Cool Gray City of Love

A beautiful love letter to, and fascinating history of, my home city. It's a lovely exploration of many of the secret corners of San Francisco, and it introduced me to a lot of history of which I was unaware. I've lived in the Bay Area for my entire adult life, and this books was full of facts I didn't know -- for example, that 2/3 of the troops headed for the Pacific theater during WWII left via the port at Fort Mason, or that a wrecked ship used by explorer Roald Amundsen used to sit along the Great Highway.

I didn't love the author's frequent interjections of his own controversial opinions as simple facts. In one particularly glaring example, he dismisses the opposition to a plan to mow down much of the Sutro Cloud Forest because it's composed mostly of beautiful but non-native eucalyptus as "ignorant NIMBism." There are also an overabundance of groan-worthy puns, such as a man named Lasso who "proved incapable of roping in his budget." Nevertheless, it's a 5-star read that I'd highly recommend.

You would not want this to be the last book you read about San Francisco - you would get a shallow, scattered picture. But it probably makes a great first book about San Francisco - it isn't just a history or cartography of the city but tries (and often succeeds) to convey why people love the city; why they are nostalgic about versions of the city-past; why you might want to spend a weekend or a lifetime wandering the alleys and hills and coastlines of the place. Will likely be my first recommendation for newcomers in the future.