Speaker spotlight: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

Our full list of Festival authors and speakers will go live mid-March, but to make the wait a bit less daunting, here’s one author you won’t want to miss in April. Kenyan-born Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o was dubbed by The Washington Post as…

Out now: “The Line Becomes a River” by Francisco Cantú

Former border patrol agent and 2018 Festival speaker Francisco Cantú’s new book came out earlier this month, and it is already making waves. In “The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border,” Cantú shares his unique and dynamic…

Mother Jones and the Bay Area Book Festival kick off event series

On Thursday evening, more than 350 people filed into the auditorium of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts to hear about the building of a movement. The event was the first in Mother Jones and the Bay Area Book Festival’s 2018 conversation…

Opinion: Should Authors Write Outside Their Cultural Identity?

This piece, written by Bay Area Book Festival Founder and Director Cherilyn Parsons, original appeared on Ozy. Every January, I travel to India from California to plunge into a festive literary fray: the Jaipur Literature Festival. JLF…

Listen up: the Bay Area Book Festival podcast

As our next Festival draws closer, memories of last year's start to fade. But don't worry, we prepared for this. To make sure the discussions started at the Festival never fizzle out, we have made full-length recordings of some of our most popular…

Patrisse Khan-Cullors, asha bandele on “When They Call You a Terrorist”

  On February 15 at 7:30 p.m., Black Lives Matter Co-Founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors, asha bandele, and Mother Jones reporter Jamilah King will be in San Francisco to launch our event series with Mother Jones. Cullors and bandele…

Noteworthy: 10 lit links worth reading

1. Book-ward facing dog? Yoga poses to make reading more comfortable. 2. A disturbing novel leads investigators to link its author with an unsolved murder. 3. Why authors will always put pen to paper. 4. Your reading slump won't…

The Fine Print: Here’s what we read in January

"Affections" by Rodrigo Hasbún From the first page, you can tell you’re in the hands of a master. Set in the 1950s and 60s Bolivian revolution, the novel travels among characters and tells a big story within a short book. Be sure to keep…

Speaker spotlight: Robert Reich

Our full list of Festival authors and speakers will go live mid-March, but to make the wait a bit less daunting, here's one author you won't want to miss in April. Robert Reich has become a household name as one of today's political commentators…

Festival Newsletter: December 2017

Dear Friend of the Festival, In last month’s newsletter, we asked you why you read. And you — you wonderfully curious, insatiable, driven people — answered that you read, above all else, to expand your minds with new ideas. How…