The most recommended books about San Francisco

What do you get when you cross paths with an unhinged truck driver on a lonely stretch of isolated highway? You get the book Duel, by Richard Matheson. Based on a true event of unprovoked road rage the author himself was put through, Duel is the story of a businessman heading to San Francisco who is confronted and pursued by an unseen psycho behind the wheel of a gasoline tanker and trailer. Subjected to a life-and-death game of cat and mouse, Man, as the protagonist in the book is called, has to out-maneuver this menace, or die trying. If you are into isolation terror, with get-up-and-go pacing, Duel is a must-read.

This book blew my mind when I first read it. In my opinion, it is one of the most visceral, scary, and under-rated serial killer novels of all time. Published in 1986 in the midst of America’s much-hyped real and fictional serial killer ‘epidemic,’ Killer on the Road stands out as a first-person serial-killer narrative, as well as putting forward a new kind of character (for the 1980s) – the homosexual serial murderer. In this novel, Ellroy delves into the phenomenon of motiveless serial murder from the perspective of the killer on a subversive journey through a hellish suburban America. From the prologue to the epilogue the reader is presented an interior world-view saturated with violence and nightmarish insights into the psychopathology of a disturbed killer. 

I recommend this book to everyone I know, because it really is as the subtitle suggests—a way to be more fully alive by remembering that we are all going to die! Something that really helped me was the chapter on how to “find rest in the middle of things.” I don’t know about you, but my life is filled with a lot of responsibility, including being a caregiver for my 94-year-old mom. Then there’s everything happening in the world that adds to increased stress levels. Since reading this book, I’ve had more rest, from getaways to 10-minute walks to one simple but conscious breath. The stories shared are profound, and Frank’s gentle manner and wise teachings have been a true inspiration to me. 

Bloodsucking Fiends begins in the mid-1990s (the present day as of its writing) and is set in AIDS-fighting, pre-tech-boom San Francisco – a time and place rendered with great affection and plenty of humor. It’s that latter quality – the humor – that I love about this book. Beginning with the beginning, we get Moore’s take on the classic tableau of a vampire rising as the sun sets. But instead of emerging from a coffin, our vamp pops out of a dumpster that’s being peed on by a homeless, benevolent lunatic known as the Emperor. If that setup just made you smile (fangs or no fangs) then Bloodsucking Fiends is for you. It is also why, when I decided to write a funny vampire novel, I turned to Mr. Moore’s novel for inspiration.  

I can’t recommend a more fun and imaginative book than this one where lawyers Thomas Brock and Evelyn Love represent the new (and sometimes newly dead) supernatural residents of San Francisco’s famous Haight-Ashbury district. I love the touches of humor and the unique monsters, from ghouls to zombie-like creatures, ghosts, and even a talking gargoyle! Who’d think the law could be so interesting and even funny? But even the dead (or undead) deserve justice! Love these characters!

Shows the hidden writing techniques of well-known Russian authors and their placement of subtle clues—how they speak to the reader as a conversational equal.

In this way the reader feels welcomed, or initiated, into the creative process of different great writers such as Turgenev, Chekhov, and Tolstoy. This approach enhances the reader’s appreciation and understanding of six Russian classics that the book includes. As a writer myself, though not of fiction, this book had great educational value.

There were only three Tales of the City books when I picked up my first copy. There are now nine of them, spanning 40 years.

First written as a newspaper serial, the collected Tales explore the lives and loves of a diverse group of folks living in the same boarding house at 28 Barbary Lane in San Francisco. Among them is landlord Anna Madrigal, an early trans icon, and gay everyman Michael ‘Mouse’ Tolliver, a hopeless romantic looking for love in the Castro.

The book is an easy read with short chapters, lots of dialogue, and zany plot twists. What I love most is how much these characters – some of whom are estranged from their biological families – start to feel like close friends whose lives you get to follow. 

For much of my academic career, I’ve battled the stereotype that cities are dangerous and deadening places, and certainly not where you want to be caught after plague decimates the population.

Pat Murphy is on my side. She imagines a post-plague San Francisco where the few remaining residents are artists, not bunkered survivalists. Her city “not long after” a plague is a place of creative eccentrics who defend themselves against outsiders with performance art.

Without the excitement of cities, there would be few new ideas, and it is great to find a science fiction book that agrees.

Even if you did not “live” through the Vietnam War and its domino-effect cultural disasters, this book will penetrate your consciousness as “tragic and uncannily familiar” (Michiko Kakutani). William “Skip” Sands is ostensibly a CIA officer engaged in Psychological Operations against the Vietcong. From the moment Skip lands “in country,” we are sucked into a vortex of violence, sardonic humor, camaraderie that’s six degrees from pathology, and paranoia -- all told through the lens of a singularly hallucinogenic yet gorgeous and poetic prose style that forced me from time to time to put the book down so I would avoid overdosing.  

This book has everything – a charming bookshop with an even more charming and mysterious owner. A secret society. An every-person type who gets drawn into a strange and dangerous world of bookish legacy. The book is twisty and cryptic while also being absolutely accessible and fascinating, and I want to now read everything Robin Sloan has ever written.