SFist Jenna sez....: Get your learn, dessert, dance and drink on at these Tuesday haps around the city: Reading & Book Signing: A.M Homes, (author of Safety of Objects, Music for Torching and The End of Alice) reading from and signing her latest book, The Mistress's Daughter, about her horrible biological parents, tonight at 7 pm. Booksmith,1644 Haight St. Get there a bit early to take advantage of the free cone day at Ben &......

--The US Attorney's office is going to monitor the SF elections, like we're East Timor or Florida or something. --Courtney Love was 50 minutes late to her book signing in Corte Madera. --District 6 candidate Manuel Jimenez confirms neither confirms nor denies that he's Latino (see comments!), with a picture of his baptism. --The cops get back the discretion to press pot charges. --Stanford students don't really care about the election. --Does the Bayview need......

Courtney Love is scheduled for a book signing event at the Mission Bay Borders (200 King St. @ 3rd) to promote her "multi-textual memoir," Dirty Blonde. According to the official PR, the author will only sign her new book at this event. We assume that means don't bother asking Ms Courtney to autograph her late husband's albums or any appendages or pharmaceutical containers. (7pm) While we're not in the giving advice to celebrities business,......

Open wide! (At the orifice of your choosing.) This Friday ... 7pm ... A Different Light (489 Castro St. at 18th St.): a book signing by local comic artists Justin Hall, Steve MacIsaac, and Andy Hartzell. Justin, along with Dave Davenport, is one of the smutty minds behind "Hard to Swallow," a periodic anthology of phalluses and gooey fluids. (He also writes a non-pr0nish series called "Swallowing a Cobra's Heart and Other True Travel......

There must be something in the air, because this is the week of weeks for comic book artists to make appearances in SF. On Friday, Justin Hall & friends are doing a book signing at A Different Light (we'll be posting more details about that on Thursday) ... and on Wednesday, Gene Luen Yang, local author of the awesome American Born Chinese, is throwing a launch celebration at Isotope on Wednesday at 7pm. American......

Leave work early today for the Northern California Book Awards! It's all happening at the Main Library (100 Larkin Street), starting with a 5 p.m. book signing and reception with many of the nominated authors in the Latino/Hispanic Room. The awards ceremony starts at 6 in the Koret Auditorium. Admission for the event is free. SFist Rita just finished Money: A Memoir, by local author Liz Perle, about her (and by extension, all women's)......

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day! Did you know that America's "first black Millionaire" was Yerba Buena resident Alexander Leidesdorff? Eric Meyerson got a chance to see Nobel Laureate Jimmy Carter at a recent book signing. And the wheels of the criminal justice system continue to squeak, with this harrowing tale of dealing with the Fremont courts. We'll take a trip around the blogosphere for a minute. Jon "PJ" Swenson at the Sharkspage does......

For all those people wishing somebody, anybody, would get to the bottom of this whole steroid mess, have no worries, congress is here! This week, members of the House Government Reform Committee, having finished reforming the government, have asked several ballplayers linked in the steroid scandal, several ball players not linked in the steroid scandal, MLB baseball officials, and union officials to testify next Thursday in front of the committee about steroid abuse. Those players, including Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Jason Giambi, have pretty much refused to testify. As have most MLB officials. And so, yesterday, congress sent out subpoenas. Noticeably absent from all this is one Barry Lamar Bonds. This despite the fact he has become the poster-boy of alleged steroid abuse and despite the fact he's about to break the most famous record in all of sports. Not to mention despite the fact some people think this whole BALCO thing is nothing more than an attempt to get Barry. ...

Last week's winner, the East Bay Express. Dream cartoonist outdoes himself with a dream about fighting Lord Vader! Cover article: The Oakland band Heavenly States had a horrible trip to Libya. Hey, Jose Canseco's doing a book signing at the Jack London Barnes and Noble next Monday! SFist Jake, we hope you're there! Was Abbey Lincoln drunk or delusional at her upsetting Yoshi's show last week? And Savage Love: why can't we charge barebackers full cost for anti-viral drug therapies for their victims? The SF Weekly: Matt Smith, being contrarian and pro-business. We never really understand what he's so upset about, but we're sure he's right! Dog Bites: better California quarter designs. Backroom dealings about Indian casinos. Hey! There's an orchestra performance of the music from Final Fantasy (scroll down) next Monday! Cover article: cabaret singer Antony. OK Then had a nice time at the Saturday J. Newsom concert, and, biting the EBX's style from last week, the Weekly also runs an article about metal yoginis High On Fire. Hilarious undercover sting operations in the Guardian and the Weekly of the Week, after the jump. ...

While book signings themselves are not that big of an event in and of themselves, they can be depending on who is doing all the signing. Like ex-Presidents. Or skanky “celebrities.” And especially reclusive, iconoclastic writers. It’s an even bigger deal if said reclusive iconoclastic writer isn’t necessarily a writer per se, but a reclusive iconoclastic rock god. Tomorrow, the Bard of La Honda, the Godfather of Grunge, the man who can somehow still......

SFist enjoys going to literary events for a number of reasons, the least of which being that being at an actual book signing or reading makes us realize that these author are "Just Like Us", thus fueling our dreams of quitting our day job and going on book tour. SFist Chesh alerted us to a particularly good one: Rachael Ray is appearing at Sur La Table in Berkeley from 3-5 today (hurry!). A flyer I......