Ever since the SFist Reads column turned us back onto the awesomeness of checking books out of the SF Public Library, we've been big fans of the First Stop area of the Main Library, where the library put all their books they'd acquired in the last two years. We've spent many a pleasant few hours checking out the latest memoirs, or all the books in the 300 section, or randomly pulling out titles in the......

The SF Public Library's holding a good old-fashioned photo drive! One day only! Today! They're looking to add to their Historical Photograph Collection, and they need your help -- but heterosexuals need not apply. Ha ha, just kidding, heterosexuals can help too! But seriously, they don't want pictures of straight people. The "Shades of LGBTQI" project is looking for donations from the community; they want photographs -- physical or digital -- that have something......

A variety show and a chance to help out Killing My Lobster? But of course! The Romane Event, the monthly music/film/comedy/spoken word event at the Make Out Room the last Wednesday of every month and hosted by Paco Romane, is a benefit for local comedy group Killing My Lobster, and will feature their sketches and movies tonight. Looks like fabulous fabulist Harmon Leon'll be there too! $7-15 sliding scale, 8 p.m., at the Make Out......

--The heart of rock and roll is still beatin' -- at Stern Grove this afternoon. It's HUEY LEWIS AND THE NEWS!!!! The free show starts at 2, but we assume folks'll be lining up pretty early, beach towels and folding chairs at the ready. Stern Grove's at Sloat and 19th. --The Chinese Cultural Center screens White Tower, a documentary about deaf culture in China's Henan Province. 1 p.m., $6, 750 Kearny 3rd Floor (x......

Get that gigantic backpack and sleeping bag and trek on over to Cody's Books on Fourth Street, as Tony and Maureen Wheeler, the founders of Lonely Planet, read from their new books, Unlikely Destinations (the story of Lonely Planet) and Bad Lands (Tony's trips to dangerous countries). If you can't make tonight's reading (7 p.m.), they're in town through Friday, reading at Get Lost in SF tomorrow night and Book Passage in Corte Madera on......

As part of the National Queer Arts Festival, graphic artist and memoirist Alison Bechdel is speaking at Michelle Tea's Radar Reading Series at the SF Public Library tonight! We've been huge fans of Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For for, like 10 years now (we're latecomers -- she's been drawing the strip since 1987), and her first graphic novel, Fun Home, about her relationship with her closeted gay father totally blew our mind with......

While we were at the symphony last night, our partner in crime mentioned an interesting event coming up tomorrow that we'd thought we'd pass along. The SF Public Library, in conjunction with its James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center, is sponsoring a free event tomorrow (Sunday Jan. 21) from 2-4 p.m., to promote an anthology called "Return to the Caffe Cino," which is a collection of essays, plays, and reminiscences from a group of......

We're hitting the Main branch of the SF Public Library (100 Larkin Street) for Central America on a Shoestring, a talk by Lonely Planet's commissioning editor Greg Benchwick. Benchwick’s Central American travels started in the mid 1990s when he traveled by chicken bus from Costa Rica to Guatemala – and that was just the start for his Latin American adventures...Benchwick will present highlights of Central America and suggest itineraries and trips for those going for......

Okay, let's get the premise of this band over quickly, and with a minimum of references to Hufflepuff badgers and flying Bludger balls -- the band Harry and the Potters is made up of two brothers, one of whom calls himself Harry Year 7 and the other of whom is Harry Year 4. They write original songs all based on the Harry Potter universe, like "Save Ginny Weasley From Dean Thomas," "The Missing Arm of......

Geez, the SF Public Library's site is sloooow today. We might not have the patience to make any online reserves, and might have to head straight to one of our fine local independent bookstores. Yes, folks, it's that kind of day. SFist Cheshire is trying to get into Jonathan Lethem's Fortress of Solitude, but so far it's a little impenetrable. Too much writerly acrobatics for Chesh's taste in the first 40 pages or so.......

Our broker is E.F. Wednesday, and he says.... Tonight: Intersection for the Arts is sponsoring "Battle From The Margins," a short film and video festival featuring works by queer women of color. $5-15 sliding scale, show starts at 7 at 446 Valencia (between 15th and 16th). Thursday: Remember when SFist Mary-Lynn profiled the Princess Project, a group that provides free prom dresses and accessories to teenage girls who can't otherwise afford them? They're having their annual silent auction benefit at Dolce SF. Auction items include items from the Giants, the Gap, Plumpjack (maybe it's a date with Gavin!), and 24 Hour Fitness, among others. Also, a raffle! 6:30-9:39, $5 suggested entry fee, $5 for a raffle ticket, at 440 Broadway (between Montgomery and Kearny). and Friday: You've got your choice of hip-hop events tonight -- the SF Public Library, Colored Ink, and the Brava Theater are sponsoring "The Streets Have Spoken," a hip-hop theater piece inspired by the number of unsolved murders in San Francisco at the Bayview Opera House on 4705 3rd Street (near Oakdale) at 7 p.m. Or you can check out Asian-American hip-hop performers courtesy of Locus Arts at Space 180 (180 Capp Street, between 16th and 17th), 9:30-12. ...

FYI: If you love these Alcatraz movies, the SF Public Library is featuring an "Escape To Alcatraz" movie festival this month! Wait, we thought Chunky Monkey was a Ben and Jerry's flavor: A man wearing a gorilla mask held up a Baskin-Robbins in San Mateo at the Bayhill Shopping Center. If you want a banana flavor at Baskin Robbins, you have to get the lo-fat Berries 'n Banana flavor, and then, well, what's the point of getting ice cream at all? (Certain regional stores have Banana Walnut, though.) Who wants a hug? The Ross police force up in Marin County has announced that its officers will be stocking up on teddy bears in their patrol cars to comfort kids who somehow end up needing police assistance (by getting lost in town, or being in a car accident). Do you get a bear if you were the perpetrator of the incident requiring police assistance too? The Ross police force now has almost 3 times as many bears as officers, and 5 bears in each car. The bears were donated by a former Ross police sergeant and his wife, a soldier-actress who was the inspiration for the movie GI Jane (really!). And more genius from the Examiner's South Bay police blotter: a woman who called about peeping toms that turned out to be her neighbor's shirts drying on a clothes line, the man who's shoplifted over 75 pairs of underwear from the Serramonte Victoria's Secret, and a man who got in a shoving match with a store clerk at a local metal shop over their 30% restocking fee. Good work, Examiner police blotter! ...

Okay, this next component of the SF Film Society's new SF360 program is a bit low-concept, but you're a smart cookie so you should pick it up pretty quick. Listen: "We want to explore the way new platforms help us bring new work to new audiences," Graham Leggat, Exec Direc of the SFFS told us in an interview. So to that end, they're going to select one film, then work with distribution partners like the......

Eric Rice posts the transcript of Lawrence Lessig's recent chat in Second Life, which could just be the most meta-geek thing ever. Niall Kennedy, Caterina Fake and Josh Kinberg build an ego-bot for bloggers, Whuffie Tracker, in just a few hours. Sex.com sells for $14 million -- after the legal fees, there might just be enough to take the family to In-N-Out. And wondered why that new Apple ad looked like an old Postal......

Wow, another year of SFist Reads seems to have whipped right by. Another year of online reserves checked out from the SF Public Library, another year of shopping at our fine local independent bookstores. As we here at SFist have eyes in the back of our heads, we happily look back over 2005 and ahead to 2006 for this year-end edition of SFist Reads. SFist Matt (an opportunity for wit will never pass this......

Deck the halls with boughs of Wednesday -- fa la la la la, la la la la! Tonight: Come out for this year's annual Unsilent Night music performance! Composer Phil Kline leads people on a 30-minute walk around the Mission as they carry boomboxes playing his piece, and listen as the sound shimmers around the block. 6:45 at Dolores Park -- bring either a boombox or an mp3 player (unclear if you need to bring speakers for the mp3 player too). Thursday: Whoa, trippy anime Hansel and Gretel! The classic play involving the consumption of greedy children by a spinster is presented in puppet form at SF Public Library's Merced branch (at 19th and Winston, across from the Stonestown Galleria). The puppets'll go from 1:30-2; call 415-355-2825 in advance to reserve a seat. and Friday: What's comedy like without the mandatory two-drink minimum? Well, you'll find out at the SF Comedy College's Arsenal troupe's free performance at the Comedy College Clubhouse. 8 p.m. at 414 Mason #705. Maybe you'll just be choosing to drink. ...

Tonight: We're running just down the street to Borders Books and Music (200 King Street at 3rd) for Making It: Writers on the Verge. Brought to us by our pals at Friends of the SF Public Library this event features Beth Lisick, Michelle Tea, and Stephen Elliott with moderator Oscar Villalon (SF Chronicle book editor) discussing how they started out and how they sustain their work. And it's free! Saturday: We're headed down to......

Rockin like Dokken -- what's on tap? Today: Did you know the SF Public Library sponsors film events? Tonight's screening is the film "Mission Movie," which follows a group of neighbors through everyone's favorite neighborhood as dot-com gentrification starts to settle in. Oooh, we hope Nestor Makno makes a cameo! FIlm starts at 6, in the auditorium of the Main Library. Thursday: You can either check out Tuvan throat singers at 7 p.m. at the Asian Art Museum -- or ululate with the candidates for city assessor-recorder at the League of Women Voters-sponsored debate (ladies, the word "calendar" is misspelled on your site). Maybe Ron Chun will bring his ermine robes and crown! Debate starts at 7 at the LGBT Center at 1800 Market. And TGI Friday: As part of the Bay Area Now series, the Yerba Buena Center presents Under The Radar 1, which sounds like it's going to be an underground cabaret -- female faux drag queens (one of whom used to be our yoga teacher!), acrobats, hip-hoppers Felonius, a women's toy instrument ensemble, and Lynne Breedlove of Tribe 8 (among many others) will be performing. Yow! 8 pm at the YBCA, $20. Picture of drag artist Glamamour off the YBCA website...

This is usually the part where we remind you of how insanely easy it is to reserve books online from the SFPL, or to buy them from one of our fine local independent bookstores. But today peanut butter and chocolate come together at the Friends of the SF Public Library's 41st Annual Big Book Sale, which begins tomorrow and runs until October 2 at the Festival Pavilion in Fort Mason Center. All books have......

This week many of us are slogging along with books that we've been working on for a while. When we're looking down the barrel of a book we know we'll need to take our sweet time with, we're inclined to pick it up from one of our fine local independent bookstores. Other times we reserve it online from the SF Public Library then use their onl;ine system to renew it as often as we......

Books incite strong emotions in people, as you can see from the thoughts below. Sometimes we love a book so much that we want it forever, so we pick it up at one of our fine local independent bookstores. Other times we're glad we just reserved it online from the SF Public Library, because, dang, there are a lot of crappy books out there. SFist Emily pre-empted all the hipsters, literary youngsters, and book......

SFist welcomes all our new food column contributors to SFist reads. We, ourselves, have been known to check out cookbooks we reserved online from the SF Public Library, but we're way more likely to just buy them for keeps from one of our fine local independent bookstores. What makes you decide to buy a book, as opposed to checking it out from the library? Tell us in the comments! Before we get to the......

We're a little anxious because our local branch of the SF Public Library is closing for renovations, so we will have to pick up our materials reserved online at a branch across the park from us. While we're over there maybe we'll hit Green Apple, one of our favorite local independent bookstores. When we last heard from SFist Jon, he was bemoaning the fact that he has yet to read War and Peace. Today,......

SFist is broke from the combined evils of holiday excess and rent. We're keeping ourselves entertained on the cheap by reserving books online from the SF Public Library. When we're back to feeling flush, we'll be buying books from our great local independent bookstores. SFist Rita just finished The Punch, about the fight between NBA players Kermit Washington and Rudy Tomjanovich back in 1977 where Washington almost killed Tomjanovich on the court. She figured......

SFist has big reading plans for next year, so we're reserving books online from the SF Public Library, and buying books from local independent bookstores, so we can have at least one resolution we won't crap out on. Sfist Jon grudgingly admits: "Okay- I want to read War & Peace this year. Because every year I say to myself it's time I should read War & Peace (aren't we supposed to read it?) and every......

SFist is celebrating the holidays in many ways, as some of us will travel to far-off lands (or just the Midwest), while others of us will remain right here. All of us are psyched about the additional free time the holidays bring us to read books we've reserved online from the SF Public Library. Others of us have made book purchases from our local independent bookstore. Whatever your holiday plans, SFist wishes you the best,......

Salinas is closing its public libraries because the public wouldn't vote in a sales tax hike. That's ok, at least it will prevent them from burning any more of Steinbeck's books....

SFist was geting a manicure last night, and found herself explaining how to reserve books online from the SF Public Library to a group of raptly listening fashionistas. We also threw in a plug for our local independent bookstore. Bookishness validated by the cool crowd? Priceless. SFist Mary Lynn has been reading Don't Think of an Elephant which is scary and good and she has to keep putting it down so she's been working through......