January is Non-Fiction- I Heard Her Call My Name : A Memoir of Transition by Lucy Sante.
Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Slate
“Sante’s bold devotion to complexity and clarity makes this an exemplary memoir. It is a clarion call to live one’s most authentic life.” —The Boston Globe
“Not to be missed, I Heard Her Call My Name is a powerful example of self-reflection and a vibrant exploration of the modern dynamics of gender and identity.” —Lit Hub’s Most Anticipated Books of 2024
February is Non-Fiction- Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
From Rachel Kushner, two-time finalist for both the Booker Prize and National Book Award, a “vital” (The Washington Post) and “wickedly entertaining” (The Guardian) novel about a seductive and cunning American woman who infiltrates an anarchist collective in France—a propulsive page-turner filled with dark humor.
March is Non-Fiction- The White Album by Joan Didion.
Examining key events, figures, and trends of the era―including Charles Manson, the Black Panthers, and the shopping mall―through the lens of her own spiritual confusion, Joan Didion helped to define mass culture as we now understand it. Written with a commanding sureness of tone and linguistic precision, The White Album is a central text of American reportage and a classic of American autobiography.
April – Fiction- Convenience Store Woman: A Novel by Sayaka Murata (Author)
Convenience Store Woman is the heartwarming and surprising story of thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident Keiko Furukura. Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family, nor in school, but when at the age of eighteen she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of “Smile Mart,” she finds peace and purpose in her life.
May – Non-Fiction- Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah (Author)
Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away.
June - Fiction- ONE BAY ONE BOOK SERIES: Ain't No Grave by Mary Glickman (Author)
Nine-year-olds Max Sassaport and Ruby Johnson are best friends who can’t imagine a world where they aren’t together. Unfortunately, no one—not their families, nor anyone else in rural Georgia in 1906—wants to see a White middle-class Jewish boy get too close to the Black daughter of a sharecropper. It’s only a matter of time before fate will separate the two.
GROUP OUTING: The Tony Award-winning musical Parade, which focuses on the Leo Frank case at the center of the One Bay One Book selection Ain’t No Grave, will be playing at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco from May 13 through June 8.
July – Non-Fiction- Reading the Room: A Bookseller's Tale by Paul Yamazaki (Author)
Over twenty-four hours, Paul Yamazaki leads us through the stacks of storied City Lights Booksellers in San Francisco; the care and prowess of his approach to book buying; his upbringing in a Japanese American family in Southern California and moving to San Francisco at the height of revolutionary foment; working with legendary figures in the book publishing industry like Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Sonny Mehta, and others; and his vision for the future of bookselling.
"All booksellers are the unsung heroes of American literature, but Paul Yamazaki is a superhero." ― Colson Whitehead, author of The Underground Railroad, Harlem Shuffle, and Crook Manifesto
August - Fiction- SUMMER READ: The Idea of You: A Novel Paperback by Robinne Lee (Author)
Solène Marchand, the thirty-nine-year-old owner of an art gallery in Los Angeles, is reluctant to take her daughter, Isabelle, to meet her favorite boy band. But since her divorce, she’s more eager than ever to be close to Isabelle. The last thing Solène expects is to make a connection with one of the members of the world-famous August Moon. But Hayes Campbell is clever, winning, confident, and posh, and the attraction is immediate. That he is all of twenty years old further complicates things.
September – Non-Fiction- ONE CITY ONE BOOK: Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (Author)
Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun run a house-painting business in New Orleans. In August of 2005, as Hurricane Katrina approaches, Kathy evacuates with their four young children, leaving Zeitoun to watch over the business. In the days following the storm he travels the city by canoe, feeding abandoned animals and helping elderly neighbors. Then, on September 6th, police officers armed with M-16s arrest Zeitoun in his home.
October - Fiction- Ecotopia: A Novel by Ernest Callenbach (Author)
Ecotopia was founded when northern California, Oregon, and Washington seceded from the Union to create a “stable-state” ecosystem: the perfect balance between human beings and the environment. Now, twenty years later, this isolated, mysterious nation is welcoming its first officially sanctioned American visitor: New York Times-Post reporter Will Weston.
November - Non-Fiction- ONE CITY ONE BOOK: The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir by Thi Bui (Author)
This beautifully illustrated and emotional story is an evocative memoir exploring the anguish of immigration and the lasting effects that displacement has on a child and her family. Bui documents the story of her family’s daring escape after the fall of South Vietnam in the 1970s, and the difficulties they faced building new lives for themselves.
December - Fiction- The Line of Beauty: A Novel by Alan Hollinghurst (Author)
From acclaimed author Alan Hollinghurst, a sweeping novel about class, sex, and money during four extraordinary years of change and tragedy.
In the summer of 1983, twenty-year-old Nick Guest moves into an attic room in the Notting Hill home of the Feddens: conservative Member of Parliament Gerald, his wealthy wife Rachel, and their two children, Toby-whom Nick had idolized at Oxford-and Catherine, who is highly critical of her family's assumptions and ambitions.
CORRECTION December Book: Severance is a 2018 post-apocalyptic novel by Chinese American author Ling Ma. It follows Candace Chen, an unfulfilled Bible product coordinator, before and after an incurable infection slowly obliterates global civilization. Severance explores themes of nostalgia, modern office culture, monotony, and intimate relationships.