Friends of Montclair Library

On Tuesday, February 2, 2016 from 6:30-8:00pm, author Gary Kamiya joins us to discuss his book, Cool Gray City of Love, 49 Views of San Francisco, and his work as a historical columnist (the always fascinating Portals of the Past) for the San Francisco Chronicle. Gary was born in Oakland, grew up in the East Bay, and currently resides in San Francisco with his wife and children.

Part walking guide, part history lesson, part love letter to the city of San Francisco, Amazon calls Cool Gray City of Love “an exuberant combination of personal insight, deeply researched history, in-depth reporting, and lyrical prose” that creates “an unparalleled portrait of San Francisco. Each of its 49 chapters explores a specific site or intersection in the city, from the mighty Golden Gate Bridge to the raunchy Tenderloin to the soaring sea cliffs at Land’s End.”

It can be stipulated with confidence that Gary Kamiya is not the first person to fall in love with San Francisco. But richly qualified by recent careers as a Yale dropout, cabdriver, journalist and one of the founders of the online magazine Salon, and surely also by a questing nature, he has written in Cool Gray City of Love a rhapsody to San Francisco of unique value. He set out to explore systematically both the familiar and the secret corners of the city, using two wheels or two feet, and also to see and hear through senses augmented by history and literature. — San Francisco Chronicle

Copies of his book will be available for sale and signing courtesy of A Great Good Place for Books.