The book people are just about DONE for the year (or at least went to lay down for a bit), so your choices this week are: lining up for blockbusters, going on some incredible hikes under glorious autumn skies, or reading all those books you bought at the readings you went to in October. For movies, the fanatics at Screen Slate have you covered. Down the road at Bather’s Library (which did have poetry on Monday, or would have, if Mondays were not a void), Justin’s putting together a sort of yearbook of everything that happened over Bather’s’ first year in existence: send in all your ephemera and writing by 12/1, and take note: they’re starting up reading groups again in the new year. Also mark your calendars for an ORB event on 12/18: more details sooooon. Meanwhile, I’m off for a few weeks but the calendar continues, as the world and ORB revolve unstoppingly. -MDS
Tuesday, Nov 25
A Mostly Literary Fiction Book Club, 2:00pm Central Library (Downtown Berkeley). Did you read James by Percival Everett? Do you want to discuss it? Are you unexpectedly free at 2pm? [BPL]
Mystery Book Club, 4:00pm, West Branch (Berkeley). 1920s style whodunnit, but in Bombay: The Widows Of Malabar Hill is history wrapped in a mystery. [BPL]
Mystery Book Club, The Island One, 4:30 pm, Bay Farm Island Branch (Alameda). Double Indemnity by James M. Cain -- old school noir, back when you could sell books as serials to magazines and make (holy shit inflation calculator) the equivalent of $100k for it. [Alameda Free Library]
[West Bay] Native American Heritage Night, 6 pm, Gray Area Theater (Mission). Doors at 5 for the gathering: Come early, bring your friends, and share in the food, stories, and spirit of the American Indian Cultural Center. [insta]
Bingo! 7:30pm, The New Parkway (Uptown). This is how far we are from a barrage of book events this week: the only word getting shouted out tonight is the name of the farmer’s dog. [The New Parkway]
Also: There is no also. Make your own fun.
Wednesday, Nov 26
Bird Walk, 9:30 a.m, Boat House parking lot (Lake Merritt). The birds remember when Lake Merritt was a slough, marshily seeping and reedy. They’re sticking around to remind us. Follow knowledgeable and experienced Golden Gate Bird Alliance guide Hilary Powers. Or read the book. Meet at the rocky patch. [Lake Merritt]
Grown Folks Storytime, 12:15 PM, Children's Programming Room, Main Library (Alameda) . I have no idea what kind of reading is done and dusted in just thirty minutes, but IMPORTANT NOTE from the librarians: “while the materials included in this series will not always be similar to those associated with traditional storytimes, this is not a space for erotica or literature with ‘adult’ content.” [Alameda Free]
[West Bay Bonus Event] Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, 8:30 pm, The Roxie (The Mission). An intimate, first-hand perspective on life under siege in Gaza, captured through video calls between director Sepideh Farsi and 25-year-old Palestinian photojournalist and poet Fatma Hassona. Fatma and her family were killed by a targeted Israeli airstrike on April 16, one day after the film was announced as a selection of the Cannes Film Festival. [Roxie]
Also: also no also here.
Thursday, Nov 27
Annual Alcatraz Sunrise Ceremony 2025, 4:00 AM, The Rock (The Bay). Mark the 56th anniversary of the 1969-1971 occupation of Alcatraz by the Indians of All Tribes and commemorate 533 years of Indigenous resistance, resiliency and survival in the Americas. Ceremony includes Ohlone welcome, Pomo and Aztec dancers, drummers and presenters. Take the ferry from the West Bay or listen in on KPFA starting at 6 AM. [Indybay]
Also: The Oakland Turkey Trot at the Lake Merritt Pergola (The Lake)
Friday, Nov 28
Book Making Workshop (for kids), 9 AM, MOCHA (Downtown). The children these days get the entire Thanksgiving week off, which is absurd, and by Friday, they really need something to do. NOW IS THE TIME to get them started in BOOKS. And then you can stay home and read one yourself. I am packing 15 books, a third of which are by or about Gertrude Stein, and a whole lot of ebooks for my vacation, which is the right number. [Care.com]
First Annual Oakland Street Mandala, 10am, Linden St between 28th & 30th (West Oakland). Everyone is invited to paint a mandala designed by local artists, and there will also be a liberation marketplace so bring your coins to support local vendors. All day, come by until the sun sets. [insta]
Shellmound 2 Shellmound Prayer Walk, 10:00 AM, West Berkeley Shellmound (Fucking Fourth Street). Join this year’s Prayer Walk from the East Bay’s oldest village site and shellmound, recently rematriated to the Ohlone people, and walk the bayshore to the site of the largest shellmound, on Bay Street in Emeryville. There will be walking, sweating, singing and ceremony for collective liberation! [Indybay]
The Gold Rush, 2 p.m., BAMPFA (Downtown Berkeley). Charlie Chaplin said that The Gold Rush was the film for which he would like to be remembered; it glitters with some of his most memorable nuggets of comedy. Silently. [BAMPFA]
How I Write My Good Music, 3 p.m., Morrison Hall (Cal). Come hear composer Curtis Rumrill give away all his secrets; and then stay for an encore, which will be on how to write bad music, for the super fans only. [UCB]
Palestine 36, 5:00 pm, The New Parkway (Uptown). In 1936, as Palestinian villages revolt against British colonial rule, Yusuf navigates between Jerusalem and his rural home. Starring Jeremy Irons and The British Empire. [New Parkway]
Karaoke, 8:00 pm, The New Parkway (Uptown). Sing a song of turkeys or four and twenty blackbirds or pumpkins baked in a pie. [New Parkway]
Also: Weed Warriors at Lake Merritt (Lake, obviously) / F#CK BLACK FRIDAY Queer Market + Stop Cop City Bay Area Fundraiser at Place Community (Golden Gate) / Rally for Blockade of Military Aid to Israel at ILWU International (West Bay) / Barn Owl Service Project at Del Valle EBRP (Livermore) / Green Friday Hike Amongst the Trees at Reinhardt Redwood Regional Park (The Hills)
Saturday, Nov 29
Noname Book Club 1:00 PM, 81st Avenue Branch (Deep East). This month, the Black author centering book club reads Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. [OPL]
Slimy Slugs and Slender Salamanders, 1:00 PM, Tilden (Berkeley Hills). Meet at the Environmental Education Center and walk around looking for slender salamanders and all the other herps that like it cool and damp. [EBRPD]
MOMIX: Alice, 2 p.m., Zellerbach Hall (Cal). Mesmerizing dancer-illusionists stage a wild and fantastical take on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Acrobatics, whimsy and wonder in a series of absurdist vignettes inspired by Carroll’s characters. [Cal Performances]
Yi Yi, 3p.m. BAMPFA (Downtown Berkeley). A movie that holds all of life’s laughter, joys, and heartbreaks in its frames as it follows a year in the life of one multigenerational middle-class family in Taipei. [UCB]
Inside Out, 5:30pm, Raimondi Park (West Oakland). It’s too cold for this, we’re in inside-time season now, especially after sunset, go see something in a theatre. [eventbrite]
[West Bay Bonus Event] Aloud / Out Loud: Indigenous Voices, 6:30pm Telegraph Hill Books (below Coit Tower). Incredible night of local Indigenous writers and advocates: Julian Brave NoiseCat, Kim Shuck, Jon Hickey, Sara Calvosa Olson, Greg Sarris, and Theresa Harlan. There’s gonna be hard truths and such good stories. [Tel Hill]
Also: Women in Wilderness Hike at Canyon View Trail (Sunol) / Gallery Chats at OMCA (The Lake) / "Nature To You" with a Park District Naturalists at Dimond Branch Library OPL (The Dimond) / Nature Gathering with From The Hood To The Woods at Lake Chabot (Castro Valley)
Sunday, Nov 30
Plantitas Y Poesia, 1 pm, Flor Hermosa Coffee (Richmond). Medicine for Nightmares comes over from the Mission, brings West Bay poet María Guerrero (“I am from the sounds / of the 29-bus line”), and hangs out drinking coffee and petting plants with East Bay poets Nazelah Jamison and Jelal Huyler, who does not condone linear time -- plus the open mic readers who will follow. [insta]
[West Bay Bonus Event] Come See Me In The Good Light, 3pm and again at 7:45pm, The Roxie (The Mission). Poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley facing an incurable cancer diagnosis with joy, wit and an unshakable partnership. “Dying is an art, like everything else” is Sylvia Plath, but applies here. [Roxie]
The Tragedy of Macbeth, 4:30pm, BAMPFA (Downtown Berkeley). The Scottish Play, starring Denzel in his best role since Much Ado opposite Keanu, and Frances McDormand, North Bay pal. [BAMPFA]
talk, 6:00pm, Tamarack (Uptown). There are no further details. Is this a command, an invitation, a description, an error? Make it what you will, buy yourself a beer, it’s Sunday and the poems will be back next Friday, to see the year out. [Tamarack]
Also: Spanish & English Language Exchange / Intercambio at The New Parkway (Uptown)
