Same Page SF | Silent reading parties, South Asian folklore, and a scathing family saga

Plus, your July sneak peek

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 looking to read in community

You’ve got options! On Tuesday, Book Passage is celebrating Read 25 Day with 25 minutes of reading time followed by a raffle (6/24, 4pm, free). Later that evening, enjoy beer, wine, and quiet time at Booksmith’s Silent Reading Party, with proceeds benefiting the Trans Youth Emergency Project (6/24, 7pm, $3+). Last but not least, read, drink, and mingle at Black Bird’s After-Hours Reading Club (Wednesday 6/25, 7pm, $10).

2) You’re intrigued by the debut described as “Iron Chef meets The Hunger Games” 

Roselle Lim on Celestial Banquet at Green Apple Books on the Park and via Zoom. Wednesday 6/25, 7pm, free with registration. 

Join Roselle Lim to celebrate the YA fantasy Publishers Weekly called “dazzling … a tale that satisfies all the senses” in a starred review. Set in a magical world inspired by Chinese and South Asian folklore, Celestial Banquet follows a hotheaded young noodle chef competing in a cutthroat cooking competition for the gods. The evening will kick off with a chat between Lim and her publisher Ayesha Curry (yes, that Ayesha Curry!), followed by audience Q&A, a signing line, and snacks.

3) You want to more deeply understand our current political moment

Brando Simeo Starke on Their Accomplices Wore Robes: How the Supreme Court Chained America to the Bottom of a Racial Caste System at 220 Montgomery (KALW Pop-Up). Thursday 6/26, 7pm, $5-10 suggested donation. 

A New Day with KALW is a recently launched live event series that seeks to understand the forces and people contributing to our current political moment - how we got here, what’s at stake, and what’s possible. In partnership with Litquake, legal scholar Brando Simeo Starkey will speak with KALW’s Sunni M. Khalid about his new book Their Accomplices Wore Robes, a blistering history of the Supreme Court’s role in implementing and preserving a racial caste system in America.

4) You’re in the mood for a family saga with scathing social commentary

Jess Walter on So Far Gone at Green Apple Books on the Park and via Zoom. Thursday 6/26, 7pm, free. 

Up until today, I’d considered myself reasonably familiar with bestselling author Jess Walter - Beautiful Ruins was everywhere a few summers back, though I’ll argue We Live in Rome is criminally underrated - but it’s only due to this newsletter that I discovered he’s a man, and not the vaguely Italian-looking woman I’d pictured. The more you know! 

Setting that aside, he’s back with his eighth novel So Far Gone, a provocative misadventure about a reclusive journalist forced back into the world to rescue his grandchildren, who - thanks to his conspiracy theorist son-in-law - are in custody of a right-wing militia. I’ve read an advance copy, and I agree with Ann Patchett’s take: “I marveled how Jess Walter managed to build such a warm, funny, loving novel out of so many horrible parts. It’s an American original.”

5) You want to reconnect with your younger self

Tiffany Triệu on Inner Child: 10 Ways to Reparent and Heal Yourself x Collage Club at On Waverly. Saturday 6/28, 2pm, free (RSVP requested).

On Waverly, the city’s newest bookstore, continues to impress with its creative and thoughtful event programming - most of what they host is much more interactive than your standard author talk. This Saturday, come for conversation, collaging, and (re)connection with your childhood self - “an afternoon of self-discovery” - facilitated by Tiffany Triệu, author of Inner Child, and community group Our Mutual Friend. (And while you’re there, don’t miss the stunning clubhouse art by local muralist and illustrator Angie Chu!)

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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  Niko Stratis on The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman, a memoir-in-essays “on transness, dad rock, and the music that saves us,” on Zoom via Green Apple Books on the Park |  Robert P. Baird on The Nimbus, a tragicomedy of marriage, religion, and parenthood, at Books Inc. Marina

TUESDAY  Book launch and fundraiser for These Empires, These Flowers, a poetry chapbook to support displaced Palestinian youth, at Medicine for Nightmares  |  The Moth StorySLAM at Public Works

WEDNESDAY  Nicole Wong on Mahjong: House Rules from Across the Asian Diaspora at Book Passage