Michael Tolliver Lives: A Novelby Ambrose Bierce
Armistead Maupin and his popular Tales of the City series evolved from a mid-1970s column in the San Francisco Chronicle and, over the next decade, attracted a loyal following.
Although Maupin denies that this is a seventh volume of his beloved Tales of the City, we leave it to you to dicide that for yourself.
The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan
In Memories that rise like wisps of ghosts, LuLing Young searches for
the name of her mother, the daughter of the Famous Bonesetter from the
Mouth of the Mountain. Set in contemporary San Francisco
and in a Chinese village where Peking Man is being unearthed, The Bonesetter's
Daughter is an excavation of the human split: the past, its deepest wounds,
its most profound hopes.
China
Boy : A Novel by
Gus LeeWarm, funny, and deeply moving, Gus Lee's semi-autobiographical account of growing up in a conflict-ridden family, unable to fully embrace either American or Chinese culture, is an enthralling story of family relationships, the perils of boyhood, and the difficulty of being Chinese in 1950's San Francisco.
City
Limits
by James Toland
City Limits is a collection of eight versatile short stories about the diverse
people living in and coming from San Francisco's Mission District.
These people are living on the meanest streets of America's most beautiful city.
For some, lives are filled with promise; others face only a dead end.
Daughter
of Fortune by Isabel Allende
An ambitious romance laden with drama and sensuality. The story
begins in mid-19th
century Valparaiso, Chile and tells the tale of a young woman who follows her
lover to California during the Gold Rush of 1849. This is storytelling at its
most seductive, a brash historical adventure.
Woman
Warrior:
Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts
Maxine Hong Kingston
A Chinese
American woman tells of the Chinese myths, family stories and events
of her California childhood that have shaped her identity.
Chinese
Playground : A Memoir by
Bill Lee
An unsentimental recollection of childhood and coming of age in the back
alleys and bustling streets of San Francisco's Chinatown. An expose into
the underworld of an urban Chinatown, this book traces author Bill Lee's
maturation from innocent child in a troubled family to a street punk,
gang member, and college graduate struggling to break free of his involvement
in escalating violence. In a dark journey spanning forty years, Lee fights
an ongoing battle against relentless childhood demons and nightmares,
ultimately coming to terms with his past and peace with himself.
In 1858, two black women meet at a restaurant and begin to plot a revolution. Mary Ellen Pleasant owns a string of hotels in San Francisco that secretly double as havens for runaway slaves. Her comrade, Annie, is a young Jamaican who has given up her life of privilege to fight for the abolitionist cause. Together they join John Brown's doomed enterprise and barely escape with their lives.
The Fifth Sacred
Thing by StarhawkAn epic tale of freedom and slavery, love and war, and the potential futures of humankind tells of a twenty-first century California clan caught between two clashing worlds, one based on tolerance, the other on repression. The setting for this wonderful book is San Francisco in the future and what a beautiful vision it is.
Frisco Pigeon Mambo
by C. D. Payne
"Jonathan Livingston Seagull as imagined by the Marx Brothers." :-)
That's one take on Frisco Pigeon Mambo, an uproarious new comic novel
by C.D. Payne.
The
Lost Gold of San Francisco by Michael Castleman
San Francisco Noe Valley resident Michael Castleman presents his his
first fictional noval after 30 years as a medical journalist, health
crusader, and sex guru and it is a winner.
The Lost Gold of San Francisco is an action-packed tale full of
local color, true-to-life characters, and historical detail,
spanning the 83 years between the devastating 1906 earthquake
and the "pretty big" one that jolted the World Series in 1989. The "lost
gold" refers to a shipment of $20 gold pieces,
which disappeared from the San Francisco Mint in the days following
the Great Quake. But the murders take place in contemporary San
Francisco--well, almost contemporary: the pre-dot-com days of
the late '80s. Castleman's protagonist is a hard-nosed reporter,
working for a daily newspaper much like the Chron/Ex.
Unfortunately this book seems to be out of print but is still available from Amazon.com used or new
The Man Behind the Miracle by
Madeline HartmannThis is a true story and an amazing one. It is the Miracle of Jones Street in San Francisco. St. Anthony's Dining Room and Foundation is truly a miracle. Father Alfred Boeddeker, O.F.M. was able to do wonders with the help of a great variety of people, poor as well as very well off, and from diverse religious backgrounds. The common appeal was human decency and dignity. He saw, as did St. Francis, that all of us are one family and we need to care for each other. The book is full of little miracle stories of how this program came to be. It is a must read for anyone who loves Saint Francis and San Francisco
1906: A Novel by James Dalessandro,
Every disaster has a backstory, none more thrilling than this one.
Set during the great San Francisco earthquake and fire, this page-turning
tale of political corruption, vendettas, romance, rescue -- and murder
-- is based on recently uncovered facts that forever change our understanding
of what really happened. Told by a feisty young reporter, Annalisa
Passarelli, the novel paints a vivid picture of the Victorian-era city,
from the mansions of Nob Hill to the underbelly of the Barbary Coast
to the arrival of tenor Enrico Caruso and the Metropolitan Opera. Central
to the story is the ongoing battle -- fought even as the city burns
-- that pits incompetent and unscrupulous politicians against a coalition
of honest police officers, newspaper editors, citizens, and a lone
federal prosecutor.
The
Man With the Heart in the Highlands
by William Saroyan, Herb Caen
This Saroyan collection gathers together some of the stories he wrote while living
in San Francisco.
They are all set in San Francisco. for a sense of place circa 1930s, this is
a great book. also, the Herb Caen introduction makes it a piece of SF literature
worth holding onto.
Money You Took from Me by
Darrin Atkins
Would you like to escape into the seedy, dirty, underworld
of vicious street life in the big city. This well written book
is your ticket.
Away
from Lisa Larkin by Darrin E. Atkins
Police and Thieves
by Peter Plate
Doojie, Eichmann, and Bobo are squatters and small time dope dealers living
in a two-car garage behind the Del Rosa Laundromat on Mission Street in San
Francisco
The Privileges of Beauty by
Eugene Drabent
Set in the San Francisco of the 1960s, this book revolves around a hippie-world where free-love is proclaimed while deceit and art forgery flourish in the background until some casual errors throw a searching light on CogentCollectors Gallery and all hell breaks loose.
My California: Journeys By Great Writers by Michael Chabon, (Contributors: Aimee Liu, T. Jefferson Parker, Mary MacKey, Hector Tobar, Thomas Steinbeck, Edward Humes, Matt Warshaw, Firoozeh Dumas, Devorah Major
My California: Journeys by Great Writers is a collaboration between Angel City Press and CaliforniaAuthors.com.
All publishing proceeds benefit the California Arts Council, an agency which was forced to suspend school writing, arts education programs and other grants in 2003 because of state budget cutbacks. Since its publication, more than $65,000 from sale of this book has been donated to literary programs in California schools.
read about the various authors
Sinner's
Paradise
by Scott Lettieri
When Martin Fante walks into a lesbian bar in the seediest part of San Francisco
desperately looking for his aloof yet alluring girlfriend, we know all is not
well. But something much deeper drives Martin, a secret that begins to surface
as he cares for his dying mother. Martin's torment - for years buried beneath
a string of sexual liaisons, an irreverent lifestyle, and his career as a radio
news reporter - can no longer be ignored.
Wild Wives by Charles WillefordAs Jake becomes more deeply involved with this glamorous and possibly crazy woman, he becomes entangled in a web of deceit, intrigue—and multiple murders. Brilliant, sardonic, and full of surprises, Wild Wives is one wild ride.
"Elegant, tough, and rhythmic as a championship boxing match." –San Francisco Chronicle
Romancing
San Francisco: Sketches of Life in the Late '60's
by Dennis Lee Siluk
Those who might be interested in the late l960's movement, it all started
in San Francisco, and this book brings out sketches of the times.
Sister
Noon: A Novel by Karen Joy Fowler
Set in San Francisco in the Gilded Age, Sister Noon is a period
mystery. Lizzie Hayes is part of San Francisco's social elite.
But Lizzie, so seemingly docile, hides within her a rebellious heart. All she needs is the spark that will liberate her from the ruling conventions. And that spark is Mary Ellen Pleasant. "You can be anything you want",she tells Lizzie."You don't have to be the same person your whole life".
Villa Incognito by Tom Robbins
Imagine that there are American MIAs who chose to remain missing after the Vietnam War.
Imagine that there is a family in which four generations of strong, alluring women have shared a mysterious connection to an outlandish figure from Japanese folklore.
Imagine just those things (don’t even try to imagine the love story) and you’ll have a foretaste of Tom Robbins’s eighth and perhaps most beautifully crafted novel--a work as timeless as myth yet as topical as the latest international threat
White Rabbit: A Mystery by
David Daniel
San Francisco in 1969 is a time of peace and love, but a serial killer, dubbed
the Death Tripper, is at large. Homicide Inspector John Sparrow teams up with
underground rag writer Amy Cole to find the killer and end the bad trip
