{"version":"https:\/\/jsonfeed.org\/version\/1.1","title":"Montclair","home_page_url":"https:\/\/planetzoop.com\/calendar\/montclairvillage-montclair","feed_url":"https:\/\/planetzoop.com\/calendar\/montclairvillage-montclair\/feed.json","items":[{"id":"api:2382","title":"One Village, One Book","url":"https:\/\/planetzoop.com\/event\/api-one-village-one-book-montclair-branch-oakland-07-07-26","start_at":"2026-07-07T18:30:00+00:00","end_at":"2026-07-07T19:30:00+00:00","event_type":"Community","description":"Our book club meets monthly at the library to discuss books set in Oakland and the Bay Area or by Bay Area authors. We select our books from a variety of genres and eras so you\u00e2\u0080\u0099re sure to find something you\u00e2\u0080\u0099re interested in. We\u00e2\u0080\u0099ll get to learn more about our city, meet some neighbors and discuss what we\u00e2\u0080\u0099ve read. This year we\u00e2\u0080\u0099re mostly alternating fiction and non-fiction books.\nMeetings are the first Tuesday of the month (note the change from 2025!) from 6:30-7:30pm. Come to one discussion, a few or all of them! No pre-registration or commitment is required \u00e2\u0080\u0093 all we ask is that you\u00e2\u0080\u0099ve read at least some of the book and are ready to discuss it.\nHere\u00e2\u0080\u0099s our 2026 schedule:\n(Quoted descriptions are from the library catalog unless otherwise noted.)\nJanuary 6, 2026:\u00a0Sourdough\u00a0by Robin Sloan\u00a0(fiction)We\u00e2\u0080\u0099re kicking off the year with a quick read about the very Bay Area intersection of tech and food culture. Lois is an exhausted software engineer who is gifted a very special sourdough starter by her favorite bakers when they must flee the country. Pretty soon she\u00e2\u0080\u0099s part of a mysterious underground food scene at the former Alameda Naval Air Station.\nFebruary 3, 2026:\u00a0Family Style: Memories of An American From Vietnam\u00a0by Thien Pham\u00a0(graphic memoir)The book that got the most votes from our members on our year-end poll! \u00e2\u0080\u009cTold through the lens of meaningful food and meals, this graphic novel chronicles the author\u00e2\u0080\u0099s childhood immigration to America, where food takes on new meaning as he and his family search for belonging, for happiness and for the American dream.\u00e2\u0080\u009d Pham is a graphic novelist, comic artist and educator based in Oakland.\nMarch 3, 2026:\u00a0Deep Care: The Radical Activists Who Provided Abortions, Defied the Law, and Fought to Keep Clinics Open\u00a0by Angela Hume\u00a0(non-fiction)\u00e2\u0080\u009cThe story of the radical feminist networks who worked outside the law to defend abortion.\u00a0Deep Care\u00a0follows generations of activists and clinicians who orbited the Women\u00e2\u0080\u0099s Choice clinic in Oakland from the early 1970s until 2010, as they worked underground and above ground, in small cells and broad coalitions and across political movements with grit, conviction, and allegiances of great trust to do what they believed needed to be done\u00e2\u0080\u0093despite the law, when required.\u00e2\u0080\u009d\nApril 7, 2026:\u00a0Moonglow\u00a0by Michael Chabon\u00a0(fiction)\u00e2\u0080\u009cA man bears witness to his grandfather\u00e2\u0080\u0099s deathbed confessions, which reveal his family\u00e2\u0080\u0099s long-buried history and his involvement in a mail-order novelty company, World War II and the space program.\u00e2\u0080\u009d Most of it isn\u00e2\u0080\u0099t set in Oakland, but it is the only book on this list that specifically mentions Montclair Library!\nMay 5, 2026:\u00a0Automatic Noodle\u00a0by Annalee Newitz\u00a0(science fiction)Our May read is a slim 163 pages, but packed with interesting ideas. This book is super popular as of December 2025, so you might want to get your hold in early. \u00e2\u0080\u009cIn this semicozy tale set in a dystopian near future, robots open their own restaurant, build an unusual found family and achieve personal growth. A few years after the war that led to California\u00e2\u0080\u0099s secession from the United States, four robots awake in the flooded San Francisco takeout place where they were contracted to work.\u00e2\u0080\u009d (Kirkus) \u00e2\u0080\u009cEmboldened by newly granted civil rights from the California government, the bots reboot their lives in classic Bay Area form: by opening a noodle shop\u00e2\u0080\u00a6In many ways, Newitz\u00e2\u0080\u0099s near-future San Francisco resembles today\u00e2\u0080\u0099s city, with not-so-subtle nods to AI anxieties, queer identity and the modern-day immigrant experience. It is, in the words of KQED\u00e2\u0080\u0099s Alexis Madrigal, \u00e2\u0080\u0098The most San Francisco book that has ever been or could ever have been written.\u00e2\u0080\u0099\u00e2\u0080\u009d (Leah Worthington) (Ebook listed separately)\nJune 2, 2026:\u00a0Moneyball\u00a0by Michael Lewis\u00a0(non-fiction)Baseball season is in full swing, which makes this the perfect time to read Michael Lewis\u00e2\u0080\u0099s nuanced exploration of \u00e2\u0080\u009chow Billy Beene, the general manager of the Oakland Athletics, used a new kind of thinking to build a successful and winning baseball team without spending enormous sums of money.\u00e2\u0080\u009d\nJuly 7, 2026:\u00a0Girls Girls Girls\u00a0by Shoshana von Blanckensee\u00a0(fiction)In the summer of 1996, best friends (and secret girlfriends), Hannah and Sam drive from \u00e2\u0080\u009cNew York, to the fabled queer paradise of San Francisco, free from the harsh gazes of their neighbors and the stifling demands of Hannah\u00e2\u0080\u0099s devout Orthodox Jewish mother. In San Francisco, they will finally be together as a real couple, out in the open, around other queer people.\u00e2\u0080\u009d But soon they\u00e2\u0080\u0099re working at a strip club, meeting new people and trying to figure out who just they are.\nAugust 4, 2026:\u00a0Power Hungry: Women of the Black Panther Party and Freedom Summer and Their Fight to Feed a Movement\u00a0by Suzanne Cope\u00a0(non-fiction)Journey back with us to the summer of 1969 with the story of the free breakfast movement, grocery giveaways and other nurturing mutual aid programs started by the Black Panthers. \u00e2\u0080\u009cNYU writing professor Cope rescues two female activists from obscurity in this intriguing look at the role that food played in the civil rights and Black Power movements.\u00e2\u0080\u009d If you read\u00a0One Crazy Summer\u00a0with us in 2025, you\u00e2\u0080\u0099ll enjoy learning the backstory to the Panthers\u00e2\u0080\u0099 food program.\nSeptember 1, 2026:\u00a0Kasher in the Rye\u00a0by Moshe Kasher\u00a0(memoir)Go back to school with this \u00e2\u0080\u009chilarious memoir about the absurdity of addiction.\u00e2\u0080\u009d \u00e2\u0080\u009cWhen he was a young boy, Kasher\u00e2\u0080\u0099s mother took him on a vacation to the West Coast. Well it was more like an abduction\u00e2\u0080\u00a6They moved to Oakland, California. That\u00e2\u0080\u0099s where the real fun begins, in the war zone of Oakland Public Schools. Those early years read like part Augusten Burroughs, part David Sedaris, with a touch of Jim Carrol\u00e2\u0080\u00a6.Brutally honest and laugh-out-loud funny, Kasher\u00e2\u0080\u00a6finds humor in even the most horrifying situations.\u00e2\u0080\u009d\nOctober 6, 2026:\u00a0107 Days\u00a0by Kamala Harris\u00a0(memoir)Hopefully by October the miles-long hold list for this book will have settled down enough for you to get a copy! \u00e2\u0080\u009cFor the first time, and with surprising and revealing insights, Kamala Harris tells the story of one of the wildest and most consequential presidential campaigns in American history.\u00e2\u0080\u009d (NPR)\nNovember 3, 2026:\u00a0The Giveaway: The Clay Blackburn Story\u00a0by Owen Hill\u00a0(crime fiction)We have something noir-ish by an Oakland author for those long November nights. \u00e2\u0080\u009cHill\u00e2\u0080\u0099s crime fiction is whip-smart, stylish, subversive, hilarious and just dripping with East Bay color, culture and landmarks. Sweet and sour like a perfect Negroni, Hill has invented a new kind of East Bay Noir \u00e2\u0080\u0094 the fog rolls in late, the golden afternoon glow somehow both luxurious and ominous in the class war that never sleeps.\u00e2\u0080\u009d (Recommendation from Tally Ho! Books via\u00a0Oaklandside)\nDecember 1, 2026:\u00a0Sign My Name to Freedom\u00a0by Betty Reid Soskin\u00a0(memoir)Reid Soskin, famous for being the oldest park ranger in the history of the National Park Service while working at the Rosie the Riveter National Park in Richmond, has been witness to a wide sweep of American history. She grew up in the Bay Area, raised four kids, ran a record store in Berkeley and more. \u00e2\u0080\u009cBetty just turned 104 and her memoir gives a fascinating look at African Americans migration, the Rosie the Riveter story, and beyond through the Civil Rights era.\u00e2\u0080\u009d (recommender) (Ebook\u00a0and\u00a0audiobook\u00a0listed separately)\n\u00c2\u00ab See our 2025 books here \u00c2\u00bb\u00c2\u00ab See our 2024 books here \u00c2\u00bb\u00c2\u00ab See our 2023 books here \u00c2\u00bbLearn more about\u00a0Montclair Library\u00a0and its Friends group, FOML, here:\u00a0About | Friends of Montclair Library","place_name":"Oakland Public Library: Montclair Branch","place_address":"1687 Mountain Blvd, Oakland, CA 94611, USA","flyer_url":"https:\/\/zoopbot.planetzoop.com\/snapshots\/2026-06\/13937.png","thumbnail_url":"https:\/\/zoopbot.planetzoop.com\/snapshots\/2026-06\/13937-400x400.png","is_third_party":true}]}