The Bay Curious team is always in the mood for a good book, but when the calendar hits June and months of beautiful weather (and maybe a little less work) are stretched out in front of us, it feels like an especially good time to get reading.
And being Bay Curious, we are especially interested in books that are about or take place in the Bay Area and California. So we put out a call on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook for your recommendations for your favorite Bay Area and California books, and y’all came through.
You gave us way more suggestions than we can list here, so I recommend taking some time to go through all the responses on your own, but what follows are the 10 most recommended books (in no particular order) about the Bay Area and California from you, plus a few bonus recommendations from local authors and librarians.
1. “Tales of the City” by Armistead Maupin
A well-worn copy of Armistead Maupin’s ‘Tales of the City.’ It was the San Francisco Public Library’s One City One Book pick in 2014. (Ryan Levi/KQED)
In the words of one person on Instagram, “Tales of the city because duh.” Maupin’s classic story of the residents of 28 Barbary Lane in San Francisco started out as a serialized column in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1976. It eventually grew into a nine-book series and is the inspiration for a new Netflix series. “I loved the characters when they were young and full of hope in their new city,” wrote another person on Instagram. “It is both a snapshot in time and truly, truly timeless.”
2. “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” by Joan Didion
“When I first went to San Francisco, I did not even know what I wanted to find out, and so I just stayed around awhile and made a few friends,” writes Joan Didion in the titular essay of her classic collection chronicling California in the 1960s. The essays cover one of the most eventful decades in the state’s history, with essays on topics ranging from the hippies in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury to the lifestyles of the rich and the famous in Los Angeles. It is often described as one of the best pieces of nonfiction writing.
3. “The Golden State” by Lydia Kiesling
“The Golden State” has only been out for less than a year, but it seems to be an instant classic based on the number of you who cited it as a piece of great California literature. The book centers around Daphne, a young mother who flees her life in San Francisco with her toddler and drives to the fictional California desert town of Altavista. Esmé Weijun Wang, the San Francisco author of “The Collected Schizophrenias,” calls Kiesling’s debut novel “a beautiful book about motherhood and being a person who is trying to gain her footing in her life and in the world.”
4. “East of Eden” by John Steinbeck
kendra72 on Twitter @KQED @KQEDnews @KQEDForum East of Eden, Tortilla Flats, Grapes of Wrath, Cannery Row, the Green Day biography, and a book about a record store in the east bay that I can’t remember the title!!
Steinbeck was all over your recommendations with California classics like “The Grapes of Wrath” and “Cannery Row,” but “East of Eden” came up most often. This sprawling tale of two families — the Trasks and the Hamiltons — takes place in the Salinas Valley where Steinbeck grew up and mirrors the biblical story of Cain and Abel. “It brought me home when I read it living in Japan,” wrote one person on Instagram.
5. “The Language of Flowers” by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
Another debut novel, “The Language of Flowers” is about Victoria Jones who has spent her childhood bouncing between foster homes in Northern California and finds her greatest connection is to flowers. Diffenbaugh was born in San Francisco, grew up in Chico, and now lives in Monterey, where she and her husband are foster parents. She also started a nonprofit dedicated to helping young people transitioning out of the foster system.
6. “The Joy Luck Club” by Amy Tan
Published in 1989, “The Joy Luck Club” revolves around four pairs of mothers and daughters. The mothers are Chinese immigrants who moved to San Francisco and started playing mahjong together and never stopped. Their daughters were all born in the United States, and Tan weaves their stories together over the course of the novel. “Itâs a beautiful story about strong Chinese mothers and their strong American daughters,” wrote one person on Instagram.
7. “Season of the Witch” by David Talbot
Another nonfiction classic, “Season of the Witch” tells the story of one of the darkest and most chaotic periods of San Francisco’s history from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. Talbot goes from the city’s days as the center of the counterculture revolution to the dark years of the 1970s filled with serial killers, political assassinations and the tragedy of Jonestown, to finally the HIV/AIDS epidemic that ravaged the city’s gay population.
8. “Lucky Boy” by Shanthi Sekaran
Emily Schiola on Twitter @KQED @KQEDnews @KQEDForum Lucky Boy by @Shanthisekaran is amazing and takes place in Berkeley. One of the best books I’ve read this year!
“Lucky Boy” is about an Indian-American woman and a young undocumented immigrant from Mexico who comes to Berkeley with her infant son. Sekaran, who has lived in Berkeley for more than a decade, said the city was the perfect place to set this story with its mix of good intentions and intense privilege. “Sometimes those two elements donât mix,” Sekaran told Berkeleyside. “Sometimes peopleâs good intentions blind them to their own insensitivities.”
9. “Daughter of Fortune” by Isabel Allende
Somehow it took us this long to get to a Gold Rush book. “Daughter of Fortune” follows Eliza, a young woman who leaves her home in Chile for Gold Rush San Francisco in search of her first love. Her voyage and time in California are worlds away from the sheltered life she lived in Chile. And don’t take our word on this one: it was selected for Oprah’s Book Club in 2000.
10. “There There” by Tommy Orange
“There There” chronicles the intersecting lives of generations of Native Americans living in Oakland. The book takes its title from an often misunderstood quote from the Oakland-bred writer Gertrude Stein about the Town. Orange said writing this book was in part an attempt to make Oakland and Native Americans — especially those living in cities — more visible.
Honorable Mention: “The Tortilla Curtain” by T.C. Boyle, “Sourdough” and “Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore” by Robin Sloan, “The Maltese Falcon” by Dashiell Hammett, “The Circle” by Dave Eggers, “The Girls” by Emma Cline
Bonus Recommendations from Local Authors and Librarians:
We also wanted to get some expert opinions on this question, so we reached out to a few local authors and the Oakland Public Library for their recommendations, many of which were in line with your picks:
Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, author of “A Kind of Freedom” and “The Revisioners”:
“There There” by Tommy Orange “The Golden State” by Lydia Kiesling “Goodbye, Vitamin” by Rachel Khong “Elsewhere, California” by Dana Johnson
Vanessa Hua, author of “Deceit and Other Possibilities” and “A River of Stars”:
“The Golden State” by Lydia Kiesling “Bone” by Fae Myenne Ng “The Far Away Brothers: Two Young Brothers and the Making of an American Life” by Lauren Markham “The Joy Luck Club” by Amy Tan “The Oracles: My Filipino Grandparents in America” by Pati Navalta Poblete “In the Country of Women: A Memoir” by Susan Straight “Every Night is Ladies Night” by Michael Jaime Becerra “Unaccompanied” by Javier Zamora “Ordinary Light: A Memoir” by Tracy K. Smith
Lydia Kiesling, author of “The Golden State”:
“A River of Stars” by Vanessa Hua “Off Course” by Michelle Huneven “Woman No. 17” by Edan Lepucki “There There” by Tommy Orange “Lord of California” by Andrew Valencia “Deep Singh Blue” by Ranbir Singh Sidhu “Gold Fame Citrus” by Claire Vaye Watkins
The librarians from the Oakland Public Library sent a list of more than 60 recommendations of great California and Bay Area books. Below is a small sampling:
For adults: “Better to Reign in Hell: Inside the Raiders Fan Empire” by Jim Miller and Kelly Mayhew, “California: A History” by Kevin Starr, “Kindred” by Octavia Butler, “Valencia” by Michelle Tea For teens: “Internment” by Samira Ahmed, “The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives” by Dashka Slater, “You Know Me Well” by Nina LaCour and David Levithan, “Little Brother” by Cory Doctorow For kids: “Esperanza Rising” by Pam Muñoz Ryan, “Smile” by Raina Telgemeier, “A Jar of Dreams” by Yoshiko Uchida, “The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights” by Steve Sheinkin
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