Willie Brown, New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2008.  Brown's autobiography from his arrival in  SF in 1951 from Texas is a candid and fascinating how-to-succeed-in-politics, crammed with down-to-earth reality tips not common in civics texts (with advice on how to dress & work a party).  (Google it!)

San Quentin Nine (Foreword by Tobias Wolff. ) North Block Press, 2008. This anthology emerges from the Creative Writing class of San Quentin State Prison.  The subtitle “Six Cubic Feet” refers to the amount of space each prisoner is allotted for personal property.  The work presented here attests, in a variety of voices, to the ways that stories can transcend even the severe, constricted enclosure of prison.  (Google it!)

Chester W. Hartman, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002. Politics and urban development - Centering his account on the downtown Yerba Buena Center Project, Hartman illuminates the conflicts of interest, ambitions, misrepresentations, extravagant promises, brutality, waste, incompetence in the name of “urban renewal”.  (Google it!)

John H. Mollenkopf, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983. Using Boston and San Francisco as cse studies, the author shows how urban development programs influenced and were influenced by big-city politics. (Google it!)

Gary Kamiya, New York:  Bloomsbury USA, 2013. This unique book is at once a rambling walking tour, a natural and human history, and a celebration of place itself.  It ranges from the city’s geological birth and the lost world of her first inhabitants to Kamiya’s on-the-ground encounters in the present-along the way taking in the whole parade of rebels, dreamers, hedonists, and misfits who have made their way to the Pacific and called this magical corner home.  (Google it!)

Chris Carlsson, Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2002. Monthly in cities around the world, bicyclists take over the streets in an "organized coincidence" called Critical Mass. Riding along several hundred strong, hooting and hollering, whistling, laughing and singing; it is a coup on wheels, a clever tactical strike against our oil-dependent culture. Containing writings from participants worldwide, this colorful book bundles together 10 years of legendary debates, photographs, artwork, and life-transforming experiences evolving from the celebratory, visionary revolt on bicycles called Critical Mass.  (Google it!)

Bernard Wong, Needham Heights, MA: Allen & Bacon, 1998. This book focuses on how the new Chinese immigrants use their ethnic and personal resources to make economic adaptations in the US. Sociologists and anthropologists.  (Google it!)

Laton McCartney, New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1988, 1999.  Business Journalist Laton McCartney combines painstaking research and powerful reporting to tell here, for the first time, the explosive inside story of what really goes on at the company that changed the face of the globe.  Learn how The Bechtel Group shuns the limelight while continuing to be one of the prime movers-and-shakers in the global economic arena with the help of “friends” such as Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Dwight Eisenhower and former employees George Shultz and Caspar Weinberger.   (Google it!)

Victoria Sweet, New York:  Riverhead Books,  2012.  “Victoria Sweet is a master storyteller and a consummate physician.  Her beautifully written stories from the frontline of health care document the struggle of all modern-day healers to hold fast to the immortal soul of medicine despite the pressures of economics, the self-interest of politics, and the reductionism of science.  God’s Hotel reminds us of the fundamental truth that medicine is and has always been an act of love and brotherhood…and of the vulnerabilities we share and compassion we aspire to.” –Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, author of Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather’s Blessings.  (Google it!)

Rebecca Solnit & Susan Schwartzenberg, Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2002. The effects of San Francisco’s housing squeeze and accelerated gentrification of low-income neighborhoods created a cultural crisis.  (Google it!)

Richard Edward DeLeon, Laurence, KS: University of Kansas, 1992. Richard DeLeon analyzes the successes and failures of the progressive movement as it topples the business-dominated progrowth regime, imposes stringent controls on growth and development, and achieves political control of city hall.  (Google it!)

Victor G. and Brett de Bary Nee, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1972.  Portrait of San Francisco's Chinatown in the early 1970s -- it’s poverty, unemployment, low-wage garment and restaurant industries, and gangs.  (Google it!)

Randy Shilts, New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1982.  “Known as “The Mayor of Castro Street” even before he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Harvey Milk’s personal life, public career, and final assassination reflect the dramatic emergence of the gay community as a political power in America.  It is a story full of personal tragedies and political intrigues, assassinations at City Hall, massive riots in the streets, the miscarriage of justice, and the consolidation of gay power and gay hope.”  (Google it!)

Cecil Williams with Rebecca Laird, San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins, 1992. The pastor of Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco, which is nationally known for the success of its community activism, speaks of the spiritual power that drives the church's innovative recovery programs.  (Google it!)

Morton Sobell, San Francisco, CA: Golden Gate National Parks Association, 2001.  This is the story of what led up to, and the conduct of the infamous trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Morton Sobell who were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage where Sobell spent 5 of his 18 plus years of prison, in Alcatraz in the middle of San Francisco Bay.  (Google it!)

Elaine Badgley Arnoux, San Francisco, CA:  Arts Commission Gallery, 2001.  “The individuals portrayed in this extraordinary visual chronicle are the personal selection of the artist.  These are people from all walks of life whom Badgley Arnoux has come in contact with over the years.  They are not San Franciscans selected by popularity or committee, yet in the end, there is an ultimate truth to the range and representation that crosses the entire social, economic and cultural strata of this city.  (Google it!)

Edited by Chris Carlsson, San Francisco, CA: City Lights Foundation Books, 2004.  Originating in the wake of the astonishing popular mobilization on behalf of a campaign to elect underdog Matt Gonzalez may of San Francisco, The Political Edge analyzes emergent political energies, where they came from, and where they’re going.  Rarely have contemporary radicals joined forces with cultural rebels and neighborhood activists in an effort to change almost everything about the governance of a city.  (Google it!)

Frederick M. Wirt, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1974. 125 year political history of San Francisco providing insights on the politics of large American cities in the 1970s.  (Google it!)

Aphrodite Jones, New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers Inc., 2003.  In 2001 , Diane Alexis Whipple bled to death in the hallway of her apartment building when she was mauled by two Presa Canarios, a vicious breed of attack dogs.  This is the full story of what happened in that hallway and helps the reader see what illegal dog rings are all about.  (Google it!)

James O’Reilly, Larry Habegger, Sean O’Reilly, United States: Traveler’ Tales, Inc., 1996.  In Traveler’ Tales San Francisco, we’ve collected useful and memorable stories to produce the kind of sampler we’ve always wanted to read before setting out.  These stories will show you a spectrum of experiences to be had or avoided in San Francisco.  The authors come from many walks of life: some are teachers, some are cab drivers, some are poets, all are wanderers with a tale to tell.  Their stories will help you deepen and enrich your experience of San Francisco.   (Google it!)

Randolph Delehanty, New York, NY: The Dial Press, 1980.  A highly readable guide to San Francisco’s historical and architectural treasures including all the places most people go there to see, plus areas often missed by natives as well as visitors.  The text covers planning tours, where to stay, getting around, shopping, museums, and night life, and is complimented with street maps.  (Google it!)

David Talbot, New York, NY:   Free Press, 2012.  Season of the Witch is the first book to fully capture the dark magic of San Francisco in this breathtaking period, when the city radically changed itself—and then revolutionized the world. The cool gray city of love was the epicenter of the 1960s cultural revolution. But by the early 1970s, San Francisco’s ecstatic experiment came crashing down from its starry heights. The city was rocked by savage murder sprees, mysterious terror campaigns, political assassinations, street riots, and finally a terrifying sexual epidemic. No other city endured so many calamities in such a short time span.  (Google it!)

Edited by Chris Carlsson, LisaRuth Elliot, Adriana Camarena, San Francisco, CA:  Full Enjoyment Books, 2012.  A new anthology celebrating the accomplishments of the Critical Mass movement over the past twenty years.  From both theoretical and practical perspectives, the book explores how Critical Mass has gone around the world, how it has evolved along the way, and the impacts it has had on local politics, transportation, and cultures.  (Google it!)

Edited by Chris Carlsson, San Francisco, CA:  City Lights Foundation Books, 2011.   A collection of essays spans the tumultuous decade from 1968, the year of the San Francisco State University strike, to 1978 and the twin traumas of the Jonestown massacre and the assassinations of mayor George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk. This volume provides a broad look at the diverse ways these ten years shook the city of San Francisco and shaped the world we live in today. From community gardening to environmental justice, gay rights and other identity-based social movements, anti-gentrification efforts, neighborhood arts programs, and more, many of the initiatives whose origins are described here have taken root and spread far beyond San Francisco.  (Google it!)

Mark Bittner, New York, NY:  Three Rivers Press, 2004.  While living on the eastern slope of Telegraph Hill, Mark Bittner made a magical discovery: a flock of wild parrots.  In this unforgettable story, Bittner recounts how he became fascinated by the birds and patiently developed friendships with them that would last more than six years.  When a documentary filmmaker comes along to capture the phenomenon on film, the story takes a surprising turn, and Bittner’s life truly takes flight.  (Google it!)

The Students of San Francisco’s Thurgood Marshall Academic High School, San Francisco, CA: 826 Valencia and the Isabel Allende Foundation, 2004. Written by students who were given a simple assignment from their teacher asking them to “explore the ways that we think about conflict, violence, and peace in our world,”  Waiting to Be Heard is a collection of their writings on the subject.  This book gives them a chance to voice their opinions and change the present before it gets any worse.  (Google it!)

Nicholas von Hoffman, Chicago, IL: Ivan R. Dee, Inc., 1989. The colorful history of the rise of the social philosophy and politics ushered in by a proud and defiant youth subculture.  (Google it!)