Travels in San Francisco

Despite the title, this is not really a travel book. It is more a series of slice-of-life anecdotes and reflections from the perspective of a writer immersed in the sidewalk and cafe life of San Francisco. Herbert Gold has a unique, rambling style and I appreciated the flavor he evokes of this city that is his home and which he obviously loves. The book is somewhat dated (1990), at least by the standards of internet culture, but this hardly matters in a book that is largely nostalgic in tone anyway. Gold is one of those people who seems solidly rooted somewhere in between the beatnik and hippie epochs of countercultural America. Since San Francisco in many ways can be considered the capitol of the counterculture, it is his natural home turf. Gold is also the author of Bohemia (the only other book of his I've read), an equally enjoyable work that takes a wider view of the bohemian subculture that has been apparently fading for decades but (thankfully) never quite completely disappears. Travels in San Francisco is basically a series of vignettes --reflections on neighborhoods like North Beach and Richmond, a few short stories that may or may not be fact-based, colorful descriptions of some of the city's many eccentric denizens, tales of some famous cafes, bars and restaurants...This book is certainly not an ordinary tourist guide, and will probably be best appreciated by those who either have some familiarity with San Francisco, or are at least in tune with its unconventional history and atmosphere.