Tonight, SFAC Gallery presents 22 Bay Area artists' fax-based work, The Booksmith encourages you to 'Get Lit' {hiccup}, and dance duo Julia Graham and Blair Bodie present an evening of dance mixed with cocktails {double hiccup}. more ›

April is a big one for ice cream and print publishing. Two noted ice cream shops in the Mission District, Bi-Rite Creamery and Humphry Slocombe, are coming out with recipe books. So, if you've always wanted to use that Krups ice cream machine cylinder that has been sitting in your freezer for years, be sure to buy one of these books. You're certain to dazzle family and friends. Anyway, the latter ice cream store's book, Sweet Cream and Sugar Cones, features 90 truly astounding recipes. Seriously. They're fascinating. But our favorite recipe also has our favorite intro. Behold: more ›

Perhaps you're itching to score a paperback copy of Fear of Flying, Catcher in the Rye, or Motley Crue's The Dirt? Or how about some great showtunes on vinyl? Well, you're in luck! The Friends of the Library's 2nd Annual Spring Book Sale, which is beginning to rival its big bro, the annual Big Book Sale, in terms of size, is happening all weekend at Fort Mason. more ›

Tonight, The Booksmith celebrates its new book of photography documenting the history and culture of Haight-Ashbury, Cinema Drafthouse screens Fishbone doc, 'Everyday Sunshine', and Goat Hall Productions takes on 'Threepenny Opera'. more ›

Tonight, get a piece of Brad at Books, Inc, in the Castro, experience a "jazz-riddled absurdist farce" at Boxcar Studios, or learn all about S.F.'s love affair with baseball at the Jewish Community Center. more ›

Tonight, celebrate the opening of the 30th annual Asian American International Film Festival, check out Chronicle Books' new (second time around) digs at the Metreon, or find a nonprofit board of directors on which to serve. more ›

A new book by Oakland writer Thomas Peele called Killing the Messenger just recently hit shelves. The subtitle, "A story of radical faith, racism's backlash, and the assassination of a journalist," sums up well what Peele has done here, which is essentially to begin at the beginning, with the rise of Black Muslims in 1930s Detroit, and trace the line through to the bastardized and radicalized dogma of Yusuf Bey's Your Black Muslim Bakery and the empire/crime syndicate he created in Oakland, which was ultimately responsible for killing a journalist who was investigating them. more ›

This weekend, musicians pay tribute to public radio, punks trade stuff, writers talk about their craft, local merchants sell their wares, and scientists cross over into the arts. more ›

Ann Magnuson embarks on an end-of-the-world tour, humor takes over the Noir City Film Festival, and leave a book, take a book at Books Inc. Opera Plaza. more ›

If you think you fully appreciate San Francisco architecture, then I invite you take a second look through the eyes of author John King, and his book Cityscapes. He dissects our fair city in a way that almost seems irreverent but is actually both insightful and genuine. more ›

Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky stands accused of pedophilia and sexually assaulting several young boys, some as young as 10. Among other graphic accusations, the assistant coach reportedly molested some of the victims inside the school's locker room shower. more ›

In addition to fare and fanfare, another noted Chez Panisse signifier would have to be the illustrations and printing found on their menus and cookbooks. Simple, elegant, and concise--just like the food it denotes--the prints have been around for decades, but little is known about the artist. Until now. Artist, designer, and printmaker Patricia Curtan began hand printing menus while working as a cook in the Chez Panisse kitchen. In her new book Menus for Chez Panisse--a shockingly impressive and addictive tome, especially when you consider that, more or less, it's a book about menus--Curtan shows off four decades of her work, which feature special menus for such media and gastronomic darlings as Julia Child, Hillary Clinton, Mikhail Baryshnikov, James Beard, and more. more ›

Oh boy, do we have a bushel of questions for America's Test Kitchen host Christopher Kimball. Like: who do you like better, Bridget Lancaster or Julia Collin-Davison? (We cannot decide!) What's the deal with the whole Vermont thing? Do you hate Good Eats since you both more or less do similar things? Why are you wasting our time with the equipment corner? And, why do you fumble on the taste-test challenge? You seem actually peeved when you pick the wrong one. Which you do. Often. And that tickles us. more ›

COMEDY: You have two weekends left to catch beloved local comedy troupe Killing My Lobster's latest sketch comedy show, Killing My Lobster Conquers the Galaxy, which includes "the real story of how Dr. Who chooses his time-traveling companions; Space Wizard antics; Italians running a space station and more." (8 p.m., The Jewish Theater San Francisco, 470 Florida Street) more ›

STORYTELLING: The talented folks at Muni Diaries, who are seriously funny people in person, are hosting their first Muni Diaries Live Reunion and Open Mic, featuring Muni Diaries Live alumni telling the stories that they didn't tell the first time around. Additionally, special guest Anna Conda will be at the event reading the winning review from Muni Diaries' Muni Google Places contest. (6:30 to 9 p.m., Elbo Room, 647 Valencia Street) more ›

Looking to score a bunch of awesome kids' books, older-edition cookbooks, self-help guides, parenting manuals, or art books? Got a hankering for laser discs or '80s one-hit wonders and musical soundtracks on vinyl? Then get your tote bags ready and carpool to Fort Mason with a friend (learn from SFist's mistakes, lugging piles of books on Muni is never fun) -- the Friends of the Public Library's 47th Annual Big Book Sale starts Wednesday! more ›

MUSIC: SFJazz presents Carmen Souza, a Lisbon-born "jazz-tinged chanteuse" of Cape Verdean descent, who performs a seductive combination of traditional rhythms and songs with jazz and Brazilian influences. (7:30 p.m., Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, 3200 California Street) more ›

This goes out to all of you who get clammy-palmed as soon as you see your favorite F-car rolling up to your stop. Oh Milano, you come on smooth with that designy orange and classic woodtone, but you're so heavy on the rails. No matter; we love you with all our hearts and Clippercards. Blackpool, you're a topless show-off and you know it. more ›

Welcome again to Twentysomething, SFist's newest interviewing series. What exactly is Twentysomething, you ask? Well, similar to the Proust Questionnaire or the gobbledygook heard at the end of each Inside the Actor's Studio, we ask a bevy of famous subjects a series of searing questions, followed by a handful of tailor-made queries. (Hence TwentySOMETHING.) Today we ask Dan Johnson -- former SFist scribe and author of the excellent The Perplexing Problem of the Porcelain Bandits -- to drop and give us 20. Behold: more ›

All-City photographers Travis Jensen and Brad Evans photo doc book about San Francisco's Tenderloin, aptly christened Tenderloin USA, will have its official launch party on Wednesday night in the 'loin. The bash, featuring good tunes and potent booze, goes down at Ever Gold Gallery (441 O'Farrell). more ›

Clear your schedule later this week so you can get first dibs at Chronicle Books' Summer Warehouse Sale, which runs this Thursday through Saturday. Hundreds of sweet titles by the beloved SF-based publisher will be 65% off, and you'll get a free gift with purchase. more ›

Over the last year, photographer Travis Jensen and fellow All-City photographer Brad Evans worked on a remarkable photo documentary book about San Francisco's Tenderloin called Tenderloin USA. Their work takes a black-and-white look into the heart of the Tenderloin, with a sharp focus being on the characters who live, work, own businesses, hang out, and raise families in the 'loin. more ›

Jeffrey Eugenides, Susan Orlean, James Ellroy, Mary Roach, Ishmael Reed, Adam Mansbach, Jane Smiley, Chris Adrian, Thomas McGuane, Christopher Moore, Daniel Woodrell, Deepak Chopra, Cyra McFadden, and Guillermo Gomez-Peña are just a few of the authors scheduled to read at this year's Litquake Festival. "Er, like, what's Litquake," you derp? Well, Litquake is the city's annual festival of literature devoted to the printed word. Lots of words. Dangerous words. more ›

The last time we heard about BART teaming up with local libraries to dispense reading material through vending machines was three years ago. Back then, the world was an entirely different place. George W. Bush was still president, iPhones didn't have apps for anything, and Justin Bieber's YouTube channel only had like a dozen views. Now it's 2011, Osama bin Laden is dead, your grandmother is downloading eBooks on her 3G Kindle, and Millbrae is still that place you end up when you accidentally take the wrong train out of SFO. But as of today, should you find yourself there without something to read, the Examiner reports that you can check out books from a crisp new Library-a-Go-Go machine. (Sidenote: Really? We're still calling them that?) All you need is a library card from the Peninsula. A much smarter move would be to put one in SFO so we could pick up trashy novels on our way to Cabo, but nobody consulted us on it. Their loss! [SFEx] by way of [CurbedSF] more ›

Sad news for book lovers in San Francisco. According to reports, independently-owned A Different Light (489 Castro) in the Castro and Modern Times (888 Valencia) in the Mission will close their doors this year. Why? Because no one patronizes bookstores these days, that's why. Which is too bad since bookstores, you know, kinda smell nice and are (were?) great places for meeting people. more ›

Anyone with internet access has surely heard about author Amy Chua. Her memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, was recently excerpted in the Wall Street Journal and paired with a rather baiting headline that Chua likely didn't write: "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior." more ›