We can't take any more of this Bay Area independent bookstore stress -- first the Kepler's drama and now this? Venerated SF independent bookstore stalwart A Clean Well-Lighted Place For Books is on the market. Owner Neal Sofman says that it's been hard getting walk-in traffic at its Opera Plaza location and that sales have been steadily declining over the years. But what about that new Peet's that just opened next door? Surely that would......

Nikki Richesin, the editor of the The May Queen, started compiling this book of essays on "the eve of the thirtieth birthday." Given that the tagline of the book is "Women on life, love, work, and pulling it all together in your 30s", that piece of data seemed ironic -- we're pretty sure we spent the eve of our thirtieth birthday watching "Knight Rider". Thanks for making us feel like even MORE of a screwup,......

Who is that charming young man riding his scooter up Divis for the early-bird special at the Metro Cafe? It's Andrew Sean Greer, California Book Award winner for The Confessions of Max Tivoli, San Franciscan, and one of the featured readers at Picador's 10th Birthday Event (scroll down) at A Clean Well Lighted Place For Books, this Wednesday at 7 p.m. To kick things off, we have some copies of Max Tivoli to give......

We need to come up with a new word to describe the tasteless, fabulous, trashy, glamorous style of the Tenderloin. It's not just a slummy neighborhood; it's a slummy neighborhood with a can-do spirit and discerning palette. And one of its heroines is Tenderloinish drag star Juanita More, who, along with three hot Moreboys and the adorable Mike Albo, performed for an adoring crowd at The LGBT Center on Tuesday night. The evening, the......

We've loved Wendy McClure almost as long as we've loved the internerd, from her appearances on the late, great Hissyfit site, to her recaps at what we now call Television Without Pity, to her personal site, Pound, to her column in Bust. When we heard she wrote a book we thought about hitting her up for a review copy, before we decided to go out and spend our own money on it, library-abusing cheapskate......