AOL City Guide

Being that it is so often a solitary, silent endeavor, reading festivals just don’t generate the buzz and mass that music and film festivals do. But leave it to the city that helped put the Beats on the map to turn a lit-con into a crowd-pleaser, in the form of LitQuake. This time around, the annual showcase brings together heavyweights from the worlds of texts and sonics to make their case. Ray Manzarek, who spent years backing a doomed poet named Jim Morrison in their legendary band The Doors, reads from his foundational narratives, as does hip-hop chameleon Dan the Automator, soundtracker for projects as cool as Dr. Octagon and Handsome Boy Modeling School. The Bay Area’s resident writing champ Dave Eggers is also on hand, as are artists as diverse as Maxine Hong Kingston and Jamie Lee Curtis. There are workshops, panels, children’s activities and much more on the slate — including a clever LitCrawl! — which stretches across nine days and the entire city. Reading may be fundamental, but it’s much more effective when it’s this fun.

– Scott Thill