The Book Club of California

Address
312 Sutter Street Ste 500
San Francisco, CA 94108 United States Get Directions
Website https://www.bccbooks.org/programs/

Events at this venue

Today

  • The White Whale: Moby-Dick Illustrated

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    The Book Club of California 312 Sutter Street Ste 500, San Francisco, CA, United States

    At the time of Herman Melville’s death, in 1891, his novels had fallen into obscurity. Moby-Dick, his masterwork published in 1851, was out of print and unread. But in the 1920s, critical reassessments led to a “Melville revival.” This lecture surveys some of the famous and less well-known illustrated editions, artists’ books, and other visual interpretations, […]

  • Women’s Book History and the Knowledge Revolution

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    The Book Club of California 312 Sutter Street Ste 500, San Francisco, CA, United States

    The fields of book history and bibliography are having a cultural reckoning. The Women in Book History Bibliography (womensbookhistory.org) has acted as an impetus for championing the “lost” histories of women in the book trades and as a tool for arguing for further recovery work. Still in progress, the bibliography currently consists of over 2000 […]

  • A ‘Deep City’ Approach to Climate Change: The Case of Deep Oakland

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    The Book Club of California 312 Sutter Street Ste 500, San Francisco, CA, United States

    Deep Oakland: How Geology Shaped a City, presents a seldom-attempted blend of human and geologic history, explaining the stories told by the physical landscape and detailing how the city has interacted with it. Wealth generated in the region from its geological resources―water, stone, soil and minerals―has influenced societies from the pre-contact Ohlones to the Americans […]

  • American Burial Ground: A New History of the Overland Trail

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    The Book Club of California 312 Sutter Street Ste 500, San Francisco, CA, United States

    In popular mythology, the Overland Trail is typically a triumphant tale, with plucky easterners crossing the Plains in caravans of covered wagons. But not everyone reached Oregon and California. Some 6,600 migrants perished along the way and were buried where they fell, often on Indigenous land. As historian Sarah Keyes illuminates, their graves ultimately became […]

  • The Life, Motto, and Library of William Walker (1570-1642), Vicar of Chiswick

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    The Book Club of California 312 Sutter Street Ste 500, San Francisco, CA, United States

    Approximately twenty-five printed books and ten manuscripts have been located from before 1640 which bear the florid inscription: “Will and Walke aright. Will: Walker,” usually appearing on the title-page of a printed book, or on the first or last leaf of a manuscript. This talk will attempt to identify the author of the inscription and […]

  • Print Your Own Broadside Affair

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    The Book Club of California 312 Sutter Street Ste 500, San Francisco, CA, United States

    Letterpress print your own broadside on the Book Club’s Colombian hand press with Li Jiang, Lemoncheese Press. A limited number of broadsides will be printed. Registration required.

  • The Newly Discovered Notebook of Isaac Newton

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    The Book Club of California 312 Sutter Street Ste 500, San Francisco, CA, United States

    The Cambridge University Library recently purchased a previously unknown notebook kept by Isaac Newton’s chamber-fellow, John Wickins, in the years around 1680. It is possible to identify the contents of the notebook as being previously unknown compositions and correspondence of Isaac Newton, which shed light on many aspects of his work and his engagement with […]

  • A Collection of Early English Books: Reading in the Age of Shakespeare

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    The Book Club of California 312 Sutter Street Ste 500, San Francisco, CA, United States

    Paul Chrzanowski’s presentation explores “books that Shakespeare might have read.” He donated his collection of nearly 150 early English books to the UCLA William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. The earliest printed work is Cordyal of the four last and final things, a book printed in 1479 by William Caxton, England’s first printer. The donation includes […]

  • Karmiole Endowed Lecture: Paul Elder: A Literary Life in Seven Bookstores and Exhibition Opening

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    The Book Club of California 312 Sutter Street Ste 500, San Francisco, CA, United States

    After resigning from his sales position at William Doxey’s bookstore in San Francisco’s famous Palace Hotel in 1897, a young Paul Elder opened his own shop two blocks away. Elder’s goal was a bookstore with a carefully crafted ambience, reflecting his embrace of the California Arts & Crafts Movement. Elder’s own publications were often designed […]

  • Companions of Minds and Books: H.H. and Matilda Bancroft in Their Literary Industries

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    The Book Club of California 312 Sutter Street Ste 500, San Francisco, CA, United States

    Kim Bancroft will discuss the legacy of her great-great-grandparents, H.H. Bancroft, historian of the West and founder of The Bancroft Library at U.C. Berkeley, and his second wife, Matilda Bancroft, a writer and historian in her own right. After marrying H.H. in 1859, Emily wrote voluminous letters from San Francisco to her family in Buffalo […]

  • Reception for the California Rare Book School

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    The Book Club of California 312 Sutter Street Ste 500, San Francisco, CA, United States

    Join us for a reception to welcome the students, instructors, and staff from California Rare Book School at this special Book Club member event. California Rare Book School (CalRBS) is a continuing education program dedicated to providing the requisite knowledge and skills for professionals working in all aspects of the rare book community, and for […]

  • Fifty Years in the Making: A Reprise by John A. Lehner of the 1970 Decorative Designers Exhibition

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    The Book Club of California 312 Sutter Street Ste 500, San Francisco, CA, United States

    In 1970 John A. Lehner attended The Decorative Designers Exhibition and was captivated by the originality and variety of The Decorative Designers’ work. The Decorative Designers operated as a firm, as opposed to individual artists, to present publishers with designs hand-painted onto the cloth that would be used in production, thus giving a clearer representation […]