Join us on Monday, September 14th as we welcome Jordan Tannahill to the shop for the release of The Living Realm! He will be joined in conversation by Brontez Purnell. Save the date! RSVP is not required, but appreciated. Seats are first come, first served and can be guaranteed with the purchase of a book or a $3 sliding scale donation to our program.

About the book

“At once an unflinchingly beautiful novel about queer desire, summer days, and casual sex that is also an elegy to friendship, grief, and lovers lost. Startlingly brave and brilliantly told, I devoured each page not sure what to expect next. The Living Realm belongs in the firmament of great gay fiction.” —Douglas Stuart, Booker Prize–winning author of John of John

This program is read by actor and Audie Award–winner Richard Armitage.

While cruising one evening by Teufelssee, a small glacial lake in the Grunewald forest on the edge of Berlin, a man spots a handsome stranger who bears an uncanny resemblance to his former lover. Only, Lukas died nearly thirty years ago. Yet the man cannot shake the feeling that it was really Lukas he saw. As the man spends a long, hot summer by the lake, he continues to encounter Lukas, and then other lost lovers as well. As he attempts to make sense of the strange occurrences and learns more of Teufelssee, he finds himself venturing deeper into the mystery of the forest, leading him to question not just his sanity but the nature of time itself.

Written with the lyricism and erudition that have made Jordan Tannahill an internationally celebrated playwright, The Living Realm is a moving, dreamlike novel and an elegy to the ways our lives become entangled with history, the natural world, and those we love.

About the author

Jordan Tannahill is a playwright and novelist. His debut novel, Liminal, received France’s 2021 Prix des Jeunes Libraires. His second novel, The Listeners, was short-listed for the 2021 Giller Prize and adapted into a limited series for the BBC. His most recent play, Prince Faggot, ran off-Broadway for seven months in 2025. He has twice won Canada’s Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama, and his work has been presented at venues including the Young Vic Theatre and Sadler’s Wells in London, the Kitchen and Lincoln Center in New York City, and the Deutsches Theater in Berlin. He lives in New York City with his husband.

Brontez Purnell is the author of several books, most recently 100 Boyfriends, which won the 2022 Lambda Literary Award in Gay Fiction, was longlisted for the 2022 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award and the 2021 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize, and was named an Editors' Choice by the New York Times Book Review. The recipient of a 2018 Whiting Writers' Award for Fiction and the 2022 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Robert Rauschenberg Award, he was named one of the thirty-two Black Male Writers of Our Time by T: The New York Times Style Magazine in 2018. Purnell is also the frontman for the band the Younger Lovers and a renowned dancer, performance artist, and zine-maker. Born in Triana, Alabama, he's lived in Oakland, California, for two decades.

About the bookstore

The Booksmith is an independent bookstore located in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco since 1976.

Please note:

• Check-in for the event will begin at 6:45pm.
• Priced ticket holders (Book+seat, Pay it Forward!+seat) will have seats held until 7pm. Arrivals after 7pm will be allowed admission, but seats are not guaranteed.
• General admission ticket holders will be offered seats at check-in on a first-come, first-served basis. May be standing room.
• Space at the door on the day of the event is usually available, but not guaranteed.
• Books will be for sale on the night of the event.
• ADA accessible. Bathrooms on site during event hours.
• Events typically end between 8:30 and 9pm.
• Questions? tickets@booksmith.com