Book Clubs Los Angeles

Find Your Quiet Corner: A Silent Book Club @ Studio DDLA

Looking for a dedicated hour to finally read that book, meet new people, and enjoy the vibrant atmosphere of **Chinatown LA**? Our Silent Book Club is the perfect low-pressure gathering for **friendly, likeminded readers**. The structure is simple and designed for maximum reading time: we meet up, say a quick hello to our fellow book-lovers, and then settle in for a full hour of **uninterrupted, quiet reading**. It’s a wonderful way to connect with your community without the pressure of small talk. While our club is built around a focus on **meaningful topics** and **life's big questions**—exploring themes of reflection, legacy, and mortality—you are absolutely welcome to bring *any* book you want to read quietly. If you're looking for inspiration, our hosts always bring a curated stack of books for you to browse. Join us for a welcoming, reflective, and dedicated reading experience.

Palabras Literary Salon (May 2026 edition)

**Palabras Literary Salon celebrates BIPOC poets** **+ writers for intercultural community building.** Come enjoy an afternoon with [Palabras Literary Salon](https://www.jencvoice.com/palabras "https://www.jencvoice.com/palabras"), a BIPOC-centered literary community event with host Jen Cheng in Chinatown Los Angeles. Our May edition features acclaimed writer [Xuan Juliana Wang](https://www.xuanjulianawang.com/ "https://www.xuanjulianawang.com") to feature her book [HOME REMEDIES](https://bookshop.org/p/books/home-remedies-stories-xuan-juliana-wang/f6a60c5e4289acbe?aid=111134&ean=9781984822765&listref=palabras-literary-salon&next=t "https://bookshop.org/p/books/home-remedies-stories-xuan-juliana-wang/f6a60c5e4289acbe?aid=111134&ean=9781984822765&listref=palabras-literary-salon&next=t"), and other [writing](https://www.latimes.com/lifestyle/image/story/2026-03-12/la-chinatown-personal-history-photo-essay "https://www.latimes.com/lifestyle/image/story/2026-03-12/la-chinatown-personal-history-photo-essay"). Our event has a guest readers circle, a curated invited list of diverse BIPOC poets, writers, playwrights, and creatives to read 3-minutes of writing to celebrate this salon's theme of "lust." All are welcome to attend - especially bring your allies and others curious to hear BIPOC voices. More about the theme: "Lust" can evoke yearning, confusion, and unrequited love. Our guest readers circle includes award-winning poets and writers in addition to emerging artists: Jia-Rui Cook, Pallavi Dhawan, [Jen Cheng](https://jencvoice.com/ "https://jencvoice.com"), [Jose Enrique Medina](https://medinawrites.com/ "https://medinawrites.com"), and others TBA. Light reception is provided. * This salon series has been around for 4+ years and is volunteer-run + grassroots-driven. If each attendee donated $10 or more, we could cover our costs. We need everyone to pitch in on the honor system. If you can afford more, we would would appreciate your donation to help support other community members. We believe in accessibility, so if you need a scholarship ticket, please privately email the host (JenCvoice@gmail.com) with the subject header "scholarship." * Please kindly help us with your early RSVP here to attend and join in the facilitated discussion. Previous events have sold out so please join the waitlist if the RSVPs are full - people do cancel! We are asking for RSVPs for priority entry due to limited capacity. * Everyone is welcome. Drop-ins are welcome. * Please arrive by 2:45pm as we would like to start at 3pm and finish by 4:30pm to have time for post event mingling, community conversation, and reception. * Please budget for time to get your street parking in the neighborhood. There is free parking if you take the time to walk several blocks. There is a $5 parking lot across the street on Broadway at Mandarin Plaza and other neighborhood lots. We are glad to have you celebrate with us on Saturday, May 30, 2026 at 3pm at Studious Coworking in Chinatown (418 Bamboo Lane, Los Angeles, CA 90012). **More about Palabras Literary Salon** With a mission to create intercultural community building, Jen Cheng founded *Palabras Literary Salon* , inspired by our elders of civil rights consciousness raising and Maya Angelou's salons in the Harlem Renaissance. As a facilitator, Jen Cheng, brings home-cooking and light snacks to the event as we build bridges by breaking bread together. We sit in a non-heirarchical circle, without a stage. This is not an open-mic. Talk-story and witnessing are ways we can build better understanding of our humanity. If you are interested in being invited as a guest reader, please attend a salon to see if this format is a fit for your writing. Note: This event is an independent project and not affiliated with Jen's role with the City of West Hollywood. More about the salon on Jen's website: [www.jencvoice.com/palabras](https://www.jencvoice.com/palabras "https://www.jencvoice.com/palabras") **More about our featured writer** XUAN JULIANA WANG is the author of the story collection *Home Remedies* which was published in 2019 by Hogarth in the U.S. and Atlantic in the U.K. Her stories and essays have appeared in *The Atlantic, Ploughshares, Freemans, Narrative, The Cut, Gulfcoast*, and *The Pushcart Prize* and *The Best American Nonrequired Reading* anthologies. She is a fiction editor at *Fence*. Wang received the Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University as well as residencies from the MacDowell Colony, The Corporation of Yaddo, and LMCC Workspace. She currently teaches creative writing at UCLA. Find Juliana's social media [@boyandgirlaffair](https://www.instagram.com/boyandgirlaffair "https://www.instagram.com/boyandgirlaffair"). ## === Graphic: [@JenCvoice](https://www.instagram.com/@jencvoice "https://www.instagram.com/@jencvoice") Exterior photo is from July 2024 edition of *Palabras Literary Salon* featuring [Sonia Guiñansaca](https://soniaguinansaca.com/ "https://soniaguinansaca.com/") (*Nostalgia and Borders*). Event graphics by Jen Cheng. Interior photo is from January 2024 edition of Palabras Literary Salon featuring [Cassandra Lane](https://www.cassandralane.net/ "https://www.cassandralane.net") (*We Are Bridges*).

Persuasion by Jane Austen (Rescheduled Date)

WHAT WE'RE READING: Persuasion by Jane Austen WHAT IT IS ABOUT: "*Persuasion*, Jane Austen's last novel, is a moving, masterly and elegiac love story tinged with the heartache of missed opportunities. It tells the story of Anne Elliot, who, persuaded to break off her engagement to the man she loved because he was not successful enough, has never forgotten him. When he returns, he brings with him a tantalizing second chance of happiness." WHERE WE'RE MEETING: 4100 Bar in Silver Lake A NOTE ON PARKING: Street parking should be more readily accessible on Sunset Blvd to the west of the meet-up location. A NOTE ON THE MEET-UP SEATING LOCATION: Meet-ups are generally held on the bar terrace, if sufficient seating is available. Please dress warmly in the event of cool evening weather! A NOTE ON RSVPING: If your name is on the attendee list for a scheduled meet-up and you no longer plan on attending the event, please remove your name from the attendee list at least a week before the scheduled event to allow individuals on the waitlist sufficient time to read the book beforehand (no worries if a cancellation has to be last-minute, though!). Happy reading! Colin

A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar

In a near-future Kolkata beset by flooding and famine, Ma, her two-year-old daughter, and her elderly father are just days from leaving the collapsing city behind to join Ma’s husband in Ann Arbor, Michigan. After procuring long-awaited visas from the consulate, they pack their bags for the flight to America. But in the morning they awaken to discover that Ma’s purse, containing their treasured immigration documents, has been stolen. Set over the course of one week, *A Guardian and a Thief* tells two the story of Ma’s frantic search for the thief while keeping hunger at bay during a worsening food shortage; and the story of Boomba, the thief, whose desperation to care for his family drives him to commit a series of escalating crimes whose consequences he cannot fathom. With stunning control and command, Megha Majumdar paints a kaleidoscopic portrait of two families, each operating from a place of ferocious love and undefeated hope, each discovering how far they will go to secure their children’s future as they stave off encroaching catastrophe.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

In a slight departure, the runner-up from the June book poll is now the July book, and the July book poll winner is now the August book, for two reasons: The selected title for August is long and still has a 14 week wait at the library, so hopefully pushing it back by one month will give everyone enough time to get it and read it! **Summary of Eleanor Oliphant from Goodreads:** No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine. Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.

May: "Butter" by Asako Yuzuki

**LOCATION:** Shannon's House! Address will be emailed the Friday before. (Harbor City) **WHAT WE'RE READING:** **The cult Japanese bestseller about a female gourmet cook and serial killer and the journalist intent on cracking her case, inspired by a true story.** *There are two things that I can simply not tolerate: feminists and margarine.* Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Center convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, who she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation’s imagination but Kajii refuses to speak with the press, entertaining no visitors. That is, until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew and Kajii can’t resist writing back. Rika, the only woman in her news office, works late each night, rarely cooking more than ramen. As the visits unfold between her and the steely Kajii, they are closer to a masterclass in food than journalistic research. Rika hopes this gastronomic exchange will help her soften Kajii but it seems that she might be the one changing. With each meal she eats, something is awakening in her body, might she and Kaji have more in common than she once thought? Inspired by the real case of the convicted con woman and serial killer, "The Konkatsu Killer," Asako Yuzuki’s *Butter* is a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan. **NO SHOW POLICY:** In April 2019, a new NO SHOW POLICY was put into place to help ensure people on the waitlist can get into each meeting with enough time to read the book while also weeding out flakey flakers who reserve a seat but don't use it. The new NO SHOW POLICY is in two parts: (1) If you RSVP 'Going' and cancel your RSVP within seven days of book club WITHOUT EXPLANATION, you'll be immediately removed from the group. (2) If you RSVP 'Going' and cancel your RSVP within seven days of book club with explanation, but for any reason, you'll be marked a 'No Show.' If you rack up three 'No Shows," you'll be removed from the group.

Book Club: Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen

*Other Birds* by Sarah Addison Allen is an enchanting tale filled with magical realism and moments of pure love that won’t let you go. Between the real and the imaginary, there are stories that take flight in the most extraordinary ways. Right off the coast of South Carolina, on Mallow Island, The Dellawisp sits—a stunning old cobblestone building shaped like a horseshoe, and named after the tiny turquoise birds who, alongside its human tenants, inhabit an air of magical secrecy. When Zoey comes to claim her deceased mother’s apartment at the Dellawisp she meets her quirky and secretive neighbors, including a young woman with a past, two estranged middle-aged sisters, and a lonely chef, and three ghosts. The sudden death of one of Zoey's new neighbors sets off a search that leads to the island's famous author and to a long-estranged relative of the sisters. Each of them has a story, and each story has an ending which hasn't yet been written. **We will be meeting at the entrance of The Huntington. One of our members, Julia, is providing us with free guest passes. (THANKS, JULIA!) We have 6 available passes. If you already have a Huntington membership and would like to join us, please contact me and let me know. We will not be attending the tea room this trip but will be visiting their regular cafeteria.** The event fee will secure your reservation and be applied to membership dues, which covers the cost of the website. The event fee is NONREFUNDABLE unless the event is canceled by the organizer. To join the waitlist comment on the event page. If you have RSVPed and can no longer attend, please contact me directly and I will contact the people on the waiting list and then move you to "not going" when I find a replacement. Thank you and happy reading!

Book Club Meeting: Yellowface by R. F. Kuang

**Mocha Girls Read \| June Book Club Meeting** Join us for our June book club meeting as we come together to discuss our Monthly Book Selection, *Yellowface* by R.F. Kuang. This month, we are diving into a bold and thought-provoking story that explores authorship, identity, and the complexities of the publishing world. Whether you loved the book, had questions, or didn't even read it yet, your voice is welcome in this space. 📅 **Date:** Friday, June 6 ⏰ **Time:** 1:30 PM 📍 **Location:** Lore Bookstore 4334 Degnan Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90008 **About the Book** “Hard to put down, harder to forget.” — Stephen King White lies. Dark humor. Deadly consequences… Bestselling sensation Juniper Song is not who she says she is, she didn’t write the book she claims she wrote, and she is most certainly not Asian American—in this chilling and hilariously cutting psychological thriller from R.F. Kuang, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel. Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars in the world of literary fiction. But Athena’s a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I. So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn’t this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That’s what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree. But June can’t get away from Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June’s (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves. With its totally immersive first-person voice from a masterfully crafted unreliable narrator, Yellowface grapples with questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation, as well as the terrifying alienation of social media. R.F. Kuang’s novel is timely, razor-sharp, and eminently readable. **Parking:** Metered street parking is available. Parking across the street is typically the best option.

HORROR BOOK CLUB (May): “My Best Friend’s Exorcism”

June: "Yesteryear" by Caro Claire Burke

**LOCATION:** Mike's house! Address will be mailed the Friday before. (Manhattan Beach) **WHAT WE'RE READING:** **A traditional American woman, a beautiful wife and mother who sells her pioneer lifestyle of raw milk and farm-fresh eggs to her millions of social media followers, suddenly awakens cold, filthy, and terrified in the brutal reality of 1805—where she must unravel whether this living nightmare is an elaborate hoax, a twisted reality show, or something far more sinister in this sensational debut novel.** ***My name was Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive.*** Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the Republican equivalent of a Kennedy? What Natalie’s followers—all 8 million of them—don’t know won’t hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? They’re sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isn’t simply living the good life, she’s living the ideal—and just so happens to be building an empire from it. Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn’t hers. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she’s expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a brutal reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things: This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible. A gripping, electrifying novel that is as darkly funny as it is frightening, *Yesteryear* is a gimlet-eyed look at tradition, fame, faith, and the grand performance of womanhood. **NO SHOW POLICY:** In April 2019, a new NO SHOW POLICY was put into place to help ensure people on the waitlist can get into each meeting with enough time to read the book while also weeding out flakey flakers who reserve a seat but don't use it. The new NO SHOW POLICY is in two parts: (1) If you RSVP 'Going' and cancel your RSVP within seven days of book club WITHOUT EXPLANATION, you'll be immediately removed from the group. (2) If you RSVP 'Going' and cancel your RSVP within seven days of book club with explanation, but for any reason, you'll be marked a 'No Show.' If you rack up three 'No Shows," you'll be removed from the group.

Boy Erased, by Garrard Conley

**IN-PERSON EVENT at Sheri's House** Bring either something to eat or drink.... and enjoy the conversation. *** **A beautiful, raw and compassionate memoir about identity, love and understanding. Now a major motion picture starring Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, and Lucas Hedges, directed by Joel Edgerton..** The son of a Baptist pastor and deeply embedded in church life in small town Arkansas, as a young man Garrard Conley was terrified and conflicted about his sexuality. When Garrard was a nineteen-year-old college student, he was outed to his parents, and was forced to make a life-changing decision: either agree to attend a church-supported conversion therapy program that promised to “cure” him of homosexuality; or risk losing family, friends, and the God he had prayed to every day of his life. Through an institutionalized Twelve-Step Program heavy on Bible study, he was supposed to emerge heterosexual, ex-gay, cleansed of impure urges and stronger in his faith in God for his brush with sin. Instead, even when faced with a harrowing and brutal journey, Garrard found the strength and understanding to break out in search of his true self and forgiveness. By confronting his buried past and the burden of a life lived in shadow, Garrard traces the complex relationships among family, faith, and community. At times heart-breaking, at times triumphant, this memoir is a testament to love that survives despite all odds.

Light from Uncommon Stars IN PERSON at Aroma Cafe