In 1912 it was rather unusual for a club to have both men and women in its ranks—among our first members were legendary philanthropist Phoebe Apperson Hearst (also mother of William Randolph Hearst), and San Francisco artist and book designer Florence Lundborg.

But the Book Club of California is not just any club.  We take pride not only in publishing significant books on California and the West for over a hundred years (with exciting new ones on the horizon), and hosting book-related exhibitions and lectures that are the talk of the town, but in the people who call the Book Cl­ub home—our members.

And who are those members?

Our membership is made up of a diverse and vital community united by a love of fine books and the marriage of content and craft. BCC members include printers, binders, typographers, historians, librarians, curators, collectors, readers, scholars, and people who simply love books. They hail from all over the world, representing 38 states and 8 countries.

A virtual “Who’s Who” of those who have made important contributions to arts and letters, our members and their collaborators have included, among others:

Ansel Adams
the Arion Press
Merle Armitage
the Artichoke Press
Faith Baldwin
Nicholas Basbanes
Ambrose Bierce
Robert Bringhurst
Witter Bynner
Philip P. Choy
Peter Coyote
Johanna Drucker
Isadora Duncan
William Everson
Francis P. Farquhar
Edwin & Robert Grabhorn
Phoebe Apperson Hearst
Robinson Jeffers
Alfred A. Knopf
Peter Koch
Gary Kurutz
Anne Lamott
Oscar Lewis
Leonard Marcus
Donovan McCune
Franklin D. Murphy
John Henry Nash
A. Edward Newton
Ninja Press
Lawrence Clark Powell
Laurie Reed
Felicia Rice
Dominic Riley
Ward Ritchie
Rena Rosenwasser
Kay Ryan
Norton Simon
Rebecca Solnit
Kevin Starr
Jack Stauffacher
Robert Louis Stevenson
John Steinbeck
Mark Twain
Susan Vreeland
Florence Walter
Carl I. Wheat
Anne Willan
Yolla Bolly Press

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But you don’t have to be famous to be a Book Club of California member. You just have to have a passion for fine books—and the people who make and collect them.

Be a part of the tradition

Join today and be part of our century-long tradition of fine books in California and the West. Click here to begin.