As most of you know I have been the co-host of The Readers podcast for about 107 episodes so far. Recently Simon and I had the distinct pleasure of welcoming about 18 of our listeners to San Francisco for a weekend of hanging out and book-based banter. It was a little challenging organizing three days of activities in one city siting in another about 3,000 miles away. But, happily, everything worked out really well. It was so much fun getting to know so many wonderful bookish people. The only real problem is that I took almost no pictures of the proceedings or the participants.
We ate, we went book shopping, we got a bespoke tour of the rare book collection at the San Francisco Public Library, and we recorded three episodes with a live audience. Those recording sessions was my favorite part of the weekend. It was so much fun expanding our regular chatter to include others. One of the episodes we recorded was the discussion of Hot Milk by Deborah Levy which was our summer read along pick. If you haven’t read it yet you still have time before the episode goes live. I think you will enjoy the discussion.
Anyhoo, here is a glimpse of the weekend.
The view from my hotel window. This is, no doubt, the same view that Lucy Honeychurch saw.The hotel where I stayed and where we hosted a happy hour on Friday night was also home to a convention of 2,000 knitters. Talk about synergy. (The cat conference was next door.)After dinner on Friday night we all headed off to City Lights to do some moonlight shopping. Thanks to Karen for this photo.While we were at City Lights I asked everyone to choose a book that they would want to put in everyone’s hands and then I snapped a photo of each person with their choice. Unfortunately, I failed to ask if I could use the photos on my blog, so you only get to see my choice.Our “tour” of the rare book room at the San Francisco Pubic Library was laid out with all kinds of goodies when we arrived. We got to look and touch.I love this illustration. Even though it is French, I think of this as an homage to the Great British Bakeoff.One of the Kelmscott Chaucers produced by William Morris. Such a beautiful book.This fox reminds me of Lucy. And that’s how Lucy looks at rabbits as well.An undated album on commercially available papers reminded many of us of Persephone.Hand-painted plates.On Saturday afternoon, after our picnic in Mission Dolores Park, some went book shopping and some went off to the Legion of Honor for a show on the Pre-Raphaelites. This painting wasn’t a part of that but was a stunner.The date on this was the 1880s. It shows a Russian bride and her wedding party. I was fascinated by how exotic the Russians must have seemed to Western Europeans of the time.Sunday afternoon after lunch at the Ferry Building, a few of us went off to hear an all Stravinsky program by the San Francisco Symphony.
I was wondering what was happening with this, as I was expecting to see a lot more on social media! Or maybe it was all there and I missed it. I love the idea of your bookshop gallery of recommendations – hopefully the others will see this and give permission to be shown :)
hogglestock 
You sure packed a lot in for the weekend. I am happy you had such a good time.
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I was wondering what was happening with this, as I was expecting to see a lot more on social media! Or maybe it was all there and I missed it. I love the idea of your bookshop gallery of recommendations – hopefully the others will see this and give permission to be shown :)
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Vogue Knitting sounds awesome – but then again so does the rest of your weekend!
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(And yes I realize Vogue Knitting was the knitting conference :-D)
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