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Saturday, December 14, 2024

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Arts + CultureLitBeyond books: Gifts for lit lovers 2024

Beyond books: Gifts for lit lovers 2024

Looking for something novel to give your book-fiend friend? Step out of the covers with unique treats, from chocolates to live readings.

What if your book-loving bestie suddenly turned to you this holiday season and said, “Hey, you know what? I’ve got way too many books. I don’t want any more books.” Now whatcha gonna do? Luckily there more to lit than what lies between the covers, and gifts galore to satisfy their rampant, if tasteful, wordlust. (Don’t worry, they’ll be back to beg for more books once this strange ascetic phase wears off.) Check out some great non-tome selections below:

A de-lit-cious Open Book Chocolate

LIT THAT TASTES GREAT

Open Book Chocolates
Open Book Chocolates is a Maryland-based, women-owned business specializing in handmade, bean-to-bar, fair trade, craft chocolate bars with flavors developed to embody the themes, characters, and stories found in favorite literary classics. Orders placed online by December 16 will arrive by the 25th. Not able to get to it that fast? Don’t worry. Open Books Chocolates are carried by Sausalito Books by the Bay. Hop over and pick up your favorites inspired by Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess, Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and so much more.

The scene art a recent Book Society event

Book Society
Berkeley bookstore and wine lounge Book Society is a perfect place to connect your lit-loving gift recipient with their people. Visitors can browse books while sipping wine, or attend frequent events held at Book Society. Gift a membership and they’ll gains access to special sales, just-for-members author meet-and-greets, and other perks. Choose a monthly or bi-monthly subscription and the person will receive a book paired with a bottle of wine that is curated according to preferred authors, genres, and wine categories. Recent or upcoming events available to all comers include pleasures such as the “Sunday in the Stacks: Sound Bath & Bubbles,” which paired books with yoga and sound healing modalities and the The “WTF Did I Just Read?!” Book Club, that launched with Robin Sloan’s other-worldly Moonbound.

Try not to eat this adorable Hermes 3000 typewriter

NOVEL TOOLS OF THE TRADE

Berkeley Typewriter
What could be classier than a classic typewriter? The Berkeley Typewriter shop is an incredible spot offering premier name brands and vintage clickety-clacks such as Remington, Royal, Underwood, Olivetti, Hermes, IBM, Olympia, L.C. Smith, and SCM. Every typewriter is in working order, and outfitted with new ribbons and other parts. From $250 at the low end and carrying a $450 average price, the machines are backed by a 1-year warranty. Importantly, for someone already the owner of a vintage typewriter, Berkeley Typewriter has a crack team of repair, restoration, service, and refurbishing personnel. The shop is able to do everything from minor repairs to a complete overhaul, should a customer already have a typewriter in need of work and be seeking an expert. Try to visit the shop in-person and take your buddy along to pick out their favorite typewriter from among the dozens available. (Trust us, the genuinely warm, enthusiastic atmosphere is worth paying for, let alone their goods and services.) While there, catch a glimpse of one of the actor Tom Hanks’ treasured typewriters. Gifted out of over 200 in his collection, the Bay Area-born star’s machine and a letter are on display.

Give a hoot for their nibs at Rickshaw Bagworks

Rickshaw Bagworks
Unbelievable as it might be, there’s an annual SF Pen Show that brings together writing fanatics and fine pen-makers from all around the world. Among the vendors coming to the event in August 2025 is Rickshaw Bagworks, maker of messenger, laptop, and duffle bags and backpacks, but also pen pouches and terrific, soft-goods holders made for pens, pencils, reading glasses, journals and other writing-related items. Among the “other” essential tools word lovers will fall head-over-heels to obtain are Rickshaw’s exquisitely curated, gorgeous and infinitely hand-friendly pens. The limited edition Seigaiha pen is inspired by traditional Japanese patterns and features a classic “seigaiha” wave pattern. The No Borrow Rollerball Pen comes in yellow and black with a no-nonsense “hands-off” message aimed at eliminating a pen owner’s worst nightmare—a pen borrowed and never returned. They even have things like pen pillows, custom tweed journal-holding pocket folios and other fine “homes” for a favorite pen. This is not the land of Bic. Most of Rickshaw’s goods are made at their production center in San Francisco. 

Gorgeous bookshelves by Bruce Powell

Bruce Powell Fine Woodworking
For the book collector who deserves to graduate from a life spent swimming through hoards of books stacked on every available horizontal surface (and some not-wo-horizontal), turn to a master craftsperson like Bruce Powell. From his one-man operation at shops in San Francisco and Groveland, he makes heirloom quality furniture valued for its meticulous craftsmanship and detailed finishing. Powell works mostly with sustainable hardwoods and specific veneers that highlight the luster and nuance or each piece. Custom items are available with consultation. Notable examples of existing pieces include a nuanced by “not fussy” bookcase made with American elm; an intriguing side table that “has something to say” when a smartphone camera is used to decode the inlaid message composed of four kinds of wood; and a gorgeous cabinet based on and modernizing the classic Chinese round corner cabinets known as a yuanjiaoguir.

Woodshop
Open only by appointment and limited Saturdays and Sundays, the Outer Sunset district’s Woodshop is a workspace and occasional showroom. Among the four craftsmen and designers is Luke Bartels, who builds furniture from locally sourced materials, including a wonderful reading light that arcs up out of an organic slab of wood as thick as a porterhouse steak. A variety of small, low-rider tables offer perfect platforms for displaying art books—or for showcasing those book stacks, if one must. A second master crafter at the collective workspace is Jeff Canham, whose whimsical signs and artwork often contain assertive words and phrases. A line of pieces designed and painted for Jessica Hische’s Daily Drop Cap project elevate single capital letters in bold style. The artists’ Outer Sunset shared space they say harbors stories about people who still work with their hands. Custom work is definitely in their wheelhouse—think a bookshelf with a surfboard-based design, a third artist crafts boards—but go prepared to ride the wave of their independent, variable timelines.

Word for Word recently staged Danielle Evans’ provocative short story ‘Boys Go to Jupiter.’ Photo by Cabure Bonugli / Shot in the City Photography

WORDS COME ALIVE

Word for Word 
Word for Word, a program of Z Space, is a performing ensemble whose theatrical presentations showcase classic and contemporary fiction. Founded in 1993 by Susan Harloe and JoAnne Winter, Word for Word has brought to local stages more than 70 stories by some of the world’s best writers. The printed words in a short story are spoken aloud as their name states: word-for-word, without alteration. They perform regularly at Z Space and tickets or a season subscription offer the gift of printed words without the need to hold—or store—more books.

The African American Shakespeare Company mounted Othello in 2019. Photo by Joseph Giammarco

African American Shakespeare Company
The African American Shakespeare Company includes Black actors who consistently master some of the world’s greatest classical roles. The canon of classical theatre presented includes Shakespeare and great American and world playwrights, but also new and less-heard voices and theater artists whose work pushes the genre forward.

Lorraine Hansberry Theatre’s ‘The Black Feminist Guide to the Human Body.’ Photo by Alejandro Ramos

Lorraine Hansberry Theatre
Named after the renowned playwright Lorraine Hansberry (A Raisin in the Sun), the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre company is one of the West Coast’s oldest and most respected professional theaters dedicated to works by, for, and about the Black experience. Current director Margo Hall has turned the focus on Black female and femme identifying playwrights through the New Black Voices Mentorship Program. The initiative supports new socially impactful works that serve to re-establish  Black history by placing Black voices center stage. Celebrate the essence of community and artists whose greatest tools are words shared with tickets or a subscription for a lit-loving recipient.

48 Hills welcomes comments in the form of letters to the editor, which you can submit here. We also invite you to join the conversation on our FacebookTwitter, and Instagram

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