Mechanics' Institute welcomes novelist Peter Mann in conversation about World Pacific, his darkly comic novel of intrigue, adventure, and the perils of self-invention, Mechanics' Institute, 57 Post Street, San Francisco, tickets from $7.18, 6:00 PM (www.milibrary.org/cultural-programs/author-talks)
Fourth Saturdays Poetry at the Claremont Library presents a reading by Nancy Lynée Woo, poet and teaching artist, and Ron Koertge, Pandora's Kitchen: Poems, award-winning poet and young adult novelist, Helen Renwick Library, 208 North Harvard Avenue, Claremont, free, 2:00 pm (www.claremontlibrary.org/monthly-poetry-readings.html)