Same Page SF | The Bay Area Book Festival is here!
Plus literature in translation, a psychedelic memoir, and a celebration of friendship
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.
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On to the goings-on!
It’s another great week to be a book-lover. Here’s what you’ll want to attend if:
1) You’re looking for the best possible way to spend your weekend
Bay Area Book Festival in downtown Berkeley. Saturday 6/1 and Sunday 6/2, 11-5pm (plus ticketed evening events), mostly free.
As an enthusiastic attendee (some might say devotee) of the Bay Area Book Festival since I moved here for graduate school in 2016, I say this with conviction: San Franciscans, you’re going to want to cross the bridge for this!
The Festival’s mission is to celebrate a wide spectrum of literary voices, nurture literary culture and community, and promote great literary work, with special attention to literature that engages with pressing social issues. They’re going all out for their 10th anniversary - their schedule is bursting with events like:
Joan Baez & Chairman Greg Sarris on Identity and Remembering (ticketed)
Naomi Klein on Navigating the Mirror World (ticketed)
Climate Fiction as a Tool for Climate Justice with Charlie Jane Anders, Sim Kern, Rebecca Roanhorse, and Aya de León
Creative Nonfiction as Reclamation and Confrontation with Myriam Gurba and Ingrid Rojas Contreras
Behind You Is the Sea: Stories and Visions for a Just Peace in Palestine with Hatem Bazian, Susan Muaddi Darraj, and Penny Rosenwasser
And that’s just a small sample, painfully curtailed from my original list!
On top of focused programming, their free outdoor fair runs from 11am-5pm on Sunday, and it’s not to be missed. Browse more than 100 tables to meet authors, small presses, independent booksellers, literary clubs and organizations, and more.
If you want to support beyond attending, they’re still looking for a few volunteers. Join our Same Page volunteer cohort on Sunday afternoon!
2) You’re looking to expand your literary horizons
Women in Translation: Stories from Croatia and Kazakhstan at The Ruby in partnership with the Center for the Art of Translation and the Los Angeles Review of Books. Friday 5/31, 7-8pm, free (RSVP requested).
For every thousand books published in the US, just 30 are works in translation - and of those 30, only 10 were originally written by women, and just a handful in non-Romance languages. Learn more with Ena Selimović and Mirgul Kali, who will read from their recent translations and talk with historian and writer Daniela Blei about their efforts to bring literary works from under-translated languages and writers to English-language readers.
3) You’re intrigued by the relationship between the personal and the ecological
Greg Wrenn on Mothership: A Memoir of Wonder and Crisis at Book Passage. Tuesday 5/28, 5:30pm, free.
Join environmental lit professor Greg Wrenn to celebrate the publication of Mothership: A Memoir of Wonder and Crisis, a “dazzling, evidence-based account” of his quest to heal from complex PTSD by turning to psychedelic plants after traditional therapies failed - and his awakening to the parallels between interpersonal and ecological harm. He’ll be interviewed by Danielle Nova, Executive Director of the San Francisco Psychedelic Society.
4) You love a poetic celebration of friendship
A Friendly Reading & Social at Et al. in partnership with Small Press Traffic. Friday 5/31, 7:30pm, free (RSVP requested).
For the past six months, Gabrielle Civil’s five-part series, Where Would I Be Without You?, has explored the power of friendship and the lived experience of literary connections. For this second-to-last event, Gabrielle has reached out to acclaimed Bay Area poets asking them to share their work - and to invite a friend to read alongside them. Come eat, drink, and revel in poetry and friendship!
Also
MONDAY Second monthly meeting of Babes Who Book at Sour Cherry Comics
TUESDAY Award-winning poet Sally Wen Mao on her first short story collection Ninetails: Nine Tales at Green Apple Books on the Park and via Zoom | Conversation between editor Angie Sijun Lou and contributor Karen Tei Yamashita on anthology Dark Soil: Fictions and Mythographies at Booksmith
WEDNESDAY Bioethicist Carl Elliot on The Occasional Human Sacrifice: Medical Experimentation and the Price of Saying No at Books Inc. Laurel Village | Sociology professor Lindsey Dillon on Toxic City: Redevelopment and Environmental Justice in San Francisco via City Lights Zoom | Business professor Rob Lalka on The Venture Alchemists: How Big Tech Turned Profits into Power at Book Passage | Novelist and playwright Andrea Hairston on Archangels of Funk at SFPL Main | Sausalito-based chef Maria Finn on her latest cookbook Forage. Gather. Feast, featuring a demo by her truffle dog (!)
THURSDAY Literary speakeasy at Martuni’s with guest host Wonder Dave | Romance author Tarah DeWitt on Savor It at Books Inc. Laurel Village | Posthumous launch party for Gil Cuadros’ My Body is Paper at City Lights and via Zoom | Launch celebration for Naomi Kanakia’s The Default World at The Ruby | Tales of the East Village with Bruce Benderson, Catherine Texier, Travis Jeppesen, and Christopher Stoddard at Fabulosa
FRIDAY Ticketed event with Erik Larson, bestselling author of The Splendid and the Vile, for the launch of his new nonfiction The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War
SATURDAY Pride Month for Kids: Seema Yasmin on The ABCs of Queer History at Book Passage | “Readings by the organizers of hundreds of readings,” Elise Ficarra and Steve Dickison, at Et al. | Award-winning author and journalist Malcolm Harris on Palo Alto: A History of Capitalism, California, and The World at Black Bird Bookstore and Cafe | Cellhouse tour guide Brian Stannard on Alcatraz Ghost Story at SFPL North Beach | Bestselling poet, memoirist, and essayist Maggie Nelson on Like Love via City Arts and Lectures | Book Sale Block Party by Friends of the SFPL
SUNDAY Book-signing with Rowena Scherer on Taste of the World, a collection of recipes celebrating global cuisine for families with kids of all ages
Book-adjacent gatherings
Not *about* books, but around them
🎬 Bernal Heights Outdoor Cinema is moving indoors to the Cortland SFPL for a screening and discussion of Las Muralistas: Our Walls, Our Stories, a documentary about the women muralists whose works cover the walls of the Mission District. Filmmaker Camilo Garzón and Bernal-based muralists will be in attendance. Tuesday 5/28, 6:30pm, donation-based.
🎶 Green Apple Books on the Park is holding a Record of the Month Listening Party in celebration of Scott Guild’s Plastic: The Album, a creative companion to his recently published Plastic: The Novel - its dynamic baroque-pop songs feature lyrics from the musical numbers in the book. Friday 5/31, 6pm, free.
🐇 If you’ve got kids (or you’re one at heart), SFPL is welcoming friendly farm animals for a series of pop-up petting zoos on Saturday 6/1, first at the Marina branch from 10am-12pm and later at Western Addition from 2:30-4:30pm.
Thanks for reading!
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As always, if you have questions, ideas, or events to share, I’d love to hear! Just reply to this email.
Cheers,
Christina
Book recommendations Advance notice is my love language.
A perk for paid subscribers: at the start of each month, I include a sneak peek of what’s most likely to fill up or sell out. Here are the June events I’d suggest snagging tickets for - and book clubs I’d start reading for - now:
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