We are a discussion group for fiction and non-fiction books meeting monthly at the Bernal Heights branch of the San Francisco Public Library. This website is a forum for members to share their interest, knowledge, and opinions about books in-between meetings.
January 29 “Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories” by Alice Munro
Tuesday, February 17 party 6:30 to 8:30
February 26 “The Green House” by Mario Vargas Llosa
March 26 “The Human Age” by Diane Ackerman
April 30 “Americanah” by C. Ngozi Adichie
May 28 “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Diaz
June 25 “The Cookbook Collector” by Allegra Goodman
July 30 “House of Wits: An Intimate Portrait of the James Family” by Paul Fisher
August 27 “An Unnecessary Woman” by Rabih Alameddine
September 24 “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
October 29 “American Tabloid” by James Ellroy
November 19 “Caleb’s Crossing” by Geraldine Brooks
December 17 program to be determined
2016
January 28 “Flight Behavior” by Barbara Kingsolver
February 28 “Leaving Time” by Judy Picoult
March 31 “All The Light We Cannot See” by Anthony Doerr
April 28 “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood
bernalbookclub 
This is beautiful. Thank you.
I think my comment is thanks, and don’t have a spam folder that I
know of…not sure I understood comment about “gender” phobia
in East of Eden
Hi Marti,
Thank you for your question. You mean my comment during the meeting, I think. The book is now back at the library, so I can’t give you the exact quote. In my notes, on page 277, the narrator’s sister, Mary, wants to be a boy which I interpreted as meaning lesbian or transgender. This is until uncle Will Hamilton says he likes her as a girl, then she says she is happy to be a girl. This implies a choice in gender identification, since she is able to change from wanting to be a girl to wanting to be a boy, instantly. When I brought this up in the group, I was waiting for confirmation from others who may have had a similar interpretation and no one said anything so I could be wrong. There is another passage on page 280 about how men who liked poetry were treated; with contempt, suspicion, and being ostracized, since this was outside the normal gender role for men. Steinbeck is merely reporting it and not approving or disapproving. These two passages are quite minor in the 600 pages and I think it is safe to say that in the times of story, and the time that the story was written, the views on gender were considerably different than they are today.