tredmond@sfbg.com

LIT So much trash lit, so little summer left. It hasn't been the greatest of years for beach and backyard reading (seriously, more trash than lit), but we struggle on. Some selections:

THE AFFAIR

By Lee Child

Delacourte Press

405 pp, hardcover $28

Jack Reacher is one of the best action characters of our time, up there with Spenser and Travis McGee.Read more »

culture@sfbg.com

LIT Either I'm terrible at parking or Philip P. Choy was exactly the right person to author his recently-released San Francisco Chinatown: A Guide to Its History and Architecture (City Lights Publishers, 184pp, $15.95). We find a spot for my car in a well-hidden lot, tucked into an alleyway behind the Chinese Historical Society of America. It's the first sign of the day that Choy's knowledge of the area goes beyond tea shops and Peking duck.Read more »

marke@sfbg.com

LIT Molly Ringwald is 44, fabulous, and living a dream life in Santa Monica with her gorgeous husband and three daughters. She's also far from shy when it comes to talking about her storied past as an 1980s movie legend, the red-headed dream girl of choice for a generation of disaffected teens.Read more »

caitlin@sfbg.com

LIT "Do you consider yourself sex-positive?"

If you have a chance to interview John McCain's daughter, and she identifies as a feminist, and is demonstrably more comfortable in strip clubs than the "liberal comedian" with whom she has embarked on a tour with in promotion of their book America, You Sexy Bitch! (Da Capo Press, $26, 352pp), you have to seize your moment to ask the big questions.Read more »

cheryl@sfbg.comRead more »

LIT In the early pages of his new memoir, Steven Martin admits he's obsessive. This is not uncommon, he explains, for collectors — not to be confused with the dilettantes he calls "gatherers." Serious hobbyists hunt down highly specific items, fervently scrutinize them, and then evangelize to whoever'll listen about their findings.Read more »

marke@sfbg.com

QUEER ISSUE "Right now it seems we have more in common with the Christian Right than the gay liberation movement. We've become so focused on marriage as the end-all and be-all of gay rights that it's completely within the realm of possibility that the next leader of Focus on the Family could be a gay man. We all have to get married now for tax breaks, health care, or to stay in this country? Are you kidding me?" Mattilda Sycamore Bernstein spilled some truth into my hot pink Princess phone.Read more »

cheryl@sfbg.com

LIT It was a cold, windy January morning in 1937 when a horrifically mutilated body was found sprawled at the base of a rumored-to-be-haunted watchtower in what was then called Peking.Read more »

LIT It started with a tweet. On May 17, 2011, Renae De Liz, following up on a suggestion by fellow comic book artist Jessica Hickman, pitched "an anthology made by all females" to her Twitter followers. The immediate response was unprecedented, as was the support that funneled in through the Kickstarter that was launched in July.Read more »

culture@sfbg.com

LIT Over a five-year period in Oakland, California, archivist Pat Thomas befriended key leaders of the Black Power movement, dug through Huey Newton's archives at Stanford University, spent countless hours and thousands of dollars on eBay, and talked to rank and file Black Panther Party members. He uncovered dozens of obscure albums, singles, and stray tapes. Along the way, he began to piece together a time period (1967-1974) when revolutionaries were seen as pop culture icons.Read more »