Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco

Lifelong Bay Area resident Kamiya (cofounder & columnist, Salon; Shadow Knights: The Secret War Against Hitler) describes 49 charmingly different tours of the city he loves. This is not a book about museums, restaurants, or tourist hot spots but instead a portrait of San Francisco from its early days, when the Spanish established a fort at the Presidio, through the boom of the 1849 gold rush and the devastation of the 1906 earthquake, to the colorful, drug-fueled invasion of hippies in the 1960s and the Occupy San Francisco movement of the new millennium. Woven throughout is social and political commentary along with stories from Kamiya's own life. Isolated coves, old factories, and San Francisco's rich ethnic history are as central to the story as Golden Gate Park, Lombard Street, and Coit Tower. Kamiya's excellent powers of description almost (but not quite) obviate the need for maps.