Like the 4.2 magnitude earthquake last week that jolted the Bay Area, Litquake 2011 came and went quickly this October, leaving us all with different impressions.

The “Original Shorts: Failure to Commit” Litquake event, at the Lone Palm on Monday, embodied everything that I love about the San Francisco literary scene.

The Scanners Project is a temporary bookstore meets art installation, a showcase of the tactile pleasures of physicality of books.

A new monthly salon at Dog Eared Books, led by SF author Peter Orner, digs deep into the neglected books re-published in the NYRB Classics collection.

Dan Fante provides a refreshing and much-needed examination of his father, John Fante’s life, and the cloud of dirty glamor that surrounds it.

The second annual Art in Storefronts event merged with the unique textures and elements inherent to Mid Market: porn shops, neon signs, old businesses, grand buildings, active street corners and the artery of trains, taxis and buses.

The Monthly Rumpus brings out a huge and loyal crowd. In May, the series included Cheryl Strayed, Lidia Yuknavitch, and Paul Madonna, and was hosted by Isaac Fitzgerald.

The Tenderloin Reading Series celebrated its two-year anniversary with the release of a new literary journal.

At City Lights last night, there was a line out the door waiting to see three Bay Area writers who appeared in the New Yorker’s “20 Under 40″ series: Chris Adrian, Yiyun Li, and Daniel Alarcón.

The anarchist, queer, “Neolithic conservative” man of letters—Paul Goodman—would have turned 100 this year.

Greil Marcus followed Bob Dylan through forty years of genius, self-indulgence, zeitgeist-defining moments and horrible albums.