One Village, One Book

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’re sure to find something you’re interested in. We’ll get to learn more about our city, meet some neighbors and discuss what we’ve read. This year we’re mostly alternating fiction and non-fiction books. Meetings 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 – all we ask is that you’ve read at least some of the book and are ready to discuss it. Here’s our 2026 schedule: (Quoted descriptions are from the library catalog unless otherwise noted.) January 6, 2026: Sourdough by Robin Sloan (fiction)We’re 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’s part of a mysterious underground food scene at the former Alameda Naval Air Station. February 3, 2026: Family Style: Memories of An American From Vietnam by Thien Pham (graphic memoir)The book that got the most votes from our members on our year-end poll! “Told through the lens of meaningful food and meals, this graphic novel chronicles the author’s 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.” Pham is a graphic novelist, comic artist and educator based in Oakland. March 3, 2026: Deep Care: The Radical Activists Who Provided Abortions, Defied the Law, and Fought to Keep Clinics Open by Angela Hume (non-fiction)“The story of the radical feminist networks who worked outside the law to defend abortion. Deep Care follows generations of activists and clinicians who orbited the Women’s 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–despite the law, when required.” April 7, 2026: Moonglow by Michael Chabon (fiction)“A man bears witness to his grandfather’s deathbed confessions, which reveal his family’s long-buried history and his involvement in a mail-order novelty company, World War II and the space program.” Most of it isn’t set in Oakland, but it is the only book on this list that specifically mentions Montclair Library! May 5, 2026: Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz (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. “In 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’s secession from the United States, four robots awake in the flooded San Francisco takeout place where they were contracted to work.” (Kirkus) “Emboldened by newly granted civil rights from the California government, the bots reboot their lives in classic Bay Area form: by opening a noodle shop…In many ways, Newitz’s near-future San Francisco resembles today’s city, with not-so-subtle nods to AI anxieties, queer identity and the modern-day immigrant experience. It is, in the words of KQED’s Alexis Madrigal, ‘The most San Francisco book that has ever been or could ever have been written.’” (Leah Worthington) (Ebook listed separately) June 2, 2026: Moneyball by Michael Lewis (non-fiction)Baseball season is in full swing, which makes this the perfect time to read Michael Lewis’s nuanced exploration of “how 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.” July 7, 2026: Girls Girls Girls by Shoshana von Blanckensee (fiction)In the summer of 1996, best friends (and secret girlfriends), Hannah and Sam drive from “New York, to the fabled queer paradise of San Francisco, free from the harsh gazes of their neighbors and the stifling demands of Hannah’s devout Orthodox Jewish mother. In San Francisco, they will finally be together as a real couple, out in the open, around other queer people.” But soon they’re working at a strip club, meeting new people and trying to figure out who just they are. August 4, 2026: Power Hungry: Women of the Black Panther Party and Freedom Summer and Their Fight to Feed a Movement by Suzanne Cope (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. “NYU 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.” If you read One Crazy Summer with us in 2025, you’ll enjoy learning the backstory to the Panthers’ food program. September 1, 2026: Kasher in the Rye by Moshe Kasher (memoir)Go back to school with this “hilarious memoir about the absurdity of addiction.” “When he was a young boy, Kasher’s mother took him on a vacation to the West Coast. Well it was more like an abduction…They moved to Oakland, California. That’s 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….Brutally honest and laugh-out-loud funny, Kasher…finds humor in even the most horrifying situations.” October 6, 2026: 107 Days by Kamala Harris (memoir)Hopefully by October the miles-long hold list for this book will have settled down enough for you to get a copy! “For 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.” (NPR) November 3, 2026: The Giveaway: The Clay Blackburn Story by Owen Hill (crime fiction)We have something noir-ish by an Oakland author for those long November nights. “Hill’s 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 — the fog rolls in late, the golden afternoon glow somehow both luxurious and ominous in the class war that never sleeps.” (Recommendation from Tally Ho! Books via Oaklandside) December 1, 2026: Sign My Name to Freedom by Betty Reid Soskin (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. “Betty 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.” (recommender) (Ebook and audiobook listed separately) « See our 2025 books here »« See our 2024 books here »« See our 2023 books here »Learn more about Montclair Library and its Friends group, FOML, here: About | Friends of Montclair Library