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!
Get Lost Books…Cover to Cover…Modern Times…even Borders! Gone or on the ropes… Stacey’s…Cody’s…Black Oak Books! Just a memory… You don’t miss your water…’til your well runs dry! Can I get a witness!? Send your thoughts to [email protected] and we’ll see if we can use them to make the point in a way that resonates with all those who still think that Amazon’s just the slickest way to get a book!
Read MorePEOPLE POWER! language & voice! BIG EASY PIANISTICS! 3 EVENTS: SUNDAY, MARCH 20th 1:30 pm- A worldwide reading in solidarity with jailed dissident poet Liu Xiaobo, 2010 Nobel Peace Prize recipient. 3 pm- POET! Mary Winegarden reads from “The Translator’s Sister” 3/20 – 4:30 & 5:30 (2 sets) – which way west? concert Macy Blackman and the Mighty Fines Answering a call by the Berlin International Literature Festival for worldwide simultaneous readings, we…
Read MoreB&B at the Balboa-Philip Guston: A Life Lived + Discussed The Balboa Theatre (Balboa at 37th Avenue) has invited Bird & Beckett to collaborate with them from time to time to present book events paired with films! And so, with great anticipation, we offer you as our first event: Monday, March 14 – 7 pm Bill Berkson + Clark Coolidge in dialogue on the artist Philip Guston, with a rare screening of the 1980 documentary “Philip Guston: A Life Lived.” Program introduced by Patrick James Dunagan UC Press has just published Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures and Conversations, edited by Clark Coolidge, noted poet, musician and a collaborator with Guston in 1991 on the book Baffling Means: Writings/Drawings. Bill Berkson, who himself collaborated with the artist on the 1975 book of poems, Guston: Enigma Variations, is a poet, art writer and corresponding editor for Art in America who for many…
Read MorePoet David Gitin reads from“the journey home” Sunday, March 13th 2 pm Gitin came of age in Buffalo, NY — where he came to know such giants in American poetry as Charles Olson, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Creeley, Ed Dorn, John Wieners, Robert Kelly and Diane Wakoski. He traveled out to San Francisco in the late ’60s… co-founded Poets Theater with Jim Wilson at the Straight Theater in the Haight-Ashbury…with broadcasts on KPFA…a few brief months…di Prima, Whalen, Geo. Hitchcock… took the tools at hand to publish Bricoleur, whose first issue came out in late 1969 with poems by Michael McClure, David Meltzer, Janine Pommy Vega, Clark Coolidge, Clifford Burke, Charles Amirkhanian, George Oppen, poems from Biafra, from Nahuatl poets, and others… (hear an audio interview on the occasion of the publication of this first issue at http://www.archive.org/details/C_1969_11_29)
Read MoreThe Buru Quartet read it! Pramoedya Ananta Toer (1925-2006) The sequence of novels comprising This Earth of Mankind, Child of All Nations, Footsteps and House of Glass were composed orally while Pramoedya was imprisoned on the Indonesian island Buru, in the Malay Archipelago, where the Suharto regime held thousands of political prisoners. Denied writing materials, Pramoedya told these stories to his fellow prisoners; only later were they written down, smuggled out and eventually published — and banned by the Indonesian government. They reveal much about the human reality of colonial oppression, and Pramoedya’s life speaks volumes about the nature of authoritarian regimes.
Read Morelorin benedict scat vocal scott r. looney piano bishu chatterjee bass bryan bowman drums an afternoon of spontaneous music interrupting the expected sun., mar. 6 4:30/5:30 which way west? a weekly concert series at Bird & Beckett
Read More3 poets – 1 reading Sunday Mar. 6, 2pm Rebecca Foust – Dean Rader – Melissa Stein fresh voices, award winners all, speaking with assurance & grace…
Read MoreYou can help us beat Amazon to kindling! Our sales were 22% lower this February than last… and this, despite a supposedly recovering economy. Thank goodness for the strong community that’s grown up around the bookshop; we’ve got a lot of faith that that’s what will pull us through. Ultimately, nothing will beat the power of individuals pulling together as a group when they recognize their role in keeping their neighborhoods vital. Bird & Beckett is proud to be a community hub in San Francisco, and one that’s particularly keen on giving writers, musicians and others a venue through which to reach the rest of us. But we’re also a bookstore; we need to sell books to stay viable. And, in fact, we’re very keen on helping to keep the physical book itself viable and central to the culture. For some purposes, e-readers have their place, we don’t doubt. And…
Read MorePreviously perused & priced right ALL USED BOOKS 20% OFF THROUGH SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 27th AT BIRD & BECKETT! It may soon be a bookworld without borders, but let’s do keep it a bookworld, shall we? Throw your kindle on the fire and pull up a comfy chair… adjust your reading light just so… pour a cup of tea. You can paddle up the Amazon another day… Through the end of the month, sneak off to Bird & Beckett to shop for a real live used book and we’ll knock 20% off the tab… Join us Friday evening for jazz in the bookshop with Chuck Peterson’s 230 Jones Street Local 6 Literary Jazz Band… Sunday afternoon, come for Walker’s retelling of Dostoevski’s “The Idiot”… and later that day, hear Pakistani vocalist Riffat Sultana with Ferhan Qureshi on tabla and Shiraz Ali Khan on guitar. Ah bliss!
Read MoreDon’t let the old-time pass you by! Alex Caton & Pete Winne fly in from Virginia to play Bird & Beckett Sunday, Feb. 20, at 4:30 pm on the final day of this year’s Bluegrass & Old-Time Festival. Fiddle, banjo, guitar & sublime Appalachian vocal harmonies bring old-time and sacred tunes to life. From Bird & Beckett, hop BART to Freight & Salvage in Berkeley to catch the Festival’s closing show: SF’s own, sublimely wonderful Crooked Jades, backed by Portland’s Water Tower Bucket Boys, following Central Valley young’un & old soul Frank Fairfield . Here at Bird & Beckett, we hosted Seattle-based Cahalen Morrison & Eli West last weekend, and it was a smash success. Cahalen’s an amazing songwriter and their vocal & instrumental blend is heartstoppingly gorgeous. And Monday, we caught San Francisco’s own Emily Bonn & the Vivants at Amnesia, and were floored by their classic country spunk.
Read MoreThinking about North Africa Naguib Mahfouz, Egyptian author of dozens of important and compulsively readable books and Nobel prize winner in 1988, is known for his masterwork, the three-volume Cairo Trilogy, completed in the 1950s; however, after a hiatus of several years, numerous books followed until his death in 2006. Bird & Beckett patrons are invited to email us at [email protected] (using the subject line “books, ideas, insights”) with your assessment of any of his books and the insights they provide into modern Egyptian life, economics and politics. We’d also like your feedback on the work of other writers, so that we can all broaden our view — fiction, history, economics, politics; it’s all important.
Read MorePOETS! hosted by tru-bop master Jerry Ferraz Jerry Ferraz, a native of this soil – Eureka Valley born – a wandering bard of the San Francisco back lanes – painter of the zen comedy, has kept Glen Park and Bird & Beckett on his peripatetic route for many years, tuning the space twice a month for pairs of featured poets and a revolving and ever expanding cast of open mic denizens. Read his poem “Dharma Dream Walk” and others at www.sfheart.com/sfpoets/jerry_ferraz.html Tonight at Bird & Beckett, Monday, Feb. 7, 7-9pm, Jerry presents Robert Anthony and Larry Maykel. Sign up for the open mic at 7pm; open starts at 8. Carlota del Portillo and Priya Kailath sponsor the series, allowing us to pay a small honorarium to the featured poets; your addition of a dollar or two to the pot allows us to honor them, and their art, more fully.
Read MoreTango No. 9 Today, Sunday, Feb. 6, 4:30 to 6:30 pm Two sets of classic, nuevo and original tangos from San Francisco masters of the genre, with vocalist Zoltan DiBartolo!
Read MoreBeckett / Pinter / Wine – PUS plus B&B Saturday, Feb. 5th, 7:30 to 9:30 pm. Wine tasting, food from Destination Bakery, The Cheese Boutique, Canyon Market, Monterey Deli and more, and performances of short theatre pieces by two Nobel prize winning playwrights dear to our hearts, Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter. Proceeds benefit both PUS (Performers Under Stress) and Bird & Beckett.
Read MoreMoh Alileche: Flag of Freedom Moh Alileche, hailing from the mountainous Kabylia region of Algeria, is a renowned Amazigh (Berber) player of the 12-stringed mondol. Based for the past two decades in the Bay Area, he brings his ensemble back to Bird & Beckett on Sunday, Jan. 30 at 4:30 pm as part of the store’s ongoing Sunday concert series dubbed “which way west?”.  Â
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SUPPORT BIRD & BECKETT - DONATE TODAY!
Your donation to the Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project helps us pay for a multitude of operating expenses necessary to present, promote and preserve local music, poetry, and more.
Help us keep the arts alive and thriving!
The Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project was created in 2007 "to present, document and archive the creative work of significant living writers and musicians in the San Francisco Bay Area, for a neighborhood audience and future generations." We've been doing that very thing for more than a decade and a half, continuing the work we began when the store was established in 1999.
Due to lapses in tax filings during and post-pandemic, the BBCLP's status as a registered nonprofit was suspended at the beginning of April 2024 while we reapply, which is expected to take about six months. Donations made after April 1st will not be tax-deductible until nonprofit status is restored.
However, we continue to present a full slate of programming live music and poetry, and producing literary chapbooks, and we seek and welcome your continued financial support in the interim. If a tax-deduction is not a major reason for your support to date, we hope you'll continue to ride with us while we navigate these next several months.
Click on "donate" in the navigation bar above, drop off a check at the bookshop, or drop one in the mail to:
Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project
653 Chenery Street
San Francisco, CA 94131
Call us at (415) 586-3733 to find out how else you might lend your support.
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The Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project
Our events are put on under the umbrella of the Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project (the "BBCLP"). That's how we fund our ambitious schedule of 300 or so concerts and literary events every year.
The BBCLP is a [Read More ]
The Independent Musicians Alliance
Gigging musicians! You have nothing to lose but your lack of a collective voice to achieve fair wages for your work!
The IMA can be a conduit for you, if you join in to make it work.
https://www.independentmusiciansalliance.org/
Read more here - Andy Gilbert's Feb 25 article about the IMA from KQED's site
