Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders: Homeless in San Francisco Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders is one of the more innovative ethnographies released recently. Whether you are reading for academic reasons or for fun, I highly recommend you read this book! Dr. Gowan conducts a discourse analysis to her rich ethnographic data--i.e. she reads actions as text--in a way that enables her to discuss being homeless from the broad systemic perspective of policy directed toward homelessness in addition to the individual level understandings and experiences of people who are homeless. She does so by demonstrating how homelessness is consistently expressed through three forms of talk: sin, system, and sick. Doing so enables her drastically reduce the use of jargon in the text while enabling her to smoothly transition back and forth between discussions of policy and presentations of detailed individual accounts. The result is a well-executed and written study providing a holistic understanding of homelessness that will change the way you view the politicians, social workers, and people living on the street. On all accounts, this book is a resounding success and I'm looking forward to reading it again.
Additional comments to the casual reader: As mentioned, this book uses little jargon and is enjoyable to read. You will be able to move through the text without becoming bored or stuck on dry scholarly debates.
Additional comments to other ethnographers and scholars studying culture: This book advances the discussion surrounding the culture of poverty anxiety generated by the Moynihan report. It also could be viewed as a methodological exemplar of how to use discourse analysis with ethnographic data. It is the first I've seen using this approach, but as any good approach, I'm sure it won't be the last.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders: Homeless in San Francisco

Get 27% OFF

Click here for more information about Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders: Homeless in San Francisco

Read More...

San Francisco Architecture: The Illustrated Guide to Over 600 of the Best Buildings, Parks, and Public Artworks in the Bay Area Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)San Francisco is a city with a long and unique history. With this history comes a wide variety of interesting and sometimes stunningly beautiful buildings. Wandering the streets of San Francisco, and noticing these buildings, one frequently wants to learn more about them. And that is why I bought this book.
However, I was disappointed by the fact that most of the houses featured in this volume only have the year it was built, who built it, and a very brief description. Often there is only one sentence saying this house was built in Queen Anne style and that it has a tower (self-evident from the picture, or once you actually see the building). The book says very little about the history of each house, why it was built like it was, notable persons that lived there, etc. It also does very little to put the houses in the context of the surrounding neighborhood.
The book features "tours" that you can take to view the described houses, but it doesn't quite pull it off, and the end result is a strange mix of tourist guide and architectural reference that performs mediocre at both.
San Francisco desperately needs a good book to picture, describe and catalog its unique architecture, but alas, this book is not it. It would have been better if the author concentrated the book on San Francisco houses only, instead of the entire Bay Area, and offered fewer houses with a better description of each. Still, it is the best I have been able to find, and it is better than nothing, hence the three stars.

Click Here to see more reviews about: San Francisco Architecture: The Illustrated Guide to Over 600 of the Best Buildings, Parks, and Public Artworks in the Bay Area

Click here for more information about San Francisco Architecture: The Illustrated Guide to Over 600 of the Best Buildings, Parks, and Public Artworks in the Bay Area

Read More...

San Francisco Bay Area Murals: Communities Create Their Muses 1904-1997 Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)My nomination for a perfect, crystalline Saturday: Follow Drescher's guide through San Francisco neighborhoods to find murals on walls glowing against the September sky. The title is right. Humankind doesn't let nature alone in Bagdad by the Bay. We have been filling walls with our color and figures since the walls have stood in the City. That most curious of monuments, Coit Tower, brimming with the muscular WPA murals, tells California's story in paint. The murals in the Haight vibrate with psychedelic counterculture; those of the Mission and Western Addition not only deliver the messages of the Latino and African American neighborhoods but have become identified as centers of the communities. People meet at a mural in San Francisco, just as they might meet at a fountain in Rome. Of course, the book records the outstanding art across the Bay and down the Peninsula, but for me the best part of the book was its putting together city maps and pictures of murals so that a reader can experience the favorites. The fancy semiotics, art techniques and materials are all here, conveyed by a recognized authority, but the author is wise enough not to get in the way of the always revolutionary, ever traditional mix of color, lines, architecture and geography. A keeper.

Click Here to see more reviews about: San Francisco Bay Area Murals: Communities Create Their Muses 1904-1997

Click here for more information about San Francisco Bay Area Murals: Communities Create Their Muses 1904-1997

Read More...

Architectural Guidebook to San Francisco and the Bay Area Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)There is a recent, substantial review of this guidebook by Steven Finacom in the Berkeley Daily Planet, Weekday Edition, Oct.30-Nov.1, 2007. Some excerpts are:
"A long-awaited, much-needed, and up-to-date guide to the great and representative buildings and architectural history of the Bay Area debuts this month."....
"This guide is organized geographically by county, with individual cities, districts, and structures provided. The writers went into the field with notebook and camera as well as consulting an array of historical documents, surveys, and local experts." ....
"Architecturally, the most prominent local communities such as San Francisco and Berkeley have been well covered by previous guides (including two written by Cerny) and published architectural histories. However, many smaller or less visible Bay Area towns, cities and neighborhoods have been overlooked.
"This book, with more than 500 pages of text and over 2,000 individual entries, rectifies the imbalance and provides a regional perspective, addressing not just the older city centers but the suburbs, and profiling their major edifices and representative structures from cattle ranching days to Gold Rush to dot-com boom." ....
"They [Cerny and her co-authors] brought a catholic sensibility to their writing and selection of projects, respectfully showing the whole panorama of Bay Area architectural history and urban development." ....
"If you're at all interested in the architecture and history of the Bay Area, this will be an indispensable reference to own. I may, in fact, get two copies; one for home, and one that stays in the car, so that on trips through the Bay Area, quick answers to "what building is that?" can finally be found."

Click Here to see more reviews about: Architectural Guidebook to San Francisco and the Bay Area


An Architectural Guidebook to San Francisco and the Bay Area is the definitive guide to the history and architecture of the nine San Francisco Bay Area counties. This compendium has been written and photographed by Susan Cerny and twelve Bay Area experts and provides a historic record of how the area developed to became what it is today, and discusses transportation systems, city and suburban landscape plans, public parkland, California history, and economic, social, and political influences. Included are San Francisco Victorians, civic buildings, churches, parks, grand Period Revivals, and rustic Arts and Crafts homes, as well as significant vernacular buildings in less publicized neighborhoods and towns.

Features include:

Buildings by all major San Francisco Bay Area architects from the 1860s to the present.

More than 2,000 entries.

Architectural landmarks in every Bay Area county, arranged by chapter: San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, Solano, Napa, Sonoma, and Marin.

More than 100 cities, towns, and neighborhoods.

A history of architectural styles popular in the Bay Area.

More than 20,000 copies sold of our previous architecture guide to the Bay Area.

Get 24% OFF

Click here for more information about Architectural Guidebook to San Francisco and the Bay Area

Read More...