Book Swaps San Francisco

From Longlist: Hits and Near Misses from the Booker Prize, Etc.

# 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)

4 attendees

Longlist: Hits and Near Misses from the Booker Prize, Etc.

Thu, Aug 27, 12:15 AM

NEW GROUP The aim of this group is to read, enjoy, and discuss novels, story collections, and non-fiction works that won or were short or long-listed for literary awards such as the Booker Prize and National Book Award. We keep the focus on recent stuff with a manageable length of about 200-300 pages. The group meets monthly after a workday in downtown SF at a not-too-noisy drinking establishment. In August, we'll be discussing *Universality* by Natasha Brown. "Late one night on a Yorkshire farm, a man is brutally bludgeoned with a solid gold bar. A plucky young journalist sets out to uncover the truth surrounding the attack, connecting the dots between an amoral banker landlord, an iconoclastic columnist, and a radical anarchist movement. She solves the mystery, but her viral longread exposé raises more questions than it answers. Through a voyeuristic lens, Universality focuses on words: what we say, how we say it, and what we really mean. The follow-up novel to Natasha Brown’s Assembly is a compellingly nasty celebration of the spectacular force of language. It dares you to look away. " https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/an-extract-from-universality-by-natasha-brown

1 attendee

East Bay Women's Book Club August Meetup: Yesteryear

Thu, Aug 20, 2:00 AM

From East Bay Women's Book Club Meetup

From Story Swaps, Storytelling Performances, and Workshops

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

28 attendees

Mixed Bag at Belmont Story Swap

Tue, Aug 18, 2:00 AM

4.7

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

1 attendee

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

Wed, Aug 12, 2:00 AM

From The San Francisco "not quite a book club" Book Club

From Casual Short Story Book Club

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.

22 attendees

August Meeting: Banana Yoshimoto - Lizard

Thu, Aug 13, 1:30 AM

From If Books Could Kill (Drinks, murder and spooks for women)

**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

35 attendees

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

Thu, Aug 13, 12:30 AM

5.0

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!

12 attendees

Round Table Book Discussion August Meeting

Fri, Aug 21, 1:30 AM

From Round Table Book Discussion

4.7

Join us for an in-person, open discussion on the fiction or non-fiction book or podcast/movie/news article/cultural event that most engaged you. Give a brief summary of a book or article that interested you, and we will discuss it, along with the issues other participants select. Or just come to check it out. Find us by the Roundtable sign on the table. Thursday, August 20, 2026 at 6:30 pm **We are at our warm-weather outdoor location:** [Caffe Strada](https://www.google.com/maps/search/?api=1&query=37.869286%2C%20-122.254616), 2300 College Avenue · Berkeley, CA

6 attendees

Sátántangó by László Krasznahorkai

Tue, Aug 18, 2:00 AM

From Literary Discussion Group

From The San Francisco "not quite a book club" Book Club

Discuss Sátántangó by László Krasznahorkai

12 attendees

(4th Saturday Richmond District Edition). Books, Coffee, Chit Chat

Sat, Aug 22, 6:00 PM

From Oakland/ Berkeley New Fiction & Emerging Authors Book Club

Bring what you’re reading and we’ll have an interesting group conversation (novels, non-fiction, essays, poetry, romance, cookbooks, science fiction & fantasy, etc.) This “4th Saturday Richmond District Edition” is designed to accommodate the overflow from Emily’s 2nd Saturday Richmond District Book Chat. If you are not able to attend Emily’s Group, then please feel free to join this 4th Saturday version. We meet in the back patio of Bazaar Café (lovely place). If it rains, we’ll meet inside the Café.

24 attendees

Book 90: Babylon, South Dakota by Tom Lin

Thu, Aug 6, 2:00 AM

From The San Francisco "not quite a book club" Book Club

“ 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

7 attendees

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

Sat, Aug 8, 6:00 PM

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.

20 attendees

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