653 Chenery Street
in San Francisco's Glen Park neighborhood
1-415-586-3733
[email protected]
Open to walk-in trade and browsing
Tuesday to Sunday
noon to six
Live Streams every weekend!
Refresh your browser to catch a show in progress!
Visit our Facebook page or YouTube channel!
But nothing beats being in the room with the music & the musicians!
Sunday, November 24th — 2:30 p.m.
Walker Talks! on Rainer Maria Rilke
and the Duino Elegies
Each month, Walker Brents III explores a topic from the realms of literature, mythology, history–wherever his interests take him–and he never fails to take his listeners along on a fascinating excursion deep into his subjects. This month he discusses a poet and a work of poetry which has held great fascination for him for decades, plumbing the…
Once Upon a Time in Babylon
Poet Ron Johnson – Sun. 11/24 1:30pm
“…once upon a time in Babylon we all breathed pure imagination our only master & our mistress who tore men’s mind asunder and dazzled Heaven’s Queen O! Once upon a time in holy Babylon!” Ron Johnson reads at Bird & Beckett Sunday, November the twenty fourth, one thirty post meridian time
Thursday, November 21st, 7 pm
Featured Poets plus Open Mic
Third Thursday of Every Month at 7 p.m.
Thursday, November 21st, 7:00 p.m. Featured poets Dan Richman and Sally King Open mic follows. Jerry Ferraz hosts. Sally King is an artist and writer. Her recently published debut poetry collection, A Tale of Two Heads, is a series of phantasmagorically compressed dream lyrics, one extraordinary poem linked to another in a progression that is, for a reader,…
Sunday, November 17th – two events:
poets Hummel/Smith at 2 p.m.
+ Homespun jazz trio from 4:30 to 6:30
2 pm: Maria Hummel (House and Fire, American Poetry Review) and Austin Smith (Almanac, Princeton) read from their recent poetry collections. 4:30 pm: Homespun, with Grant Levin (piano), Fred Randolph (bass) and Bryan Bowman (drums) – two sets of elegant & lovely live jazz — from their gorgeous repertoire of standards and originals..
jazz in the bookshop
The Scott Foster Ensemble
featuring David Boyce
Friday, Nov. 15th, 5:30 to 8:00 p.m.
Scott Foster’s group this Friday includes David Boyce, co-founder of Broun Fellinis, on saxophone, plus bassist Noah Schenker and drummer Dave Mihaly. All three of Scott’s sidemen on this date have extensive experience on the San Francisco jazz & related improvised music scene.  Each month, Scott enlists some of the most talented musicians around for his Bird…
Lee Morgan Tribute!
This Sunday, Nov. 10, 4:30-6:30 pm
Orion Edmondson, drums, leads a quintet tribute to Philadelphia-born trumpeter Lee Morgan — famed for a hip, soulful, hard bop jazz output during the late 1950s and 1960s that became a significant soundtrack for the times. From New York, trumpeter Justin Smith handles the duties evoking Morgan’s sound and persona, while fellow bandmates Ruben Salcido on…
jazz in the bookshop
The Bird & Beckett Bebop Band
Friday, Nov. 8, 5:30-8:00 pm
(plus, a Marcus Books update)
jazz in the bookshop is our long-running Friday evening jazz shindig… now celebrating it’s 12th year! Nearly 600 consecutive Fridays of live jazz in an intimate independent book shop. Since the beginning, drummer Jimmy Ryan has been on the scene, and he now leads a sizzling jazz quintet — the Bird & Beckett Bebop Band — on…
Saturday, November 16th, 7 pm
Book Release Party!
Jason Friedman’s debut
short story collection, Fire Year
from Sarabande Books
Dazzling writing & great company Saturday night, November 16th, 7pm, at Bird & Beckett Books to celebrate the release of Jason Friedman’s short story collection! From a recent review: In a collection of seven pieces of literary fiction, winner of the 2012 Mary McCarthy Prize, Jason K. Friedman, confronts love and religion, family and sexual…
Every Friday, 5:30 to 8:00pm:
jazz in the bookshop
We’ve been doing it for 11 straight years now– straight-ahead hard bop every Friday evening by seasoned pros and some of the most talented youngsters on the San Francisco scene, ever since sax player Chuck Peterson got the ball rolling back in October of 2002. Last month, we finished out our 11th year of consecutive…
The Rent is Paid!
And our other bills are all up to date! That’s a first for quite a long time, and we have the community to thank for it. This past Saturday’s “Rent Party” — a 10-hour bebop concert/jam that turned out the bookshop’s neighborhood patrons in substantial numbers – was a huge success. All of the store’s rent for November…