Picturing Chinatown: Art and Orientalism in San Francisco Review

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(More customer reviews)Don't be misled by the choice of the title. The book is not a coffeetable-type photomontage of San Francisco's Chinatown. It is certainly replete with many photographs and illustrations from Chinatown of the 19th century and early 20th century. No doubt to some readers, these will be the main attraction. Revealing in often hazy black and white the details of a vanished and important subculture of the US.
But Lee has integrated the visuals with a narrative that places the images squarely in the context of when they were taken, and of the accuracy of their representations of that culture. He analyses the photographers that took these pictures, and their motives for doing so. Several were not of Chinese ethnicity. But sought to present visuals to explain what was then a very exotic society to an average white American reader.
Aside from the contemporary photos, Lee also explains the art that came out of Chinatown in those years. The artwork shown in the book tends to be quite different from the traditional Chinese calligraphy and landscape themes. Instead, there are traces of influence by the European and American art movements of the day.

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The Four Immigrants Manga : A Japanese Experience in San Francisco, 1904-1924 Review

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(More customer reviews)Henry Kiyama created this terrific book in the 1930's, chronicling the lives of four young Japanese immigrants and their struggle to find work and acceptance in San Francisco at the turn of the century. It was unearthed and translated into English, giving us all the rare privelege of a glimpse into the immigrant experience of that era. Drawn in a simple and lighthearted style and told with insight and depth, Kiyama, along with the rising popularity of Japanese Anime and Manga, reinforces the notion that comics are not just for kids anymore. A great read for a comic lover, a hyphenated-American or anyone interested in the multihued experience of our country.

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Weather of the San Francisco Bay Region (California Natural History Guides, No. 63) Review

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(More customer reviews)Ever wonder why it's SO COLD at Candlestick Park? Ever wonder why there's so much summer fog, and why it burns off in by Noon? Ever wonder why it can be 45 in San Francisco and 100 in San Jose? Harold Gilliam's concise little book will tell you!
His explanations of the cyclic weather patterns of the Bay Area, and the interactions between ocean-born events and the coastal, Bay and mountain geographies are easy to understand. Even more enticingly, they're easy to observe.
A great read for anyone who lives in (or even visits) the Bay Area.

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Possibly no comparable area on earth displays as many varieties of weather simultaneously as the San Francisco Bay Region. Harold Gilliam explains the atmospheric forces and geologic formations that come together in this region's unique confluence of wind, river, ocean, bay, and hills. The fully revised and updated edition of this best-selling book incorporates the latest scientific information--much of it gathered from satellite technology--that has greatly improved our understanding of the weather in the years since the book was first published. Writing in a delightfully engaging style, Gilliam provides the tools necessary for understanding the grand show of nature that takes place around the San Francisco Bay--from Napa Valley in the north to San Jose in the south.Using nontechnical language to define weather terms and the general principles needed to understand weather patterns, Gilliam explains such phenomena as the jet stream, the famous summer fog that pours over the Golden Gate Bridge, and the often dangerous winter tule fog. This edition also includes a discussion of the planetary influences that may cause long-term changes in the local climate: Gilliam explains the "greenhouse effect" and what global warming could mean for the San Francisco Bay Area, looks at the local effects of the El Niño and La Niña phenomena, and considers the thinning of the ozone layer.This fascinating book, enhanced with informative maps, diagrams, and color illustrations, is liberally sprinkled with references to Bay Area neighborhoods and geographic features, giving the book a lively sense of local color.

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Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas Review

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(More customer reviews)The beautiful "Infinite City" belongs on any list of essential San Francisco books. Rebecca Solnit and her collaborators have taken a core sample of the endless layers of San Francisco history and laid it out in twenty-two brilliantly imagined maps and eighteen essays exploring the city's history, geography, demography, biology, and myth. "Infinite City" is vast enough to encompass the Coliseum, Coronet and Alexandria theaters; the Pipevine swallowtail, Satyr anglewing, and Orange sulfur butterflies; the Yelamu, Aramai, and Urebure peoples; the "McKittrick Hotel", "Argosy Book Shop", and Ernie's; Josephine McCrackin, Carrie Stevens Walter, and Barbara Eastman; Bechtel, RoboteX, and Jeppesen; Jimbo's Bop City, Ann's 440, and the Six Gallery; Acme Export Packing, the Pacific Far East Line, and Triple A Machine Shop; and the Richmond Branch of the San Francisco Public Library. The book itself is as lovingly designed as anything McSweeney's has published, proof that until we stop needing tactile pleasures, the screen will never replace the page.

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What makes a place? Infinite City, Rebecca Solnit's brilliant reinvention of the traditional atlas, searches out the answer by examining the many layers of meaning in one place, the San Francisco Bay Area. Aided by artists, writers, cartographers, and twenty-two gorgeous color maps, each of which illuminates the city and its surroundings as experienced by different inhabitants, Solnit takes us on a tour that will forever change the way we think about place. She explores the area thematically--connecting, for example, Eadweard Muybridge's foundation of motion-picture technology with Alfred Hitchcock's filming of Vertigo. Across an urban grid of just seven by seven miles, she finds seemingly unlimited landmarks and treasures--butterfly habitats, queer sites, murders, World War II shipyards, blues clubs, Zen Buddhist centers. She roams the political terrain, both progressive and conservative, and details the cultural geographies of the Mission District, the culture wars of the Fillmore, the South of Market world being devoured by redevelopment, and much, much more. Breathtakingly original, this atlas of the imagination invites us to search out the layers of San Francisco that carry meaning for us--or to discover our own infinite city, be it Cleveland, Toulouse, or Shanghai. CONTRIBUTORS:Cartographers: Ben Pease and Shizue SeigelDesigner: Lia TjandraArtists: Sandow Birk, Mona Caron, Jaime Cortez, Hugh D'Andrade, Robert Dawson, Paz de la Calzada, Jim Herrington, Ira Nowinski, Alison Pebworth, Michael Rauner, Gent Sturgeon, Sunaura TaylorWriters and researchers: Summer Brenner, Adriana Camarena, Chris Carlsson, Lisa Conrad, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, Paul La Farge, Genine Lentine, Stella Lochman, Aaron Shurin, Heather Smith, Richard WalkerAdditional cartography: Darin Jensen; Robin Grossinger and Ruth Askevold, San Francisco Estuary Institute

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