Concierge.com's insider take:

It has been said that San Francisco, the birthplace of a generation of Beat authors, is a city in love with two things: books and booze. Once a year, local literati—Armistead Maupin, Dave Eggers, Amy Tan, Michelle Tea—and their fans celebrate this happy, drunken marriage with a festival of readings and panel discussions. Sound boring? In any other city, it might be. Litquake, however, draws literary-minded hipsters to dive bars, swank lounges, and even laundromats with honeyed words and drink tickets. The weeklong festival, which opens the first weekend in October, culminates in a Saturday night three-hour LitCrawl through various bars in the Mission, with more than 300 authors giving readings on topics ranging from food and pets to war and sex.