The Book Club of California is offering in-person and online programs and activities. Hybrid events with in-person attendance and a streaming element are also held.
In-person programs without a virtual component may be recorded for online viewing on our YouTube Channel after the event.
Unless otherwise noted, all events are free and open to the public and take place at the Book Club of California located at 312 Sutter Street, Suite 500 in San Francisco.
Please refer to the description under each event.
Email programs@bccbooks.org for any questions, or call (415) 781-7532 ext. 2. Many of our staff will be working remotely so please contact them by email or phone. Staff contact information can be found on our website.
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5:30 PM Pacific – Reception
6:00 PM Pacific – Program
The Splendid Disarray of Beauty (2023) tells two intertwined stories, one of love, the other of art.
In 1910, the San Franciscans Frank Ingerson and George Dennison became permanently paired in life and love. Known among their friends and in their community as the Boys, they remained in a de facto common law marriage for 55 years.
In the eastern foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains they established the first stand-alone summers-only art school in California. The school was devoted to the lifestyle and aesthetic of the American Arts & Crafts movement, which aimed to imbue beauty into every element of day-to-day living, taking nature as a source of inspiration in doing so.
The school lasted only four years but had a significant impact on the California art scene—inspiring the creation of three other summer-only art schools in Northern California and its distinguished alumni went on to found the California Society of Etchers and the ArtCenter College of Design in LA (now in Pasadena).
In 1915 both men held positions at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition: George was on its central committee as the chief operations officer for the Palace of Horticulture and designed the landscaping for the fair. Frank was in charge of the principal decorative arts exhibitions.
The men went on to form life-long friendships with famous artists and Hollywood stars, including Olivia de Havilland, Joan Fontaine, Yehudi Menuhin, Loie Fuller, and Ruth St. Denis. Additionally, during this time the pair cultivated a glamorous life that glittered across two continents.
In this talk Richard D. Mohr introduces us to two of the most interesting and admirable men you have never met, until now.
An in-person and virtual presentation by Richard D. Mohr, author and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and of the Classics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Click here to REGISTER to attend in-person at The Book Club of California
5:30 PM Pacific – Reception
6:00 PM Pacific – Program
Pasadena Heritage | The Blinn House | 160 N Oakland | Pasadena, CA 9110
L.A. Painter: The City I Know / The City I See is a full-color exploration of Karla Klarin’s abstract and modern landscapes of Los Angeles, where she was born, raised, and became one of the city’s most influential female painters. This first full monograph of her work is accompanied by ten essays that define her hometown—a city of moving parts and people that exist within a geometry of impressive expanse and beauty.
An in-person presentation by Karla Klarin, artist and author
Click here to REGISTER to attend in-person at The Book Club of California
5:30 PM Pacific – Reception
6:00 PM Pacific – Program
In September of 1926, Albert M. Bender turned his philanthropic focus on Stanford University Library. As one of the founders of the Book Club of California, Bender needs no introduction to this audience who will also be familiar with his efforts to establish an appreciation for the book arts at Mills College, San Francisco Public Library, and other Bay Area institutions. His offer to assemble, with the co-operation of friends, “a collection of notable examples of fine printing to be placed on exhibition in the Stanford Library”, was immediately embraced by faculty, students, and library staff. This gift was the catalyst for the creation in rapid succession of a Typographical Collection, a Rare Book Room, a staff position for a Keeper of Rare Books, and, by the end of the 1930s, a Division of Special Collections to manage the library’s growing holdings of rare and distinctive materials.
Over the decades, the Stanford collections were reorganized several times and much of the provenance information about this transformative period was lost from the library catalog, with the foundational gift eventually being dispersed. This presentation explores some notable pre-Bender acquisitions, once held on a bookcase in the library director’s office, before introducing the foundational gift of “Finely Printed Books” that started, and in many ways still shapes, the collecting program at Stanford.
An in-person and virtual presentation by Benjamin Albritton, Rare Books Curator in the Department of Special Collections at Stanford Libraries
Click here to REGISTER to attend in-person at The Book Club of California
5:00 PM Pacific – Program
Teaching the History of the Book (University of Massachusetts Press) is the first collection dedicated to book history pedagogy. Edited by Matteo Pangallo and Emily Todd and featuring contributions from a diverse range of teachers, scholars, and practitioners in literature, language studies, history, book arts, library science, and archives, the collection presents a variety of methods for teaching book history both as its own subject and as an approach to other subjects. Each of the 39 chapters describes lessons, courses, and programs centered on the latest and best ways of teaching undergraduate and graduate students both about and with book history.
Beginning with chapters that apply particular pedagogical and critical theories to the book history classroom, the book then covers effective ways to organize courses devoted to book history, classroom activities that draw upon book history in other courses, and an overview of selected print and digital tools for book history classes. Contributors draw on their own experiences in the classroom to bring to life some of the rich possibilities for teaching book history in the twenty-first century.
A virtual presentation by the editors and selected contributors to Teaching the History of the Book (University of Massachusetts Press, 2023)
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312 Sutter Street, Suite 500 • San Francisco, California 94108 • t. 415 781 7532 • 