Comic Book Collecting San Francisco

August meeting - Universality by Natasha Brown

In August, we'll be discussing *Universality* by Natasha Brown, which was longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize. "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

Tough Guy Book Club - San Francisco CA

Join us for the San Francisco Chapter of Tough Guy Book Club. You can find out this month's book here [https://toughguybookclub.com/books](https://toughguybookclub.com/books?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAYnJpZBExcTVleWRsd0ZYSWdqZXV4QXNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR5aL8E3xpn05czDIaY5kEiHH3oABs4hICFLOrNXUsW-0gY5HePBTW1ni0SYzw_aem_qNxAzG9ij-sVr5-Rf8Uw3Q) If you have the chance, try to pick up the book and read a couple of pages before the night. If you haven’t, come anyway, no one gives a damn. We are not your boss. If you got one, make sure to bring your copy of the books down, it’ll help you talk about bits of it, we suggest underlining stuff that sticks out to you as important. Also like all months, we will be announcing next month’s book at the meeting and handing them out to those of you who were wise enough to pre-order last month. See you there. Want to know more about Tough Guy Book Club? Read this - [http://toughguybookclub.com/about-us](http://toughguybookclub.com/about-us?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAYnJpZBExcTVleWRsd0ZYSWdqZXV4QXNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR5QrDxxQmsaiuIfgbomTP4b6948UogKCm9U4Dudq5-VU_8aUx5RnTiUjO_R1Q_aem_n5AIic3b6NMTZ5TUJGTLkw)

Plus Arcade Party

Book 91: Endling by Maria Reva

I heard a review of this book on Fresh Air https://www.npr.org/2025/06/23/nx-s1-5440259/endling-review-maria-reva-ukraine *Starting out as a straightforward story about a Ukrainian biologist, this witty, shape-shifting book turns into something trickier and more interesting.* This sounds like the kind of book I love -- Martha \-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\- **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! \-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\- Set in Ukraine, an eccentric scientist breeding rare snails crosses paths with sisters posing as members of the marriage industry to find their activist mother. As Russia invades, they embark on a wild journey with kidnapped bachelors and a last-of-its-kind snail. This darkly comic novel explores survival, love, and hope in times of encroaching darkness. A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: THE WASHINGTON POST, THE NEW YORKER, NPR, GOOD HOUSEKEEPING, PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY, THE GUARDIAN, LIBRARY JOURNAL “Startling and ambitious.”—New York Times • “Virtuosic.”—NPR, Fresh Air • “Brilliant and heart-stopping.”—Los Angeles Times Ukraine, 2022. Yeva is a loner and a maverick scientist who lives out of her mobile lab.She scours the country’s forests and valleys, trying and failing to breed rare snails, while her relatives urge her to settle down and finally start a family of her own. What they don’t know: Yeva already dates plenty of men—not for love, but to fund her work—entertaining Westerners who come to Ukraine on guided romance tours believing they’ll find docile brides untainted by feminism and modernity. Nastia and her sister, Solomiya, are also entangled in the booming marriage industry, posing as a hopeful bride and her translator while secretly searching for their missing mother, who vanished after years of fierce activism against the romance tours. Together they embark across hundreds of miles: three angry women, a truckful of kidnapped bachelors, and Lefty, a last-of-his-kind snail with one final shot at perpetuating his species. But their plans come to a screeching halt when Russia invades. In a stunningly ambitious and achingly raw metafictional spiral, Endling brilliantly balances horror and comedy, drawing on Reva’s own experiences as a Ukrainian expat tracking her family’s delicate dance of survival behind enemy lines. As fiction and reality collide on the page, Reva probes the hard truths of war: What stories must we tell ourselves to survive? To carry on with the routines of life under military occupation? And for those of us watching from over-seas: Can our sense of normalcy and security ever be restored, or have they always been a fragile illusion? Endling is a tour de force from an author who weaves a story of love, loss, humor, and devastation that only she can tell.

Pink Flamingo Bingo

Oakland BYO Book Club (First timers welcome & introvert friendly)

[Partiful RSVP Link for location ](https://partiful.com/u/XzH5cT2AssuzPtiJRwFe) On Wednesdays (new day), we have a book club with a twist. Bring any book you are currently working on or want to start. We spend the first part reading in silence together (until about 8:15 pm) and the last part discussing what we are each reading, what inspired our reading choices, and a nugget from what we read. 📕 Great way to learn about new topics, books, authors, and about each other with our rich discussions 🧠 😌 Newcomers welcome and Introvert-friendly. An Oakland Muslim Bookclub gathering — bringing Muslims together through books, conversation, and adab. Partifull RSVP (we have an average of 5-15 regulars who attend bookclub weekly, most rsvps are via Partiful): [Partiful RSVP Link](https://partiful.com/u/XzH5cT2AssuzPtiJRwFe)

The Legacy of the Grateful Dead - Haight Street Art Center

Plastic Fantastic Closing show

Amoeba Music on Haight

Amoeba Music on Haight is a massive, legendary independent record store located at [1855 Haight St](https://www.amoeba.com/our-stores/) in San Francisco's historic Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. Opened in November 1997 inside a former 24,000-square-foot bowling alley. Bring a chair, dress warm. Gather at 1215/1230 to share

SF Men's Naked Drawing Group Session Saturday 08/22/2026

Pencil Me In: DIY Canvas Pencil Pouches (and Junk Journaling)

Rambler Readers August Meeting

**NOTE: We are trying something new for our San Jose locations to avoid traffic. This meeting will be on a SUNDAY afternoon.** Location: Sneha's house in San Jose. Attendees will receive an email with the address several days prior to the meeting. Potluck, Sneha will provide a main dish, we provide everything else. This month's book selection: Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman About the book: You know what’s worse than breaking up with your girlfriend? Being stuck with her prize-winning show cat. And you know what’s worse than that? An alien invasion, the destruction of all man-made structures on Earth, and the systematic exploitation of all the survivors for a sadistic intergalactic game show. That’s what. Future Books: Sept: SRK Oct: MB Nov: MR Dec: MT