GG reviewed Cool Gray City of Love by Gary Kamiya
Review of 'Cool Gray City of Love' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
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 …
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.
