“True Tales” of San Francisco Part I

"All things Alcatraz" -- especially the infamous 1962 escape by Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers -- is the subject of J. Campbell Bruce's classic book.

San Francisco has always been more than postcard views and luxury real estate—its past brims with daring escapes, bohemian revolutions, and seismic shifts (literal and cultural). These eight nonfiction books—spanning crime, music, politics, and urban change—offer vivid glimpses into the City by the Bay during the 20th Century.

1. The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld — Herbert Asbury (1933; reissue)

A lurid, rollicking portrait of Gold Rush vice and vigilantes that shaped the city’s rough-and-ready character.

2. San Francisco Bay — Harold Gilliam (1957)

A graceful natural and cultural history of the Bay’s tides, habitats, and people—still a touchstone for Bay Area lovers.

3. Escape from Alcatraz: The True Crime Classic — J. Campbell Bruce (1963; updated 2005)

The definitive account of “the Rock,” its notorious inmates, and the breakout that became world legend.

4. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test — Tom Wolfe (1968)

A wild, fluorescent chronicle of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, from La Honda to Haight-Ashbury, that helped define counterculture.

5. The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk — Randy Shilts (1982)

An intimate, definitive biography of Harvey Milk and the rise of LGBTQ political power in San Francisco.

6. And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic — Randy Shilts (1987; 20th-anniv. ed. 2007)

A landmark investigation centering on San Francisco in the early, harrowing fight against AIDS.

7. Hollow City: The Siege of San Francisco and the Crisis of American Urbanism — Rebecca Solnit & Susan Schwartzenberg (2000)

A prescient exploration of gentrification and displacement as booming tech reshaped a once-bohemian city.

8. Harlem of the West: The San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Era — Elizabeth Pepin Silva & Lewis Watts (expanded 2020 edition of a 20th-century photo trove)

Stunning photographs and oral histories resurrect the Fillmore’s mid-century jazz scene—a vanished neighborhood’s heartbeat.

Stay tuned for Part II, when we explore 21st-Century titles—mapping today’s neighborhoods, seismic real estate shifts, and new cultural movements that continue to make San Francisco one of the world’s most desirable (and delightfully complicated) cities.