Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco
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Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco Hardcover – August 6, 2013
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"How do I love thee? In Cool Gray City of Love Gary Kamiya crushes on San Francisco in 49 different ways—from its landscapes and architecture to a fabled past encompassing the Gold Rush, Beats and hippies, the AIDS crisis, and dot.com mania. Now that's love and devotion." —Vanity Fair
"Written in a confessional first-person tone that invokes a conversation between two old friends: Kamiya and the city he has called home for over 40 years . . . impressive is the author’s uncanny grasp of the bay’s natural history and the way that the landscape continues to shape the lives of current San Franciscans . . . Kamiya has written a fitting ode to an exceptional city." —Publishers Weekly
“Kamiya’s relish is contagious . . . [San Francisco] has its defining lyrical panorama for a generation or longer.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“Newcomers to San Francisco fall in love with the city every day, but no one can appreciate it quite like a longtime resident. Kamiya proves an ardent, expert guide to his hometown’s history, neighborhoods and landmarks . . . Cool Gray City of Love will open your eyes anew.” —San Jose Mercury News
“I can’t imagine there’s anyone who knows San Francisco better than Gary Kamiya.” —Dave Eggers
About the Author
Gary Kamiya was born in Oakland in 1953 and grew up in Berkeley. After dropping out of Yale, he earned his BA and MA in English lit from UC Berkeley, where he won the Mark Schorer Citation. He drove a taxi in San Francisco for 7 years while completing college and working as a freelance writer. After co-founding a short-lived city magazine called Frisko, he got his first real job at the age of 37 as an editor of the San Francisco Examiner's Sunday magazine, Image. After five years at the Examiner, where he was a culture critic and book editor, he left to co-found the groundbreaking Web site Salon.com, where he was executive editor for 12 years. He is currently a columnist for Salon. His first book, Shadow Knights: The Secret War Against Hitler, was a critically-acclaimed history. He is married to the novelist Kate Moses. They have two children.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
41 of 41 people found the following review helpful
By
Robert W. Zahora
on August 21, 2013
Format: Hardcover
1 Comment
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I live in Massachusetts and have been to San Francisco a few times. My son lives there and when I saw this book I thought he might enjoy it. Before sending it out, I figured I'd read a couple of chapters. I ended up finishing the book.
The author is a wanderer and ponderer. His 49 chapters cover some well-known locations but most would be unknown to outsiders. Despite the hype in Amazon's book description, I found the tone of the book to be very quiet and personal. Each location comes with a story as well as some well-researched historical background.
I no longer have the book to refer to but a few things stand out in my mind. First are the descriptions of the early development of the city. I can almost feel what it must have been like to climb the hills and sand dunes in those times. Then there are the sections on WWII and the AIDS period which were very memorable. Although this book is a celebration of San Francisco, I think anyone reading it would learn to better appreciate their particular surroundings. If you take the time to stop and really look, there should be a lot of special places to enjoy in any city.
The author is a wanderer and ponderer. His 49 chapters cover some well-known locations but most would be unknown to outsiders. Despite the hype in Amazon's book description, I found the tone of the book to be very quiet and personal. Each location comes with a story as well as some well-researched historical background.
I no longer have the book to refer to but a few things stand out in my mind. First are the descriptions of the early development of the city. I can almost feel what it must have been like to climb the hills and sand dunes in those times. Then there are the sections on WWII and the AIDS period which were very memorable. Although this book is a celebration of San Francisco, I think anyone reading it would learn to better appreciate their particular surroundings. If you take the time to stop and really look, there should be a lot of special places to enjoy in any city.
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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful
By
Bret Waters
on September 1, 2013
Format: Hardcover
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I've been lucky enough to have traveled to many great cities in the world. But I keep returning here, to what the poet George Sterling called "The Cool Gray City of Love". Despite the notoriously crappy weather, ridiculous cost of living, and misfits living on street corners, San Francisco has a certain sense of place that is unmatched in all the world. Or should I say "sense of places" because San Francisco, perhaps more so than any other city, isn't one place. It's is a ragtag collection of neighborhoods, each with its own unique identity, culture, and history. It's a collection of independent villages, united by the proud belief that "normal" doesn't apply here. As the late great columnist Herb Caen wrote "San Francisco is surrounded on three sides by water, and on the fourth by a foreign country."
Gary Kamiya's new book is, without a doubt, the best writing about San Francisco I've read since the passing of Herb Caen. The book is a rambling walking tour, a history lesson, a geological exploration. More than anything else, it's a love letter. Or, more accurately, it's 49 love letters, because Kamiya has structured the book as 49 vignettes, each about a particular spot in the City. He takes us from the place where Europeans first camped in 1776 (Mountain Lake, in today's Richmond District) to a small patch of grass on Telegraph Hill where you can still sit today, watching ships sail through the Gate as one could during the gold rush of 1849. With meticulously-researched history and an easy story-telling style, Kamiya writes of how an Englishman named William Richardson jumped off a ship in 1822, befriended the Spanish comandante at the Presidio and fell in love with his 19-year-old daughter as they danced around the campfire that night.Read more ›
Gary Kamiya's new book is, without a doubt, the best writing about San Francisco I've read since the passing of Herb Caen. The book is a rambling walking tour, a history lesson, a geological exploration. More than anything else, it's a love letter. Or, more accurately, it's 49 love letters, because Kamiya has structured the book as 49 vignettes, each about a particular spot in the City. He takes us from the place where Europeans first camped in 1776 (Mountain Lake, in today's Richmond District) to a small patch of grass on Telegraph Hill where you can still sit today, watching ships sail through the Gate as one could during the gold rush of 1849. With meticulously-researched history and an easy story-telling style, Kamiya writes of how an Englishman named William Richardson jumped off a ship in 1822, befriended the Spanish comandante at the Presidio and fell in love with his 19-year-old daughter as they danced around the campfire that night.Read more ›
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
By
American in Tokyo
on September 6, 2013
Format: Hardcover
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Anyone who loves (and who doesn't?) or has lived in SF would enjoy this book, as well as people who just like reading about cities and their neighborhoods and how they change over time. This can be dipped into a couple of chapters at a time or devoured in a few sittings. Kamiya obviously did his research and brings his own perspective to this lovely book. Four people on my Christmas gift list are getting this (and that number may increase). A caveat: I bought this in hardback instead of Kindle version because the Amazon.com blurb mentioned that it had illustrations. With the reference to the 49 views of Mt. Fuji in the title, I assumed that the illustrations would play a major role. They don't. There are tiny, simple line drawings at the beginning of each chapter. Nice enough, but not an element that should have been highlighted in the ad copy.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
By
joe
on September 14, 2013
Format: Hardcover
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As a San Francisco resident in the mid 80's, I spent hours upon hours of my free time foot walking around every inch of the city, the far reaches of Lands End, The Presidio, Golden Gate Park, The Finance District, The Tenderloin, China Town and South Of Market, etc. Trying to discover and absorb the multitude of different facets of this wonderful place called San Francisco. With COOL GRAY CITY OF LOVE it's almost like going back over every step I walked but this time I get to discover the history of every square of ground, every path I've discovered on my own. It's an exciting revelation to know all that came before and to remember it as I once did before when I knew nothing but a vague idea of it's origin. Thank you Gary for awakening and showing me the spirit of history of this city, the aura of which I sensed when I lived there oh so long ago, my footsteps now a map that I walk in memory, remembering every experience from the COOL GRAY CITY OF LOVE called San Francisco.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By
Heather E. Hagerman
on January 10, 2014
Format: Kindle Edition
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This is a pastiche of people and places, a primer on many aspects of San Francisco. Having grown up nearby I can say that about half of this book is simply common knowledge to literate locals. We have been to the places, seen the view, and know the story. The other half of the material is a revelation, like finding an Indian burial mound in grandma's basement, and suddenly understanding why there is a peculiar slope to her back yard. I found myself on many familiar paths but when the twists came they were illuminating. The other thing that kept me reading was Kamiya's language. He writes with a direct, insightful, and witty style that befits a San Francisco newsman. His sentences are a pleasure to read.
One other important thing, I can honestly say this book was the first I have read on a tablet where the experience was better than on paper. I found myself constantly toggling between my reader app and google maps. With google maps I could actually teleport myself to the very spot where each of the 49 essays is embarked. Wow! How technology dazzles.
One other important thing, I can honestly say this book was the first I have read on a tablet where the experience was better than on paper. I found myself constantly toggling between my reader app and google maps. With google maps I could actually teleport myself to the very spot where each of the 49 essays is embarked. Wow! How technology dazzles.
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