Spirits of San Francisco: Voyages through the Unknown City

by Gary Kamiya, Paul Madonna (Illustrator)

Overview

A San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller

From two bestselling, prizewinning, and critically acclaimed contemporary chroniclers of San Francisco comes a rich, illustrated, idiosyncratic portrait of this great city.

Gary Kamiya's Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco was a #1 bestseller and an award winner. Now he joins forces with celebrated, bestselling artist Paul Madonna to take a fresh look at this one-of-a-kind city. Marrying image and text in a way no book about this city has done before, Kamiya's captivating narratives accompany Madonna's masterful pen-and-ink drawings, breathing life into San Francisco sites both iconic and obscure.

Paul Madonna's atmospheric images will awe: be amazed by his astonishing wide-angle drawing for a jaw-dropping new perspective on the “crookedest street in the world.” And Kamiya's engaging prose, accompanying each image, offers fascinating vignettes of this incredible city: witness his story of “Dumpville,” the bizarre community that sprang up in the 19th century on top of a massive garbage dump.

Handsome and irresistible—much like the city it chronicles—Spirits of San Francisco is both a visual feast and a detailed, personal, loving, informed portrait of a beloved city.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781635575880
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	10/20/2020
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Gary Kamiya is the author of the #1 San Francisco bestseller Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco, which won the Northern California Book Award for Creative Nonfiction and is widely considered one of the best books ever written about San Francisco. He writes a very popular history column for the San Francisco Chronicle. A co-founder of Salon.com and the former executive editor of San Francisco magazine, Kamiya has been a fixture on the Bay Area literary scene for more than 30 years. He lives in San Francisco.

Paul Madonna is an award-winning artist and author. His popular series All Over Coffee ran in the San Francisco Chronicle for twelve years and has been collected into two sui generis bestsellers, All Over Coffee and Everything is its own reward. Paul is the creator of the Emit Hopper Mystery Series, and his unique brand of combining images and stories has been heralded as “an all new art form,” celebrated internationally in galleries and museums as well as in print.

Table of Contents

Preface: Deserted City of the Heart xi

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Joice Street 7

Chapter 2 Pier 24 19

Chapter 3 Division Street 31

Chapter 4 The Tian Hou Temple 37

Chapter 5 Calhoun Terrace 52

Chapter 6 Lombard Street 61

Chapter 7 The Rock House 70

Chapter 8 Huntington Park 77

Chapter 9 The Music Concourse 89

Chapter 10 The Palace of Fine Arts 97

Chapter 11 The Alemany Health Center 111

Chapter 12 Lands End 124

Chapter 13 The Haas-Lilienthal House 137

Chapter 14 Shipley Street 147

Chapter 15 Ina Coolbrith Park 155

Chapter 16 South Park 165

Acknowledgments 182

Selected Bibliography 185

Index 194

Editorial Reviews

08/24/2020

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Kamiya (Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco) and illustrator Madonna (All Over Coffee) dispatch an eloquent love letter to the fabled city by the bay. “Cities are three-dimensional entities,” writes Kamiya. “But they also exist in a fourth dimension: time.” The chapters are comprised of site-based vignettes, which put exemplars of the city’s natural and man-made beauty in historical context. These include landmarks such as Lombard Street and the Palace of Fine Arts, which Kamiya describes as “a wild architectural acid trip, an ur-Disneyland” and a precursor of sorts to the Burning Man festival. But they also showcase lesser-known locales, such as the Tian Hou Temple (“simultaneously touristy, run-down, and real”) and Ina Coolbrith Park (“An Olympian platform from which Russian Hill denizens could observe the raucous city below”). Despite Kamiya’s pandemic-influenced prologue, the balance of the travelogue is a timeless deep dive into San Francisco’s past. Madonna’s inset pen and ink portraits both bring the reader into the vibe of each site and feel delightfully otherworldly. This artsy tour will appeal to those who may have left their hearts in San Fran, as well as armchair (and aspiring) travelers eager to learn more of its storied past. Agent: Ellen Levine, Trident Media Group. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

If the present day is in fact one of Dante's circles of hell, and we're experiencing it in San Francisco, I can hardly think of better Virgils than Kamiya and Madonna to guide us.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“Fascinating ... S.F. newcomers will learn something new on every page.” —SFGATE

“Eloquent... [appealing] to those who may have left their hearts in San Fran, as well as armchair (and aspiring) travelers eager to learn more.” —Publishers Weekly

“This captivating book offers deep dives into the history, quirky characters, and unique topography of 16 distinctive locations throughout the City.” —7x7

“Kamiya delves with affection and an informed eye into the pasts of 16 spots in the city where he has spent a lifetime. Evocative, detailed drawings by Paul Madonna, which are as likely to include a chain link fence and the view of an overpass as more romantic subject matter, set the scene for the places as they exist in the present . . . Armchair tourists as well as those climbing up and down the city's many hills should relish the book's rich insights.” —Booklist

“An easy-to-browse book of things to look for when you're looking for somewhere different to visit.” —Bookworm Sez

“A kaleidoscopic homage both personal and historical . . . Kamiya's symphony of San Francisco is a grand pleasure.” —New York Times Book Review on COOL GRAY CITY OF LOVE

“Kamiya's relish is contagious . . . [San Francisco] has its defining lyrical panorama for a generation or longer.” —San Francisco Chronicle on COOL GRAY CITY OF LOVE

“The book is fantastic. Of time and tenderness. Beautiful drawings. Beautiful text. Ethereal and serious at once. The book is its own reward.” —Maira Kalman on EVERYTHING IS ITS OWN REWARD

“Mesmerizing . . . When his international images are paired with his sparse, poetic words—the effect is haunting.” —Oprah.com on EVERYTHING IS ITS OWN REWARD

From the Publisher