Hosted/Organized by: American Bookbinders Museum and Book Club of California Picture books are a jewel in the crown of children’s literature. They are composed of words, illustrations, and the dramatically paced rhythm of pages turning in the reader’s hand. When these elements come together with creative mastery, a surge of mind or heart can occur, […]
Hosted/Organized by: Book Club of California With over 400 officially designated local, state, and national landmarks, San Francisco is steeped in history. The city’s neighborhoods feature unique buildings and special places, some that are well known to residents and tourists but also structures and locations that have been obscured by time. Beginning at Captain Richardson’s […]
Book trade historian Charles Nelson Johnson provides a fresh look at lesser-known Southern California antiquarian bookseller Alice Parsons Millard (1873-1938)—a role she inherited as much as chose—and her activities as she courageously maneuvered her way through the decidedly male dominated trade in 1920s-1930s Europe and the United States; her personal challenges, creative business innovations and […]
In Googie Modern: Architectural Drawings of Armet Davis Newlove, authors Michael Murphy and Alan Hess take readers inside the private archives of the forward-thinking trio dubbed the “fathers of Googie.” Inspiring not just artists and filmmakers but the public at large, their futuristic coffee shops and restaurants made dining out a space-age experience, just as […]
For millions of Muslims, the Qur’an is sacred only in the original Arabic. Revealed to an Arab merchant Muhammad in 7th century Arabia, it calls itself “an Arabic Qur’an”. At once lyrical and adamantine, it resists translation into any other language. Yet scholars have tried to cross the barrier, rendering it into numerous classical and […]
The creative career of Joseph Jacinto “Jo” Mora (1876-1947) was both compelling and diverse. In addition to being a painter, muralist, sculptor, building designer, cartographer, actor, set designer, cowboy, and husband and father, Mora was very involved with work on paper. It is his work as an illustrator, cartoonist, printer, and author that so closely […]
Letterpress print your own broadside on the Book Club’s Columbian hand press with Li Jiang, Lemoncheese Press. A limited number of broadsides will be printed.
In the history of Westward Expansion, the Donner Party stands alone. Their story has been the inspiration for a bounty of books and pamphlets, both serious and some not so much. The literary history of the Donner Party runs the gamut from histories, biographies, fiction, epic poems, plays and even a cookbook! After more than […]
Lowell Thing, author of “Cover Treasure – The Life and Art of Margaret Armstrong,” describes how, beginning on the lawn of a library book sale, he began to discover and collect books from the “Golden Age” of American trade publishers’ decorated cloth bindings (1890-1915), especially those of one of its best-known artists. Over the next […]
Join author and napkin collector Patrick Quinn and designer J. Eric Lynxwiler for a fabulous tour of cocktail culture in the Golden State as they discuss their book Bar Keeps. Do you know how the cocktail got its name? Ever wonder why pink elephants symbolize a pixelated good time? Or have you asked yourself why […]
The late 19th century has been labelled the “Baedeker Era” after the famous series of compact, bright-red travel guides published simultaneously in German, English, and French. The Baedeker guides’ trademark characteristics – systematic, impersonal, regularly updated, in a portable format packed with practical information and complementary maps – have served as a template for all […]
