Season of the Witch - The Art, Music and Recreation Center reading list

David Talbot's Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love (Free Press, 2012) is the story of a turbulent but formative period in recent San Francisco history from 1967 to 1982.  This book has stayed on San Francisco Chronicle's local best-sellers list.  Another indication of this book's popularity is that presently 195 San Francisco Public Library patrons are borrowing one of our copies of the book.

Talbot goes far beyond the social turmoil of the time to devote many pages to the City's performing arts and sports.  Each chapter of his book includes a reading list.  Naturally, the music of the Summer of Love is prominently discussed.  The story of the seminal, gender-bending performance group The Cockettes also gets told.  Finally, as a story of redemption, Talbot narrates the San Francisco 49ers path from perennial failure to the Super Bowl.

Here is a listing of the titles that Talbot cites in his book, all available to borrow from the Library.


780.2 J745d2 1991 - Piece of My Heart: A Portrait of Janis Joplin by David Dalton (Da Capo Press, 1991).

780.2 J745e 2000 - Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin by Alice Echols (Henry Holt and Co., 2000).

780.2 J745f 1992 - Buried Alive: The Biography of Janis Joplin by Myra Friedman (Harmony Books, 1992).

780.2 J745j 2005 - Love, Janis by Laura Joplin (Harper, 2005).

784.5 ZG76b - Bill Graham Presents: My Life Inside Rock and Out by Bill Graham and Robert Greenfield (Doubleday, 1992).

784.5 ZG76g - Rage & Roll: Bill Graham and the Selling of Rock by John Glatt (Carol Pub. Group, 1993).

780.2 ZG771m - A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead by Dennis McNally (Broadway Books, 2002).

780.2 ZJ356t - Got a Revolution!: The Turbulent Flight of Jefferson Airplane by Jeff Tamarkin (Atria Books, 2003).

784.5 ZSe48s - Summer of Love: The Inside Story of LSD, Rock & Roll, Free Love, and High Times in the Wild West by Joel Selvin (Dutton, 1994).

791.0922 T26m - Midnight at the Palace: My Life as a Fabulous Cockette by Pam Tent (Alyson Books, 2004).

796.33 M762a - Audibles: My Life in Football by Joe Montana and Bob Raissman (W. Morrow, 1986).

796.3326 B2336w - We Were Champions: The 49ers' Dynasty in their own Words; text by Phil Barber; photography by Michael Zagaris (Triumph Books, 2002).

796.3326 D559g - Glenn Dickey's 49ers: The Rise, fall, and Rebirth of the NFL's Greatest Dynasty by Glenn Dickey (Prima Pub., 2000).

796.3326 M9924c - The Catch: One Play, Two Dynasties, and the Game that Changed the NFL by Gary Myers (Crown Publishers, 2009).