Wednesday 1/15: “Mapping the Bay” features San Francisco Poet Laureate Kim Shuck with local poets Thea Matthews and Kevin Madrigal reading old and new work at City Lights Booksellers in San Francisco at 7 p.m.
Reviews of Miranda Popkey’s debut novel, Topics of Conversation, have drawn comparisons to Rachel Cusk and Sally Rooney. Popkey discusses her book with Rachel Khong (Goodbye, Vitamin) at 7:30 p.m. at the 9th Avenue location of Green Apple Books in San Francisco.
Thursday 1/16: Kiley Reid’s Such a Fun Age was optioned for the screen by Lena Waithe, is this month’s pick for Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club, and is now a New York Times best-seller. Reid will be reading and signing at Great Good Books in Oakland at 7 p.m.
Melanie Blake gives a talk, “The War That Used Up Words? Literature in Paris 1910-1940,” at Alliance Française in San Francisco at 7 p.m. (tickets $10–$15).
The Tenderloin Museum in San Francisco presents a zine pop-up and screening of But I Love the Zine, followed by a panel discussion with director Fiona McDougall and Bay Area indie publishers Max Stadnik of Tiny Splendor, V. Vale of RE/Search Publications, and artist Raphael Villet. Reception/zine pop-up at 6:30 p.m., screening at 7:15 p.m. (tickets $10).
Claire Rudy Foster talks about their new book, Shine of the Ever—described as a literary mixtape of queer voices out of 1990s Portland—at Booksmith in San Francisco at 7 p.m.
Friday 1/17: Two of the region’s most prominent poets, Jane Hirshfield (Ledger) and Gary Snyder (Tawny Grammar), read from their work at the Mill Valley Public Library at 7 p.m. The event is full, but if you haven’t already registered you can try your luck by showing up on the evening and joining the wait line.
Catch the feel-good documentary, Faces Places, featuring the late, legendary filmmaker Agnès Varda, at the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) at 7 p.m. (89 mins, tickets $5–$14). For more on Varda, try Lauren Elkin’s 2017 Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London.
Saturday 1/18: Pierre Thiam, the Senegalese chef who co-founded Teranga, an African fast-casual restaurant in Harlem, talks about his latest book, The Fonio Cookbook: An Ancient Grain Rediscovered at Omnivore Books in San Francisco at 3 p.m.
Mira Jacob reads from her graphic memoir, Good Talk: A Memoir In Conversations, at Great Good Books in Oakland at 6:30 p.m.
Sunday 1/19: BAMPFA screens the biopic, Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, at 1:30 p.m. in Berkeley (119 mins, tickets $5–$14).
Drummer of The Black Crowes Steve Gorman presents his memoir, Hard to Handle: The Life and Death of the Black Crowes, at Book Passage in the Ferry Building in San Francisco at 3 p.m. (tickets $32, including a signed copy of the book).
Tuesday 1/21: New Yorker writer Patricia Marx and New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast present You Can Only Yell at Me for One Thing at a Time: Rules for Couples at First Congregational Church of Oakland at 7 p.m. (tickets $10–$45).
Front man of the Butthole Surfers Gibby Haynes reads from his debut YA novel, Me & Mr. Cigar, at City Lights Booksellers in San Francisco at 7 p.m.
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Logo art by Max Winter.
