Tales Of The City


Book Description

A CLASSIC OF LGBTQ LITERATURE THAT HAS BECOME A CULT SEN-SATION! THE HEROES OF THIS ENCHANTING GROUP HAVE BEEN ENJOYED BY MILLIONS OF READERS WORLDWIDE! Adapted on TV (BBC), Limited Se-ries (Netflix), Theater...and now in graphic novel form for the first time! San Francisco, 28 Barbary Lane, Anna Madrigal runs a boarding house. She wel-comes people who have nowhere else to go: the misfits. This matriarch is known for her unending kindness and her superb marijuana crop. The novel starts with the arrival of Mary Ann Singleton, a prudish, naïve, young woman who escaped her dull Ohio hometown for San Francisco. She settles in with her other fellow tenants: Michael “Mouse,” a personable young gay man, Brian Hawkins, an incor-rigible Don Juan, and Mona Ramsey, a young hippyish bisexual.




Al Capone Does My Shirts


Book Description

The Newbery Honor Book and New York Times Bestseller that is historical fiction with a hint of mystery about living at Alcatraz not as a prisoner, but as a kid meeting some of the most famous criminals in our history. Al Capone Does My Shirts has become an instant classic for all kids to read! Today I moved to Alcatraz, a twelve-acre rock covered with cement, topped with bird turd and surrounded by water. I'm not the only kid who lives here. There are twenty-three other kids who live on the island because their dads work as guards or cooks or doctors or electricians for the prison, like my dad does. And then there are a ton of murderers, rapists, hit men, con men, stickup men, embezzlers, connivers, burglars, kidnappers and maybe even an innocent man or two, though I doubt it. The convicts we have are the kind other prisons don't want. I never knew prisons could be picky, but I guess they can. You get to Alcatraz by being the worst of the worst. Unless you're me. I came here because my mother said I had to. A Newbery Honor Book A New York Times Bestseller A People magazine "Best kid's Book" An ALA Book for Young Adults An ALA Notable Book A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year A Krikus Reviews Editor's Choice A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year A Parents' Choice Silver Honor Book A New York Public Library "100 Titles for Reading and Sharing" Selection A New York Public Library Best Book for the Teen Age *"Choldenko's pacing is exquisite. . . . [A] great read."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review *"Exceptionally atmospheric, fast-paced and memorable!"—Publishers Weekly, starred review *"The story, told with humor and skill, will fascinate readers."—School Library Journal, starred review "Al is the perfect novel for a young guy or moll who digs books by Gordon Korman, or Louis Sachar."—Time Out New York for Kids "Funny situations and plot twists abound!"—People magazine "Heartstopping in some places, heartrending in others, and most of all, it is heartwarming."—San Francisco Chronicle




San Francisco Stories


Book Description

A collection of writings about San Francisco from some of literature's most distinguished authors.




The Joy Luck Club


Book Description

“The Joy Luck Club is one of my favorite books. From the moment I first started reading it, I knew it was going to be incredible. For me, it was one of those once-in-a-lifetime reading experiences that you cherish forever. It inspired me as a writer and still remains hugely inspirational.” —Kevin Kwan, author of Crazy Rich Asians Amy Tan’s beloved, New York Times bestselling tale of mothers and daughters, now the focus of a new documentary Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir on Netflix Four mothers, four daughters, four families whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's "saying" the stories. In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Rather than sink into tragedy, they choose to gather to raise their spirits and money. "To despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable." Forty years later the stories and history continue. With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery.




Black Death at the Golden Gate: The Race to Save America from the Bubonic Plague


Book Description

“A mash-up of Erik Larson and Richard Preston.” —Tina Jordan, New York Times Book Review podcast On March 6, 1900, the bubonic plague took its first victim on American soil: Chinese immigrant Wong Chut King. Empowered by racist pseudoscience, officials rushed to quarantine Chinatown—but when corrupt politicians mounted a cover-up to obscure the threat, it fell to federal health officer Rupert Blue to save San Francisco, and the nation, from a gruesome fate. Black Death at the Golden Gate is a spine-chilling saga of virulent racism, human folly, and the ultimate triumph of scientific progress.




San Francisco in Fiction


Book Description

"In the beginning there was the bay, the land, the forty-three hills, the coastline down to Monterey, the strip of mountains, the quiet valley behind, the vast ocean, the hidden faults." And with the landscape came the stories, as Paul Skenazy and David Fine note in their introduction to this new anthology of essays. San Francisco is as much a place in the mind as on the map; if the terrain set the stage for the stories, the stories have helped remake our perceptions of the space. These twelve essays explore the relationship between place and prose--between San Francisco the city and San Francisco the territory of fiction. From the Gold Rush times of Mark Twain and Bret Harte, through the Prohibition Era of Dashiell Hammett to the Beat days of Jack Kerouac and the present works of writers like Maxine Hong Kingston, Amy Tan, and Arturo Islas, San Francisco has been blessed with great writers who have given life to the land in their fiction. These essays engage the history and geography, ethnic, gender, and class conflicts, and stylistic range of the fiction. They demonstrate how authors as various as Jack London, Gertrude Atherton, Frank Norris, William Saroyan, James D. Houston, Joan Didion, and Wallace Stegner have re-created and revised our understanding of this region.




Reel San Francisco Stories: An Annotated Filmography of the Bay Area


Book Description

Have you ever wondered whether a movie you are watching was filmed in San Francisco or the Bay Area? More than 600 movies, from blockbuster features to lesser-known indies, have been entirely or partially set in the region since 1927, when talkies made their debut. This essential publication will satisfy your curiosity and identify locations. Beyond the matter-of-fact location information, this book tells the stories behind the films and about the sites used. It also highlights those actors, directors, or technical staff who originated from the Bay Area or have come to call it home.




A Companion to American Fiction, 1865 - 1914


Book Description

A Companion to American Fiction, 1865-1914 is a groundbreaking collection of essays written by leading critics for a wide audience of scholars, students, and interested general readers. An exceptionally broad-ranging and accessible Companion to the study of American fiction of the post-civil war period and the early twentieth century Brings together 29 essays by top scholars, each of which presents a synthesis of the best research and offers an original perspective Divided into sections on historical traditions and genres, contexts and themes, and major authors Covers a mixture of canonical and the non-canonical themes, authors, literatures, and critical approaches Explores innovative topics, such as ecological literature and ecocriticism, children’s literature, and the influence of Darwin on fiction







A Companion to Twentieth-Century United States Fiction


Book Description

Through a wide-ranging series of essays and relevant readings, A Companion to Twentieth-Century United States Fiction presents an overview of American fiction published since the conclusion of the First World War. Features a wide-ranging series of essays by American, British, and European specialists in a variety of literary fields Written in an approachable and accessible style Covers both classic literary figures and contemporary novelists Provides extensive suggestions for further reading at the end of each essay