Sara Marinelli
2017-01-17 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | Adobe Books, 3130 24th St., San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States

Holly Brown
2017-01-17 19:00 - 21:00 | Books Inc. Alameda, 1344 Park Street, Alameda, CA, 94501, United States

Get Lit #20
2017-01-17 19:00 - 22:00 | Ale Industries, 3096 E 10th Street, Oakland, CA, 94601, United States

Pola Oloixarac
2017-01-17 19:30 - 21:30 | Green Apple Books on the Park, 1231 9th Ave, San Francisco , CA, 94122, United States
Argentinian writer Pola Oloixarac in conversation about her first novel translated into English, Savage Theories.

Praise for Savage Theories:
“A stunning vibrant maximalist whirlwind of a novel. Oloixarac’s wit and ambition are evident on every page. By comparison, most other contemporary fiction seems a little dull and simple-minded.” — Hari Kunzru, author of Gods Without Men
“Monstrously clever and terribly funny. More than a debut, this book is one many of us would spend our lives trying to write. ” — Javier Calvo
“Pola Oloixarac’s prose is the great event of the new Argentinian narrative. Her novel is unforgettable, philosophical and very serene.” — Ricardo Piglia
About Savage Theories:
A novel of seduction and madness, hate and love, set in the world of Argentinean academia and animated by the spirits of Wittgenstein, Rousseau, Nabokov and Bolano.
Rosa Ostreech, a pseudonym for the novel’s beautiful but self-conscious narrator, carries around a trilingual edition of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, struggles with her thesis on violence and culture, sleepswith a bourgeois former guerrilla, and pursues her elderly professor with a highly charged blend oferoticism and desperation. Elsewhere on campus, Pabst and Kamtchowsky tour the underground scene of Buenos Aires, dabbling in ketamine, sex, video games, and hacking. And in Africa in 1917, a Dutch anthropologist named Johan van Vliet begins work on a theory that explains human consciousness and civilization by reference to our early primate ancestors animals, who, in the process of becominghuman, spent thousands of years as prey.
Savage Theories wryly explores fear and violence, war and sex, eroticism and philosophy. Its complex and flawed characters grapple with a mess of impossible, visionary theories, searching for their place in our fragmented digital world.

Litquake: No Shadow Without Light
2017-01-18 18:00 - 20:00 | San Francisco Public Library, 100 Larkin St, San Francisco , CA, 94102, United States
“I believe in the resistance as I believe there can be no shadow unless there is also light.”
—Margaret Atwood
As with the rest of the Bay Area, Litquake has been festering over the unexpected election of Donald Trump. Do we publish a manifesto? Or curl up in the fetal position?
Yes, times are dark indeed, but it’s incumbent on the creative class to stand tall and contribute. And so we are proud to present these diverse and electric Bay Area voices, who speak to our nation’s fear, anger, and perhaps even optimism.
In the words of Toni Morrison:
“This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”
Come and join the chorus! Admission free.
Words from:
ELMAZ ABINADER
Arab-American author, poet, and Mills College professor (“Children of the Roojme: A Family’s Journey from Lebanon”)
FAITH ADIELE
Author and editor (“The Nigerian-Nordic Girls Guide to Lady Problems”; “Coming of Age Around the World: A Multicultural Anthology”)
ROBERT MAILER ANDERSON
Novelist and playwright (“The Death of Teddy Ballgame”; “Boonville”)
DEVORAH MAJOR
San Francisco’s third Poet Laureate (“and then we became”)
SARAH LADIPO MANYIKA
Novelist and editor (“In Dependence”; “The Weaverbird Collection: New Fiction from Nigeria 2008”)
ALEJANDRO MURGUIA
San Francisco’s current Poet Laureate (“Stray Poems: San Francisco Poet Laureate Series No. 6”; “This War Called Love”)
ISHMAEL REED
Author, editor, journalist, SFJAZZ Poet Laureate (“The Complete Muhammad Ali”; “Black Hollywood Unchained”)
TENNESSEE REED
Poet and activist (“City Beautiful: Poems 1998-2006”)
T.J. STILES
Author and twice recipient of the Pulitzer Prize (“Custer’s Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America”; “The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt”)

Cary Tennis + Danelle Morris
2017-01-18 18:00 - 20:00 | Book Passage San Francisco, 1 Ferry Building, San Francisco, CA, 94111, United States
All too many people start a writing project with grand ambitions but reach a crisis of completion. Finishing School helps writers reignite the passion that started them on the project in the first place and work steadily to get it done.
Untold millions of writing projects begun with hope and a little bit of hubris lie abandoned in desk drawers, in dated files on computer desktops, and in the far reaches of the mind. Too often, writers get tangled in self-abuse their self-doubt, shame, yearning for perfection, and even arrogance get in the way. In this new work, Cary Tennis and Danelle Morton help writers overcome these emotional blocks and break down daunting projects into manageable pieces.
Tennis first convened a finishing school so that writers could help one another stay on track and complete their work. Since they weren’t actually critiquing one another’s writing, there was no jockeying for the title of best writer or the usual writing group politics; there was only a shared commitment to progress. Without guilt, blame, and outside critique, students were more productive than they imagined possible. Through this program, they were able to complete novels that they d been struggling with for almost two decades, finish screenplays drafts, and revive interest in long-neglected PhD theses. In this book, the authors share this proven and easily replicable technique, as well as their own writing success stories.
Cary Tennis wrote the advice column “Since You Asked,” which appeared on Salon.com for twelve years. As an advice columnist, he never missed a deadline, but in his literary writing, he found himself stalled. Through the Finishing School method that he created, he completed his novel and now helps others through theirs in his writing workshops and international retreats.
Danelle Morton is a journalist and the coauthor of fifteen books. Morton has worked for The New York Times, was an associate bureau chief for People, and has been a foreign correspondent. She was a finalist for the PEN/USA Literary Nonfiction Award and the ASME magazine award in the public interest category.She has received investigative journalism grants from The Nation Institute and the George Polk Foundation.

UNNAMED PRESS SHOWCASE
2017-01-18 19:00 - 21:00 | City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus Ave, San Francisco , CA, 94133, United States
City Lights celebrates Indy Publisher UNNAMED PRESS
with two new works of fiction
One Life
by David Lida
and
Border of Paradise
by Esme Weijun Wang
What has been said about One Life:

“ONE LIFE will be deservedly praised for the light it trains on a previously unexposed dark corner of the primitively cruel and racist U.S. justice system. But David Lida also writes, in his remarkable novel, about a Mexico that even very few Mexican writers have any first-hand knowledge of, and does it in a way that readers on both sides of the border have rarely encountered.” –Francisco Goldman, author of ‘Say Her Name’ and ‘The Interior Circuit: A Mexico City Chronicle’.

“David Lida’s ONE LIFE is simply revelatory. It’s Juan Rulfo meets Raymond Chandler, Roberto Bolaño meets Chester Himes. It’s the American justice system, exposed, and the inside story of the frenetic, cruel push and pull that lures Mexican migrants from of their homes to the US. I’ve never read a book quite like this, and neither have you.”
—Daniel Alarcón, author of AT NIGHT WE WALK IN CIRCLES
“I haven’t read a book this harrowing since Atticus Lish’s PREPARATIONS FOR THE NEXT LIFE. David Lida has written an extraordinary account of the cruelty, squalor, and occasional enchantment of life on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border. It is an indictment of a justice system mired in cynicism and bad faith, and an economic system that hits the poorest hardest, and repays ambition with betrayal; but at the same time, ONE LIFE is an incredible love story, not just in the romantic sense, but in the sense that it’s about coming to love life itself, despite everything.”
—Paul LaFarge, author of ANOTHER LIFE
Praise for The Border of Paradise:
“THE BORDER OF PARADISE is a magnificent achievement – an exhortation for human tenderness and individual dignity in the most difficult of circumstances. Wang explores identity and family with a sense of drama that borders on gothic, without ever sacrificing the psychological texture that connects us to her characters.”
—Adrienne Celt, author of THE DAUGHTERS
“Wang’s prose is beautiful and restrained, and her generous, precise characterization makes every perspective feel organic and utterly real in the face of increasingly theatrical circumstances. The result — the story of an American family stretched and manipulated into impossible shapes — is an extraordinary literary and gothic novel of the highest order.”
—Carmen Maria Machado, NPR
David Lida is the author of four books, including the very well received travel narrative First Stop in the New World (Riverhead, 2009). One Life is his first novel and will be published in Mexico in Spanish in 2016. He has been a journalist for more than twenty years, principally in the U.S. and Mexico, but also for magazines in England, Canada and Peru. When David is not writing, he works as a mitigation specialist, conducting investigations for lawyers in the U.S. who defend clients who are charged with capital murder and facing the death penalty. He is based in Mexico City.
Esmé Weijun Wang is an award-winning mental health advocate and speaker, as well as a journalist and essayist. The Border of Paradise is her first novel. She lives in San Francisco.
The Unnamed Press publishes literature from around the world. Whether it’s fiction, memoir or something in between, they are always interested in unlikely protagonists, undiscovered territories and courageous voices. To learn more visit: http://unnamedpress.com

Lyrics and Dirges
2017-01-18 19:30 - 21:30 | Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley , CA, 94704, United States
Lyrics & Dirges is a monthly reading series featuring a mix of prominent, emerging and beginning writers. Its aim is to highlight various forms of writing in an effort to spotlight the diverse literary community of the Bay Area.
Hosted and curated by and Mk Chavez Sharon Coleman. Every third Wednesday of the month at Pegasus Books Downtown.

RADAR Productions: A Queer Reading Series
2017-01-19 17:45 - 19:30 | San Francisco Public Library, 100 Larkin St, San Francisco , CA, 94102, United States
RADAR Productions Presents: JANUARY QUEER READING SERIES at the San Francisco Library
Thursday, January 19, 2017
San Francisco Public Library
100 Larkin Street
Latino/Hispanic Room (basement level)
Please arrive by 5:45 PM
==FREE==
Hosted by Juliana Delgado Lopera
Reading followed by artist Q&A
Did we mention there will be cookies?
FEATURING…
Gabrielle Glancy
Winner of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, finalist for Yale Younger Poets, The Colorado Prize and The Academy of American Poets Walt Whitman Award, Gabrielle Glancy has been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The American Poetry Review and many other journals and anthologies. Her book I’m Already Disturbed Please Come In was listed among the top thirty books you may have missed in 2015 by The Advocate. Curve Magazine describes Vera as “. . . a queer gem of a book… wonderful, literary, sexy, funny . . , by turns mystifying, hilarious, admirable, and always hard to put down . . .” In addition to being a widely published writer, Gabrielle Glancy is well known all around the world for her college admissions expertise.
Andrea Wolf
Andrea Abi-Karam is a mixed race genderqueer punk poet writing on the art of killing bros, the intricacies of cyborg bodies, trauma & delayed healing. They recently completed the manuscript EXTRATRANSMISSION a book length piece against how patriarchy and US militarism produce the hypergendered subject. Andrea is both a writer, printer, & publisher whose founding small press project Mess Editions seeks to publish emerging writing from queers, people of color, and those involved in social movements yet uninvolved in poetry & art scenes.
Carolina de Robertis
Carolina De Robertis, a writer of Uruguayan origins, is the author of the novels The Gods of Tango, Perla, and the international bestseller The Invisible Mountain. Her books have been translated into eighteen languages, and have received a Stonewall Book Award, Italy’s Rhegium Julii Prize, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, among other honors. She is also an award-winning translator of Latin American literature, and the co-producer, with her wife Pamela Harris, of the short documentary film “Farías: an Afro Uruguayan Love Story.” De Robertis teaches fiction and literary translation at San Francisco State University. She has two children who are constantly teaching her new things about cheetahs and the solar system.
Marcela Pardo
Marcela Pardo Ariza explores the relationship of wry humor, queerness and representation through color sets and prop-like objects. Her photographs incorporate quotidian objects in seemingly absurd ways creating tableaux that mix recognizable elements with magical realism. Pardo is interested in the action of looking within the theatricality of “the set” and her visually provoking portraits seek to explore metaphors regarding race and gender.
Pardo is from Bogotá, Colombia and has worked as a Curatorial Assistant at the Clocktower Gallery (Manhattan, NY), a co-Director at the Swell Gallery (San Francisco, CA) and Co-Founder/Director of NoRoof Gallery (San Francisco, CA. Pardo has curated shows at Cranium Corporation (San Francisco, CA); Residence/SF (San Francisco, CA); and CTRL+SHFT collective (Oakland, CA). Her photographic work has been shown at Glasshouse (Brooklyn, NY); SOMArts (San Francisco, CA), Embark Gallery (San Francisco, CA), Zoo Labs, guest curated by Et al. (San Francisco, CA); and Root Division (San Francisco, CA).

Laura Walker, Sarah Rosenthal, + Micah Ballard
2017-01-19 19:00 - 21:00 | Books Inc. Berkeley, 1491 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley , CA, 94710, United States
Join Books Inc. in Berkeley for an evening of poetry with Laura Walker, Sarah Rosenthal, and Micah Ballard, reading pieces from their respective new collections Story; Lizard; and Afterlives.
In Story, Walker shares the strategies of telling, which, as every savvy writer knows, is a constant tug between sharing and holding back, finding, losing, and recovering the threads of narration.
In Lizard, Rosenthal “explores the creaturely membranes that lie between the known-social and the unknown-social. This is bone instructive poetry. I love it.” – Rodrigo Toscano
In Afterlives, Ballard continues the precarious yet successful envisioning of the spirited haunts of his native Louisiana amidst the streets of his long adopted San Francisco.

Tamam Kahn
2017-01-19 19:00 - 21:00 | Willow Glen Library, 1157 Minnesota Ave, San Jose , CA, 95125, United States
Tamam Kahn is author of Fatima’s Touch, Poems and Stories of the Prophet’s Daughter, Ruhaniat Press, 2016, and Untold: A History of the Wives of Prophet Muhammad, Monkfish Press, 2010, International Book Award winner, 2011. She includes stories and poems as well as an occasional Spoken Word piece on these 7th century women. Tamam has traveled widely among the mystics of the Middle East, India, and North Africa, was invited by the Royal Ministry of Morocco to read her poetry at the symposium in Marrakesh in 2009. Tamam lived in Damascus in 2003. She read from her book on Fatima at Poetâ€™s House in NYC for The Wide Shore, A Journal of Global Women’s Poetry, 2015. She has been awarded writing residencies at Ragdale Foundation and Jentel Artist Residency.

Jason Diamond
2017-01-19 19:30 - 21:30 | The Booksmith, 1644 Haight St, San Francisco , CA, 94117, United States
The Booksmith presents Jason Diamond and his hilarious and poignant new memoir, Searching for John Hughes: Or Everything I Thought I Needed to Know about Life I Learned from Watching ’80s Movies, the story of how a Jewish kid from a broken home in a Chicago suburb—sometimes homeless, always restless—found comfort and connection in the likewise broken lives in the suburban Chicago of John Hughes’ oeuvre.
A writer at heart, Diamond decided early on that it would fall to him to write a biography of his favorite filmmaker. It didn’t matter to him that he had no qualifications, training, background, platform, or direction. Thus went the years-long, delusional, earnest, and assiduous quest to reach his goal. In the meantime, he brewed coffee, guarded cupcake cafes, and built up a respectable writing career. All the while, he watched John Hughes movies religiously. Though his original biography of Hughes has long since been abandoned, Jason has discovered he is a writer through and through, and the adversity of going for broke has now been transformed into wisdom. Or, at least, a really, really good story.
This is a memoir of growing up. One part big dream, one part big failure, one part John Hughes movies, one part Chicago, and one part New York. It’s a story of what comes after the “Go for it!” part of the command to young creatives to pursue their dreams—no matter how absurd they might seem at first.
Jason Diamond is a writer and editor from Brooklyn. He is the Sports Editor at Rolling Stone, a columnist at Electric Literature, former Literary Editor at Flavorwire, former Associate Editor at Men’s Journal, and the founding editor of Vol. 1 Brooklyn. He has been published by the New York Times, Paris Review, New York, the Believer, the New Republic, the New York Observer, Tablet, The Rumpus, The Awl, and many other places. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

A Day of Affirmation
2017-01-20 10:00 - 12:00 | Rebound Bookstore, 1611 4th Street, San Rafael, CA, 94901, United States
The Rebound Bookstore invites one and all, to come together
on Friday, January 20th, 2017
at 1611 4th Street, San Rafael
From 10 in the Morning until 12:00 Noon
to a communal reading of the Constitution of the United States.
(Copies available in the store)
And a positive discussion thereafter on means of defending the Republic.
All who want to read may choose a section.
RSVP to reboundbookstore@aol.com
Or select a paragraph when you arrive.
There will be coffee, and doughnuts, courtesy of Johnny Doughnuts.

Uptown Fridays: Caits Meissner + Isobel O'Hare
2017-01-20 19:00 - 21:00 | Nomadic Press, 2926 Foothill Blvd, Oakland , CA, 94601, United States
Join us for a very special evening of readings with Caits Meissner and Isobel O’Hare. With musical guest Thomas Nguyen.
Donations will be called for throughout the night, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.
Wine and Red Bay Coffee will be available.

Jonathan Moore
2017-01-20 19:00 - 21:00 | Books Inc. Opera Plaza, 601 Van Ness, San Francisco , CA, 94107, United States
Jonathan Moore shares his latest heart-pounding thriller, The Dark Room. Gavin Cain, an SFPD homicide inspector, is in the middle of an exhumation when his phone rings. San Francisco’s mayor is being blackmailed and has ordered Cain back to the city; a helicopter is on its way. The casket, and Cain’s cold-case investigation, must wait. At City Hall, the mayor shows Cain four photographs he’s received: the first, an unforgettable blonde; the second, pills and handcuffs on a nightstand; the third, the woman drinking from a flask; and last, the woman naked, unconscious, and shackled to a bed. The accompanying letter is straightforward: worse revelations are on the way unless the mayor takes his own life first. An intricately plotted, deeply affecting thriller that keeps readers guessing until the final pages, The Dark Room tracks Cain as he hunts for the blackmailer, pitching him into the web of destruction and devotion the mayor casts in his shadow.

Songs of Protest
2017-01-21 13:00 - 15:00 | Adobe Books, 3130 24th St., San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States
Come to Adobe Books on Inauguration Day for music that will stir your protesting souls, warm your weary hearts, remind you of all that is beautiful and strange and hard about this thing we call democracy, this country we call America.
Blake Parkinson – Protesting on his bagpipes since 2001, singing Bob Dylan covers since…?
Rosie Cima – singer songwriter, lover not a fighter, election nailbighter, pulled that allnighter, sings blues and songs lighter.
Ted Lee –
And more guests to be announced!

Zine Release Party
2017-01-21 15:00 - 17:00 | Adobe Books, 3130 24th St., San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States
America, I love you but you’re bringing me down : ZINE RELEASE
This collection of poetry, drawings, and personal essays presents views and experiences that do not fit into Trump’s America, along with tips and recommendations for anyone who wants to get active in opposing his agenda.
Organized by Vanessa Hope Schneider, these limited-run, risographed zines will be available starting January 20th—inauguration day. We’ll be selling them for $14 each, and all money will go to the Equal Justice Initiative and the Adobe Books & Arts Cooperative.
Join us for a reading from some of the contributors and pick up a copy. All are welcome!

Corpi, Álvarez, BPorras-Hernandez, + Vas
2017-01-21 15:00 - 17:00 | César E. Chávez Branch Library, 3301 E 12th Street, Oakland, CA, 94601, United States
Jingletown Reading & Open Mic celebrates poets and artists who are giving back to our communities, determined to make a positive change.
On Saturday January 21st, Jingletown celebrates educators and poets Lucha Corpi, Amalia Álvarez, Baruch Porras-Hernandez, and René Vasquez
Jingletown Reading & Open Mic
Every 3rd Saturday of the Month
3-5 pm
Curated by harold terezón
César Chavez Library, Oakland
Fruitvale BART accessible

Christine Marie Mason
2017-01-21 16:00 - 18:00 | Book Passage Marin, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd. , Corte Madera, CA, 94925, United States
There are more people living alone than at any time in history, and more depression than ever recorded. Violence to each other and ourselves continues to cast long shadows across generations. We are fragmented individually and collectively to the point of vile speech and hate crimes based on false divisions. How do we heal? How do we become more connected?
Indivisible: Coming Home to Our Deep Connection is a transformational story of a deep human journey to the heart of connection.
Christine Marie Mason asks questions such as: Why are people lonely and alienated from one another? Why are people angry? Or mean? Or violent to each other? Is that reversible? Why do we lie and hide our true selves? How do we make more love and less conflict happen? Can we make a world that works better for all of us? How might we shift our internal state and the design of our communities and institutions to be happier, more connected?

Identity Crisis IV (IDCIV)
2017-01-21 18:30 - 21:00 | The Octopus Literary Salon, 2101 Webster St #170, Oakland , CA, 94612, United States
THE GAME HAS RETURNED!
The social and literary experiment IDENTITY CRISIS, hosted by Paul Corman-Roberts and Youssef Alaoui.
Each person reads the next in line. The last person reads the first person’s work. No one reads their own.
Writers hear their work read by another very talented reader, expressed in a new way. Audience members hear some of their very favorite writers reading one another’s poetry, which leads one to consider the artful combination of poetry and performance. How does the poem operate when portrayed by this skilled performer? This series adds new light and interpretation on poetics to an amazing collection of poets and poetry.
WITH MUSIC from KAREN PENLEY
READERS:
Cassandra Dallett
Peter Bullen
Alexandra Naughton
Juba Kalamka
BREAK
MUSIC: KAREN P
READERS:
Charlie Getter
Maw Shein Win
Christine No
Arisa White

Sheila Kohler
2017-01-22 13:00 - 15:00 | Book Passage Marin, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd. , Corte Madera, CA, 94925, United States
When Sheila Kohler was thirty-seven, she received the heart-stopping news that her sister Maxine, only two years older, was killed when her husband drove them off a deserted road in Johannesburg. Stunned by the news, she immediately flew back to the country where she was born, determined to find answers and forced to reckon with his history of violence and the lingering effects of their most unusual childhood—one marked by death and the misguided love of their mother.
In her signature spare and incisive prose, Shelia Kohler recounts the lives she and her sister led. Flashing back to their storybook childhood at the family estate, Crossways, Kohler tells of the death of her father when she and Maxine were girls, which led to the family abandoning their house and the girls being raised by their mother, at turns distant and suffocating. We follow them to the cloistered Anglican boarding school where they first learn of separation and later their studies in Rome and Paris where they plan grand lives for themselves—lives that are interrupted when both marry young and discover they have made poor choices. Kohler evokes the bond between sisters and shows how that bond changes but never breaks, even after death.
Once We Were Sisters is a stunningly beautiful, heartrending literary memoir about the tragic death of the author’s beloved older sister and a tribute to their bond.
Sheila Kohler was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. She is the author of fourteen works of fiction including the novels Dreaming for Freud, Becoming Jane Eyre, and Cracks, which was nominated for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and made into a film starring Eva Green. Her work has been featured in the New York Times and O Magazine and included in the Best American Short Stories. She has twice won an O’Henry Prize, as well as an Open Fiction Award, a Willa Cather Prize, and a Smart Family Foundation Prize. She teaches at Princeton University and lives in New York City.

Resist! A Postmodern Times Reading
2017-01-22 16:00 - 18:00 | Adobe Books, 3130 24th St., San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States
Join us as some of our favorite San Franciscans offer their writings on resistance in the new year.
With
Tony Robles
Kim Shuck
Tongo Eisen-Martin
Jennifer Joseph
Thea Matthews
hosted by Denise Sullivan and United Booksellers of San Francisco in cooperation with San Francisco Vision

Will Schwalbe
2017-01-22 16:00 - 18:00 | Book Passage Marin, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd. , Corte Madera, CA, 94925, United States
From the author of the beloved New York Times bestselling The End of Your Life Book Club comes an inspiring and magical exploration of the power of books to shape our lives in an era of constant connectivity.
Why is it that we read? Is it to pass time? To learn something new? To escape from reality?
For Will Schwalbe, reading is a way to entertain himself but also to make sense of the world, to become a better person, and to find the answers to the big (and small) questions about how to live his life. In this delightful celebration of reading, Schwalbe invites us along on his quest for books that speak to the specific challenges of living in our modern world, with all its noise and distractions. In each chapter, he discusses a particular book what brought him to it (or vice versa), the people in his life he associates with it, and how it became a part of his understanding of himself in the world. These books span centuries and genres (from classic works of adult and children’s literature to contemporary thrillers and even cookbooks), and each one relates to the questions and concerns we all share. Throughout, Schwalbe focuses on the way certain books can help us honor those we ve loved and lost, and also figure out how to live each day more fully. Rich with stories and recommendations, Books for Living is a treasure for everyone who loves books and loves to hear the answer to the question: What are you reading?
Will Schwalbe has worked in publishing; digital media, as the founder and CEO of Cookstr.com; and as a journalist, writing for various publications, including The New York Times and the South China Morning Post. He is the author of the New York Times best seller The End of Your Life Book Club and co-author, with David Shipley, of Send: Why People Email So Badly and How to Do It Better.

Kim Stanley Roberts + Cecelia Holland
2017-01-22 17:30 - 19:00 | The American Bookbinders Museum, 355 Clementina Street, San Francisco, CA, 94103, United States
This event will now be on Sunday January 22nd, but we’ll still be at The American Bookbinders Museum, 355 Clementina Street, San Francisco. Doors and cash bar open at 5:30pm – program begins at 6:30pm. $10 donation at the door (no one is turned away for lack of funds). As always Borderlands Books will be on hand with copies of the authors’ work. Further details will follow soon.

Deborah Kennedy
2017-01-24 18:00 - 20:00 | Book Passage San Francisco, 1 Ferry Building, San Francisco, CA, 94111, United States
In Nature Speaks, Deborah Kennedy’s captivating poetry and illustrations bring to life the profound bond between ourselves and the larger natural world. Kennedy focuses on the ecological themes of our time, infusing art and science with insight and passion. Her powerful poetry and earth-toned ink illustrations feature the elegance of birds and strength of redwood trees, appealing to the eye, the mind, and the heart. Kennedy invites us to listen to the earth to appreciate nature’s grace, complexity, and vigoras we move toward pathways for healing ourselves and the earth.
An artist and poet, Deborah Kennedy’s work has exhibited in the United States and Europe. Her art appeared on The Berlin Wall shortly before it was torn down and was an inspiration to thousands who witnessed art at the service of social change. She lives in San Jose, CA.

Shanthi Sekaran
2017-01-24 19:00 - 21:00 | City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus Ave, San Francisco , CA, 94133, United States
in conversation with Oscar Villalon
celebrating the release of
Lucky Boy
from G.P. Putnam & Sons
A gripping tale of adventure and searing reality, Lucky Boy gives voice to two mothers bound together by their love for one lucky boy.
Solimar Castro Valdez is eighteen and drunk on optimism when she embarks on a perilous journey across the US/Mexican border. Weeks later she arrives on her cousin’s doorstep in Berkeley, CA, dazed by first love found then lost, and pregnant. This was not the plan. But amid the uncertainty of new motherhood and her American identity, Soli learns that when you have just one precious possession, you guard it with your life. For Soli, motherhood becomes her dwelling and the boy at her breast her hearth.
Kavya Reddy has always followed her heart, much to her parents’ chagrin. A mostly contented chef at a UC Berkeley sorority house, the unexpected desire to have a child descends like a cyclone in Kavya’s mid-thirties. When she can’t get pregnant, this desire will test her marriage, it will test her sanity, and it will set Kavya and her husband, Rishi, on a collision course with Soli, when she is detained and her infant son comes under Kavya’s care. As Kavya learns to be a mother–the singing, story-telling, inventor-of-the-universe kind of mother she fantasized about being–she builds her love on a fault line, her heart wrapped around someone else’s child.
Lucky Boy is an emotional journey that will leave you certain of the redemptive beauty of this world. There are no bad guys in this story, no obvious hero. From rural Oaxaca to Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto to the dreamscapes of Silicon valley, author Shanthi Sekaran has taken real life and applied it to fiction; the results are moving and revelatory.
Shanthi Sekaran teaches creative writing at California College of the Arts, and is a member of the Portuguese Artists Colony and the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto. Her work has appeared in Best New American Voices and Canteen, and online at Zyzzyva and Mutha Magazine. Her first novel, The Prayer Room, was published by MacAdam Cage.
Oscar Villalon is the Managing Editor of Zyzzyva Magazine. He has formerly served as book editor at the San Francisco Chronicle. A member of the board of directors of the National Book Critics Circle, he’s also a long-time juror of the California Book Awards, sponsored by the Commonwealth Club. His writing has appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review and The Believer, and his reviews have aired on KQED’s The California Report.
What has been said about the work of Shanthi Sekaran:
“Remarkably empathetic . . . Deeply compassionate . . . Delivers penetrating insights into the intangibles of motherhood and indeed, all humanity.” —Booklist (starred)
“How lucky the reader who gets to devour Shanthi Sekaran’s extraordinary, necessary novel. Lucky Boy is both timely and timeless, depicting the comedy and delights of the world as well as its brutalities and injustices. It’s a story about immigration, privilege, and parenthood, and shows us how we are connected, and how we are, perhaps irreparably, divided. It swept me away and took a little piece of my heart with it. It’s a perfect book.” —Edan Lepucki, New York Times bestselling author of California

Funny Bits: Humorous Stories from East Bay Queer Writers
2017-01-25 19:00 - 21:00 | The Octopus Literary Salon, 2101 Webster St #170, Oakland , CA, 94612, United States
Ajuan Mance, Willy Wilkinson, and Anna Pulley read Funny Bits from their works.

Jon Else
2017-01-25 19:00 - 21:00 | City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus Ave, San Francisco , CA, 94133, United States

Get Lit Reading Series: New Year Edition
2017-01-25 19:00 - 21:00 | Corkscrew Wine Bar, 100 Petaluma Blvd N #103, Petaluma, CA, 94952, United States

Gregg Hurwitz
2017-01-25 19:00 - 21:00 | Books Inc. Palo Alto, 74 Town & Country Village, Palo Alto, CA, 94301, United States
New York Times-bestselling author Gregg Hurwitz shares his latest critically-acclaimed thriller, The Nowhere Man: An Orphan X Novel.
Spoken about only in whispers, the Nowhere Man can only be reached by the truly desperate, he can He will do anything to save them.
Evan Smoak is the Nowhere Man.
Taken from a group home at twelve, Evan was raised and trained as part of the Orphan Program, an off-the-books operation designed to create deniable intelligence assets i.e. assassins. Evan was Orphan X. He broke with the Program, using everything he learned to disappear and reinvent himself as the Nowhere Man.
But his new life is interrupted when a surprise attack comes from an unlikely angle and Evan is caught unaware. Captured, drugged, and spirited off to a remote location, he finds himself heavily guarded and cut off from everything he knows. His captors think they have him trapped and helpless in a virtual cage but they don’t know who they re dealing with or that they ve trapped themselves inside that cage with one of the deadliest and most resourceful men on earth.
Continuing his electrifying series featuring Evan Smoak, Gregg Hurwitz delivers a blistering, compelling new novel in the series launched with the instant international bestseller, Orphan X.
