After reporting on the publishing experiments turning up around San Francisco, we asked the city’s writers what they’re reading these days, and they were happy to share. Look for Required Reading every week. 

While living in a remote tent camp in Alaska, Rodes Fishburne was left stranded for 21 days after a severe storm. During that time, the San Francisco author of Going to See the Elephantread War and Peace cover to cover―twice. These days, Fishburne tastes are entirely modern and tend toward much shorter reads, some just 140 characters long.

Magazine: The Rumpus started a book club that puts new hardback novels into readers hands a month before the book hits stores. Instead of waiting for reviewers to tell readers what's good, The Rumpus has decided to beat everyone to the punch. They also feature an online discussion with that month's chosen author. Most importantly, according to managing editor Isaac Fitzgerald, they are cash-flow positive on the book club experiment, which is entrepreneur speak for "not losing money."

Newspaper: Finch's Quarterly Review is the most eccentric literary paper ever. It's run by British impresario and talent manager Charles Finch, who has clearly buttonholed many of his clients―Kevin Spacey writes about theatre, Emma Thompson writes about food--into writing for the newspaper. One especially memorable piece was a book review by John Malkovich about literary hoaxes.

Twitter: I love that @margaretatwood has done a giant cannonball into the Twitter pool.