Same Page SF | Our Spotify Wrapped put us in a bookstore 🎵
Not really, but it should've. (What's Bozeman like, anyway?)
Welcome back to Same Page SF, your friendly, well-informed, and spectacularly nerdy source for local book discussions, author talks, writer meet-ups, new releases, and other bookish gatherings.
Speaking of local, did anyone’s Spotify Sound Town actually place them in San Francisco? I was initially taken aback to learn that my musical soulmates reside in Bozeman, then inordinately delighted to discover Montana has the most independent bookstores per capita (or at least they did the last time anyone counted). Now it makes sense!
Setting other cities aside, here are five things this week you’ll love if…
1 & 2) You’re feeling bookish, festive, and maybe a bit boozy
Booksmith on Ice @ The Booksmith and Alembic. Monday 12/4, 4-9pm, free admission.
Come for the expert book recs and free gift-wrapping; stay for the live music and craft cocktails, not to mention the ~secret passage~ connecting the bookstore and bar. Registration isn’t required, but everyone who RSVPs will be entered into a raffle, so plan ahead!
Latkes, Vodka, and Kafka @ Fabulosa Books. Saturday 12/9, 3-4:30pm.
Stop by for a Chanukah celebration with latkes, cider (spiked if you’d like!), and dreidel.
2) You want to nourish your body and your mind
Kitchen Table @ 826 Valencia Tenderloin Center. Friday 12/8, 7pm, free with food available for purchase.
Kitchen Table is a pop-up series centered on poetry and literature, food and drink, and culture and politics. This month, poets Zara Jamshed and Kimi Sugioka and food journalist Ariana Bindman will share their work and chat with the audience over comfort food from Porch Party.
3) You love small presses and big museums
2023 Small Press Book Bazaar @ SF MOMA. Thursday 12/7, 1-8pm, free admission.
Support the Bay Area’s creative community at this museum pop-up, with unique offerings from local presses, zine publishers, and artists. (Note: It’s a First Thursday, so the rest of the MOMA will be free to residents!)
4) You want a second chance
We can’t turn back the clock, but we *can* help you hear from authors you might have missed the first time around.
If you couldn’t make it to Angela Hume’s talk at Green Apple, City Lights is welcoming her back for a virtual discussion of Deep Care, the story of the radical feminists who worked outside the law to defend abortion. Tuesday 12/5, 6pm, free (registration required).
If you missed urbanist John King of Portal: San Francisco’s Ferry Building and the Invention of American Cities at Book Passage, catch him at Manny’s in conversation with Chronicle colleague and Total SF host Peter Hartlaub. Wednesday 12/6, 6pm, $15 (comped tickets available).
If you didn’t get to hear Susan Kiyo Ito read from her memoir I Would Meet You Anywhere at The Booksmith, she’ll be performing at Babylon Salon along with Helene Wecker, Ilana DeBare, Teresa Burns Gunther, and Sarah Rose Cadorette. (What a lineup!) Saturday 12/9, 5pm, free.
5) You have The Art of Gathering on your TBR
A reminder from last week, but book giveaways bear repeating!
In partnership with TendWell Collective, the SFPL is hosting a wellness-focused book club next Tuesday 12/12 to discuss The Art of Gathering, and they’re gifting copies to Same Page readers who’d like to join. 🤗
If you’re interested in attending - you don’t have to have finished the book! - request your free copy here. Thanks, SFPL!
Also happening (it’s a busy week!)
And this still doesn’t cover everything
Sara Calvosa Olson on Native Californian food and her cookbook Chími Nu’am | Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore on her new book Touching the Art | Kliph Nesteroff in conversation with comedian Irene Tu on Outrageous: A History of Showbiz and the Culture Wars | Tariq Trotter, aka Black Thought, on his memoir The Upcycled Self | Lecture on finding and maintaining your writing community | Social Justice Children’s Holiday Book Fair | Rare Book Sale at Letterform Archive | Review of the 70-year history of City Lights | Town Hall on Bay Area Poetry
Book-adjacent gatherings
Not *about* books, but around them
🖼️ Black Bird Bookstore and Cafe is hosting an art reception for 3 Fish Studios, who previously operated out of their gorgeous Outer Sunset space, Thursday 12/7 from 6-9pm. (Can’t make it? See the exhibit on Sunday 12/10 when you come by for a pop-up with printmaker Jennifer Zee!)
🚲 Join Green Apple Books for a guided bike ride - all levels welcome! - through GGP from their Sunset to their original Richmond location, where they’ll be handing out bike lights and refreshments as part of the Clementine Holiday Stroll. Thursday 12/7, 5-7pm, free.
🎞️ Block off your calendars and sneak off for a long lunch break: SFPL is screening Barbie at its Western Addition branch and Miracle on 34th Street at Main, both Thursday 12/7 from 12-2pm. Free, low-key, and BYOP 🍿.
Shelfie of the week
A snapshot featuring one of our beloved local bookstores or library branches
If you’re craving a little mystery in your reading life - genre-wise or more broadly! - look no further than Book Castle, the newest addition to San Francisco’s indie-bookstore community. Settled into its permanent location on Cortland, they’ve got an eminently browsable mix of new and used titles - and a shelf dedicated to Blind Dates. (If you haven’t seen them, they’re just what they sound like - you choose a wrapped book based only on a few descriptors. No judging-by-its-cover!)
Speaking of indie businesses, now’s a good time to remind you of our favorite Goodreads alternative: Italic Type, the refreshingly simple book-tracking app and your reading oasis in a noisy world.
If you enjoyed this newsletter, I’d be grateful if you’d let me know by sharing it with a bookish friend or two (or more, but let’s be real, we’re all introverts here).
Have an upcoming event you’d like me to include? Want to share an idea or ask a question? I’d love to hear from you! Just reply to this email or message me on Instagram.
Cheers,
Christina
Same Page SF
Book recommendations are my love language.
A bonus for those who reach the bottom: each week I’ll feature one book - sometimes more! - I’ve recently read and wholeheartedly loved.
I’m especially excited to share Removal Acts because I learned about it in the process of writing last week’s newsletter! Green Apple Books hosted Erin Marie Lynch, in conversation with Shelley Wong, in discussion of Erin’s debut book of poems. (I use the term “book” deliberately, since she said she doesn’t see it as a collection. After reading through, I understand: the individual poems are stunning, but they’re fully coherent in the context and flow of the others.)
Removal Acts takes its name from the 1863 Federal Act that banished the Dakota people - including her great-great-grandmother Elisabeth - from their homelands, and explores the present-day repercussions of historical violence and erasure. It sounds heavy - it is! - but it’s also visual and creative and vivid and searing, and an undeniable example of what language can achieve.
These links will bring you to my Bookshop.org page, and I’ll earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase - but I’ll be delighted if you buy directly from one of our indie booksellers (Green Apple in this case!) or borrow from the SFPL. If you do, please send me a note to let me know - it’ll make my day!