve been wildly inspired by the last few poetry events, so read on for my new and enduring favorite collections.