A Melbourne-born men's book club with 157+ chapters worldwide runs a free monthly meeting out of an Irish bar on Guerrero Street. No RSVP, no ticket, no obligation to have finished the book.

The Tough Guy Book Club — founded in a Collingwood pub in Melbourne in 2012, now a registered Australian nonprofit with 157+ chapters across ten countries — runs a San Francisco chapter out of The Liberties on Guerrero Street. It's free, monthly, and walk-in welcome.

Next meeting: Wednesday, July 1, 7pm. The Liberties, 998 Guerrero St (at 22nd), Mission District. Free, no ticket, no RSVP. Men 18+; the club says it isn't the judge of who qualifies.

The SF chapter has been running about a year and a half. The format is simple: there's a book, you can read it or not (the rules are explicit: "come anyway, no one gives a damn"), and you talk about it over a drink. One rule they do enforce: no work talk, and what they call the "100% Don't be a fuckhead rule." The next selection isn't revealed until the meeting itself.

The name is a correction, not a provocation. Founder Shay Leighton's original pitch: there's nothing weak about knowing more than the next guy. The club runs on the same logic as any good bar argument — pick an interesting book, find people willing to disagree about it.

The Liberties is an Irish pub, the comfortable corner-bar kind. Nearest BART is 24th St Mission, about a seven-minute walk. Street parking on Guerrero is fine on a Wednesday night.

If you've been meaning to actually go to a book club for about two years: this is the one that doesn't require a reservation or a sign-up form. Just show up.