Book Swaps San Francisco

Read Audre Lorde and have fancy cocktails

# We will read poetry together and sip cocktails in a fancy hotel bar. We will read poems together by Audre Lorde. The book we will read from is included in the cost of the $25 ticket and will be there for you on the evening of the event. Join us for this elegant evening and connect with people over a shared love of the written word. Fancy dress - whatever that means to you - encouraged but not required. Register here: [https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1992263309188?aff=oddtdtcreator](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1992263309188?aff=oddtdtcreator)

Three Books, Zero Pressure: Book Club Kickoff

This is the first meeting for this book club. I have chosen the following three books as they are popular, notorious classics across completely different genres, and most people would've read (or at least heard of) them! > **Please note:** You do **not** need to read all three books! Just having read (or being familiar with) **any one** of these books is more than enough to join the conversation. Here is our inaugural trio: * **[The Alchemist](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18144590-the-alchemist)** by Paulo Coelho * **[The Great Gatsby](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18401910-the-great-gatsby)** by F. Scott Fitzgerald * **[Neuromancer](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6088007-neuromancer)** by William Gibson

East Bay Women's Book Club August Meetup: Yesteryear

Hello, fellow female readers -- The book for the August Meetup is Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke For those of you who are new, I will send out the address to my house by Monday, August 17. Looking forward to gathering together and discussing the book. Bonnie

August Book Club: The Dream Hotel at Urban Legend

Solve a Murder! (Optional Book Club: The Tuesday Night Club by Agatha Christie)

The first of its kind in this meetup. I’ll bring a murder mystery to solve do bring your detective hats! There is also an optional book club. We will discuss the book from 5:30 to 6:00 pm, then solve a murder!

Book, Coffee, Chit Chat, etc. (Tuesday Edition)

ATTENTION: We are now meeting in person again! Please follow current recommendations around mask usage to keep everyone safe. Masks are always welcome and accepted, no matter the current regulations. If you'd like to meet online check out our meeting on the first Wednesday of every month. It's that time again! Let's chit chat about the books we exchanged last time and welcome newcomers bringing their first book. If you've been before you know the deal, otherwise just bring a book to share and expect to say both a few words about it and why you want to share it.

August Meeting: Banana Yoshimoto - Lizard

**Recommended Stories:** * Newlywed * Lizard * A Strange Tale from Down by the River Always wanted to read this "spare, dreamlike" Japanese author. Looking forward to discussing it! **For First-Timers:** We recommend reading at least one story, but feel free to read as little or as much as you'd like! Discussion is open, informal, and we try to focus on the recommended stories listed above. **About the Author:** Banana Yoshimoto (born Mahoko Yoshimoto in 1964) is one of the most internationally recognized voices in contemporary Japanese fiction. Her stories often center on grief, healing, and young women navigating loss

Mixed Bag at Belmont Story Swap

Please know that an RSVP here on Meetup MEANS NOTHING. You need to go to www.StorySAC.org to get the details on how to join the Story Swap on Zoom. DO NOT RSVP HERE!! Our Zooming story swap welcomes ready listeners, eager tellers, & would-be tellers. Come try us out. Contact: email Linda Walls: lindaglennlee@yahoo.com

Sátántangó by László Krasznahorkai

Discuss Sátántangó by László Krasznahorkai

Book 90: Babylon, South Dakota by Tom Lin

“ A Chinese couple living on a 160-acre homestead in South Dakota begins to notice bizarre and mysterious happenings after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers builds a nuclear missile site nearby.” -New York Times This novel has come up on a few different lists of highly anticipated books this spring. Looking forward to discussing it with this group! -Jessica \-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\- **How it works:** We’ll meet at a local brewery for some drinks and conversation. Finishing the book is not a requirement to attend—as long as you don't mind spoilers! We’ll have an unstructured, informal discussion of the book and the themes that the book brings up. We hope to see you there! \-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\- From the author of the Carnegie Medal in Fiction winner The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu comes a tantalizing, American West saga about a Chinese American family trying to survive on their Dakota farm as a powerful, mysterious, and morally dubious military secret shapes their lives. "Lin's gossamer prose is patient and full of wonders."—Ed Park, author of Same Bed Different Dreams and An Oral History of Atlantis When Saul Keng Hsiu and his wife, Mei Lee, move from China to the United States to take possession of a 160-acre homestead bequeathed to them by a distant relative, all they have are the possessions on their back, some hidden gold, and a pocketful of chrysanthemum seeds. After a rocky start and a long, harsh winter, the couple find themselves successfully raising chrysanthemums and livestock, and soon after, a daughter, Mara. But when representatives from the US Army Corps of Engineers buy an acre of the Hsiu’s farmland and begin building a missile silo, the inexplicable starts to occur: Mara can commune with the animals on the farm, Mei develops a hidden talent for augury, and the chrysanthemums become impervious to everything. When the Hsius learn that the project on their farm is an effort to make America’s nuclear deterrent invulnerable, they see firsthand the long arm of power and empire. In the years and generations that follow, increasingly impacted by the silo and its residue, the Hsius experience strange, wondrous, and tragic events on their farm. An ambitious epic and an ode to the beauty and glory of our connection to the natural world, Babylon, South Dakota upends the idea of "strangers in a strange land" to become a classic American story. It is a daring novel about how choices reverberate across generations and asks us what we owe to one another. TIME Magazine's Most Anticipated Books of the Year \| Town & Country's Best Books of Spring 2026

2nd Saturday "Not quite a book club" in the Richmond District

Show 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.

📚✨ BOOK CLUB: All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews