Same Page SF | The world's largest literary pub crawl

Plus, our next book club selection is here!

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 the final week of Litquake, and incredibly, they’re not slowing down. Topping my list is a behind-the-scenes peek into literary prizes (Tuesday, 7pm, free with RSVP), a panel with journalists and authors on what happens when reality is stranger than fiction (Wednesday, 6pm, free), and ZYZZYVA’s 40th anniversary party (Thursday, 7pm, free).

Of course, Litquake famously culminates in Lit Crawl, which is just what it sounds like: a massive literary bar crawl through the Mission.

Featuring more than 50 community-conceived events (!) across dozens of neighborhood hot spots, there’s truly something for everyone. Find the schedule here and the map here.

Even setting Litquake aside, it’s another great week to be a reader in San Francisco. If you’ve got the stamina, here’s what else you’ll want to attend if:

2) You’re wondering why the Internet sucks now

Cory Doctorow on Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It at Public Works in partnership with The Booksmith. Monday 10/20, 7pm, $20 (general admission) or $38 (with book).

Coined by journalist-activist Cory Doctorow to describe how online platforms inevitably degrade over time, “enshittification” is both a memorable term - the 2023 Word of the Year per the American Dialect Society - and an apt cultural diagnosis. In what’s sure to be a fascinating conversation, Doctorow will discuss his new book about it with NYT bestselling author Jenny Odell, who’s currently working on a project about repair.

Psst: If you’ve ever been inspired by Jenny Odell’s work - or if you’ve ever been inspired by any book, ever - you’ve got to see Christie George’s The Emergency Was Curiosity. Somewhere between fan (non) fiction and a multimedia book report in response to Odell’s How to Do Nothing, it’s one of the coolest things I’ve come across in years.

3) You’re a Southern Reach reader

Jeff VanderMeer on Absolution at Green Apple Books on the Park. Tuesday 10/21, 7pm, $23 (includes signed book and Green Apple swag).

Beloved speculative fiction and cli-fi author Jeff VanderMeer - admiringly described as “the weird Thoreau” by The New Yorker - is in town to celebrate the paperback release of Absolution, the fourth and final book in his bestselling Southern Reach series. He’ll be speaking with local author Colin Winnette, whose last novel Users was a Finalist for the 2024 Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

4) You’re looking for “one of the most beautiful and truthful books [Imani Perry] has ever read”

Sasha Bonèt on The Waterbearers: A Memoir of Mothers and Daughters at the Booksmith. Thursday 10/23, 7pm.

Join professor, writer, and cultural critic Sasha Bonét to celebrate the launch of The Waterbearers, which interweaves her personal story of three generations of Black mothers with a broader look at lives of Black women in history and literature. Asking how to mother in a way that honors family legacy without honoring the violence that shaped it, Imani Perry called it “one of the most beautiful and truthful books I’ve ever read.”

5) You’re joining our book club

Same Page x Black Bird Book Club. Sunday 11/16, 7pm, free with RSVP.

I’m delighted to announce the next selection for the Same Page x Black Bird Book Club: Sea Now by Eva Meijer, translated by Anne Thompson Melo. A surprisingly peaceful story about what happens when the delicate balance of nature tips in favor of the sea, it’s easy to forget it’s set in the Netherlands and imagine it here.

But that’s not the only local link! Sea Now is published by Two Lines Press, the award-winning publisher for our very own Center for the Art of Translation, a nonprofit championing literary translation.

We’ll be joined by CJ Evans, publisher and editor-in-chief of Two Lines Press, who can speak to the process of acquiring and editing Sea Now and working with international literature more broadly. As always, the club meeting is open to everyone, but capacity is limited, so reserve your spot here.

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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 Sophia Dahlin on her poetry collection Glove Money, “a hymn to perversity, a lyric pledge to desire and risk,” at City Lights | Hetty Lui McKinnon on Linger: Salads, Sweets and Stories to Savor at Omnivore | Xixanx Gothic with visiting writers Colton Cuca Campbell, Elvira and Carrizal-Dukes and locals M.M. Olivas and Scott Russell Duncan at Medicine for Nightmares | Ruth Asawa Spoken Arts Freshman Poetry Showcase at SFPL Glen Park

TUESDAY Kaila Yu on her memoir Fetishized: A Reckoning with Yellow Fever, Feminism, and Beauty at On Waverly | Roy Scranton on Impasse: Climate Change and the Limits of Progress at City Lights | Dorie Greenspan on Dorie’s Anytime Cakes at JCCSF in partnership with Omnivore | The Telltale Heart: A Rap Adaptation, co-presented with Word for Word and Amoeba Music, at Z Below (Litquake) | Pre-publication launch party for National Book Award finalist Susan Straight’s new novel Sacrament at Books Inc. Opera Plaza (Litquake) | The Tortured Poets: An Ode to Taylor Swift, emceed by Kristie Daugherty of Invisible Strings: 113 Poets Respond to the Songs of Taylor Swift, at Make Out Room (Litquake) | Saeed Jones and Maggie Smith, plus local contributors, on their liberatory anthology The People’s Project: Poems, Essays, and Art for Looking Forward at Great Star Theater in partnership with Green Apple Books on the Park (Litquake)

WEDNESDAY Award-winning short story writer Stephanie Reents on her debut novel We Loved to Run at the Booksmith | Associate professor Dr. Michael De Anda Muñiz on Imperial Policing and Weaponized Data: Challenging the Use of Technology to Suppress Communities of Color at Medicine for Nightmares | Designer Ben Swire on Safe Danger: An Unexpected Method for Sparking Connection, Finding Purpose, and Inspiring Innovation at Book Passage | S. Lucia Kanter St. Amour on The Covert Buccaneer at SFIAC in partnership with Book Passage | Author and illustrator Lisa Brown on The Moving Book at Green Apple Books on the Park | After-Hours Reading Club at Black Bird | APAture 2025 Literary Arts Showcase, featuring Nicola Andrews and emerging writers from the APA community, at Arc Studios and Gallery (Litquake) | Award-winning Irish writer Eimear McBride on her new novel The City Changes Its Face at Telegraph Hill Books (Litquake) | John Freeman on California Rewritten: A Journey through the Golden State’s New Literature, with West Coast book trivia by City Light’s Paul Yamazaki, to celebrate five years of Alta Journal’s California Book Club at Verdi Club (Litquake)