Book Clubs San Francisco
Your San Francisco literary community awaits
Habermas and the Instruments of Domination
Thu, Oct 22, 1:00 AMScience and technology are often celebrated as engines of human progress, promising greater freedom, prosperity, and control over our environment. But what if technological progress also serves to reinforce existing structures of power? What happens when political and moral questions are increasingly treated as technical problems to be solved by experts? In his influential 1968 essay *Technology and Science as "Ideology,"* Jürgen Habermas builds on the work of Max Weber and Herbert Marcuse to examine how scientific and technological rationality can become instruments of political and economic domination. He distinguishes between instrumental action, concerned with efficiency and control, and communicative interaction, through which people establish shared norms and determine how society ought to be organized. We'll discuss whether science and technology are inherently political, whether technological progress necessarily produces human progress, and whether Habermas's critique remains relevant in an age of artificial intelligence and algorithmic governance. **Are we becoming more rational as a society, or simply more efficient at pursuing goals we've never collectively chosen?** The reading can be found [here](https://www.sfu.ca/~andrewf/technology_and_science_as_ideology.pdf)
Friendship and the Common World
Thu, Nov 5, 2:00 AMFor this session we’ll read Aristotle's [Nicomachean Ethics](https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html) VIII.1–6, VIII.9, IX.6, and IX.9, alongside Hannah Arendt’s 1959 Lessing Prize address, “[On Humanity in Dark Times: Thoughts about Lessing](https://divinity.duke.edu/sites/default/files/documents/Arendt.Thoughts+on+Lessing.Men+in+Dark+TImes.pdf).” Both writers, writing millenia apart, tackle the question of how friendship relates to the shared world that friends inhabit, and whether it can survive that world coming apart Aristotle divides friendship into three kinds — utility, pleasure, and character — and holds that only the third is friendship in the full sense. Two claims push this outward into politics. Friendship and justice have the same extent, so every friendship belongs to a community and takes its shape from that community’s end: sailors have the friendship of the voyage, citizens the friendship of the city. And IX.6 limits concord to practical matters that concern the parties themselves, not agreement about everything. Arendt draws a line through this. She separates friendship from fraternity — the warmth that arises among the persecuted and among those who have withdrawn from an unbearable world. Fraternity produces real humanity, but at the cost of worldlessness, flourishing precisely where the world between people has dropped away. Friendship stays worldly, and consists in discourse about a common world among people who see it from different positions. Her Lessing prefers friendship to truth, a preference Aristotle may not be able to absorb. You can find a free copy of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics [here](https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html). Hannah Arendt's essay is [here](https://divinity.duke.edu/sites/default/files/documents/Arendt.Thoughts+on+Lessing.Men+in+Dark+TImes.pdf)
October 2026 Book Discussion: The Vegetarian by Han Kang
Sun, Oct 25, 7:00 PM**Our October Book Has Been Chosen! 📚** **Thanks to everyone who voted! Our next Books & Brew read is:** **🌿 The Vegetarian — Han Kang** **Grab a copy, start reading, and join us for a great conversation!** **About the Book** **After a series of disturbing dreams, Yeong-hye makes the seemingly simple decision to stop eating meat. But as her family reacts with increasing confusion, anger, and attempts to control her, that decision becomes the beginning of a much more profound transformation.** **Told through the perspectives of those around Yeong-hye, The Vegetarian explores autonomy, desire, conformity, violence, and the ways we understand—or fail to understand—the people closest to us.** **Originally published in Korean and translated by Deborah Smith, Han Kang’s unsettling novel won the 2016 International Booker Prize and invites plenty of questions about identity, choice, and what happens when someone refuses to live according to the expectations placed upon them.** **──────────** **📸 Follow us on Instagram @booksandbrew_oakland for meetup photos, book announcements, and future events.**
Book Club: "Cat's People" by Tanya Guerrero
Fri, Oct 23, 1:30 AMHalloween is coming up but instead of reading a scary horror story, let's read an uplifting tale where a black cat is a main character! We'll discuss "Cat's People" by Tanya Guerrero. There are several copies available at the library so it should be easy to get! The location is TBD but will be in the Burlingame/San Mateo/Foster City area. We'll decide after the September meeting! Everyone will be waitlisted initially. Priority will be given to previous attendees of book club and regular attendees of the group. For details on attendance & waitlist, please see the "About us" description for the group. **Book Summary - "Cat's People" by Tanya Guerrero** Publication Year: 2025 Page Count: 300 Núria, a single-by-choice barista with a resentment for the "crazy cat lady" label, is a member of The Meow-Yorkers, a group in Brooklyn who takes care of the neighborhood’s stray cats. On one of her volunteering days, she starts finding Post-It notes from a secret admirer at the spot where her favorite stray lives—a black cat named Cat. Like most cats, he is rather curious and sly, so of course he knows who the notes are from. Núria, however, is clueless. Are the notes from Collin, a bestselling author and self-professed hermit with a weakness for good coffee? Are they from Lily, a fresh-out-of-high school Georgia native searching for her long-lost half-sister? Are they from Omar, the beloved neighborhood mailman going through an early mid-life crisis? Or are they from Bong, the grieving widower who owns her favorite bodega? When Cat suddenly falls ill, these five strangers find themselves connected in their desire to care for him and discover that chance encounters can lead to the meaningful connections they've been searching for.
Book Club: "The Nightingale" by Kristin Hannah
Fri, Nov 20, 2:30 AM"The Nightingale" is being adapted into a movie starring Dakota Fanning and Elle Fanning - let's read and discuss the historical fiction novel by Kristin Hannah before the movie comes out! There are several copies available at the library so it should be easy to get. The location is TBD but will be in the Burlingame/San Mateo/Foster City area. We'll decide after the October meeting! Everyone will be waitlisted initially. Priority will be given to previous attendees of book club and regular attendees of the group. For details on attendance & waitlist, please see the "About us" description for the group. **Book Summary - "The Nightingale" by Kristin Hannah** Publication Year: 2015 Page Count: 440 Despite their differences, Vianne and Isabelle have always been close. Younger, bolder Isabelle lives in Paris, while Vianne is content with life in the French countryside with her husband Antoine and their child. But when the Second World War breaks out and Antoine is conscripted to fight, Isabelle is sent to the country by her father to help Vianne. As war develops, the strength of the sisters' relationship is put to the test. With life changing, and confronted by unbelievable horrors, Vianne and Isabelle find themselves responding in ways they never thought possible, as bravery and resistance take differing forms for each of the two sisters. Vivid and exquisite in its illumination of a time and place defined by atrocity, but also humanity and courage, Kristin Hannah's novel will provoke thought and discussion long after readers turn the final page.
2nd Saturday "Not quite a book club" in the Richmond District
Sat, Nov 14, 7:00 PMShow up having read a book\* you want to talk about. Get a beverage and/or food inside the cafe. We will probably meet outside in Bazaar Cafe's back garden.\*\* (The garden is accessible through an alley. There is a door to the alley next to the register inside. You can also go directly to the back garden from the street via the alley entrance on the right side of the right Cafe window.) Once you've spotted the group, we will introduce ourselves and have a brief period of chit chat. Then we will go around our group each talking about the (different!) books we read. Afterwards, you are welcome to stick around and chat. If you have a physical book you are done reading and want to offer other folks in the group, you are welcome to do that, but there is absolutely no obligation to do so. \*Any book! Could be a graphic novel, or non-fiction, or fiction, or a mystery or a romance novel or SciFi or Fantasy! \*\*If it is raining or a really bad air day from wildfires, it may be too crowded inside Bazaar Cafe to find a table, although it was raining during a few meetings early last year and the Bazaar cafe folks helped me stake out a table. In the event of rain and no space inside, I will probably move the event a few blocks away to Ilana Coffee or Royal Ground Coffee on Clement. I will message the group if we meet inside or if the location moves to another coffee shop.
Trusted by millions worldwide
Popular groups
San Francisco Saturday Book Club
Literary Discussion Group
Atlas Wise | Learning, Connection & Service
Classic Literature and Cafes Book Club
The French Club (San Francisco)
Longlist: Hits and Near Misses from the Booker Prize, Etc.
A Queer Book Club
San Francisco- Political Book Discussion Meetup Group
Frequently asked questions
Related content
Discover more groups and events that match your interests