Books set in San Francisco
[books culture reading Non fiction
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Jim Paul, Catapult: Harry and I Build a Siege Weapon — San Francisco and Oakland (with a few trips to Marin) in the late 1980s
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David Talbot, Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love — a history of San Francisco from the 1960s to early 1990s. It’s amazing how crazy things were, and also how deeply entrenched the Democratic city leadership (Moscone, Milk, Feinstein, etc.) were with Jim Jones. The music playlist in the appendix is worth playing as you read; I especially enjoyed learning about Moby Grape
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Cliff Stoll, The Cuckoo’s Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage — read this as a kid (hackers!), but a new appreciation for it after working at LBL and living in Berkeley, as it captures the vibe of those places in a certain way.
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Jack London, John Barleycorn — come for the cautionary tale about alcohol, but admire the boyhood reminiscences of sailing around the San Francisco Bay as an Oakland oyster pirate.