The Most Circulated Art, Music & Recreation Books of SFPL-To-Go up to December 2020

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a radical effect upon library service. At San Francisco Public Library our readers have relied eBooks and other eResources more than ever. However, many other readers either cannot or prefer not to read online, or the books they want are not yet available online. The launch of SFPL-To-Go on August 10 brought the San Francisco Public Library's print collections back into the public's hands after a nearly five month break. 

Most of the books in the subjects of Art, Music and Recreation are assigned a call number in the Dewey 700 range (Dewey Decimals numbers 700 to 799). Among the top 15 most circulated in the Dewey 700 range, seven are pre-2020 titles.

The most borrowed print book by far is Ali Wong's Dear Girls. It was already among the most popular titles a year ago. Two other books that have continued from last year's list are Trevor Noah's Born A Crime and Hamilton: The Revolution.  Some other no longer current titles that have continue to be frequently borrowed include The Mamba Mentality by the late Kobe Bryant, Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson, Making Comics by Lynda Barry and Just Kids by Patti Smith.  Noah's and Smith's books are possibly the most popular arts related books of this century so far.

Naturally, most of the books that are frequently requested and checked out are current titles.  Hollywood often figures into these choices and currently The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood and Barry Sonnenfeld, Call Your Mother are hot titles.  Two new books by popular music divas Jessica Simpson and Mariah Carey are also racking up a large number of holds.

It's a great pleasure the see the positive attention our readers are giving to Marilyn Chase's biography of San Francisco's own Ruth Asawa, Everything She Touched.

The Victory Machine by Ethan Sherwood details the rise and fall of our Golden State Warriors (who are hopefully soon to rise again!)  Sanam Maher's A Woman Like Her: The Story Behind the Honor Killing Of a Social Media Star would not immediately seem like a hot title (we initially only ordered three copies for our system) but it has proven popular in its rich investigation of fame, faith gender roles and social media.

Homebody: A Guide To Creating Spaces You Never Want To Leave from 2018 by Joanna Gaines is the most apt title for our times. If the experts tell us to stay at home, then, of course, we want to make it a place that we never want to leave.

The Top 15 Titles of December 2020

Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets & Advice For Living Your Best Life by Ali Wong (Random House, 2019).

Born A Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah (Spiegel & Grau, 2016).

The Big Goodbye: Chinatown And the Last Years of Hollywood by Sam Wasson (Flatiron Books, 2020). 

The Mamba Mentality: How I Play by Kobe Bryant (MCD, Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2018). 

Open Book by Jessica Simpson with Kevin Carr O'Leary (Dey St., 2020). 

Everything She Touched: The Life of Ruth Asawa by Marilyn Chase (Chronicle Books, 2020).

A Woman Like Her: The Story Behind the Honor Killing Of a Social Media Star by Sanam Maher (Melville House Publishing, 2020).

A Very Punchable Face: A Memoir by Colin Jost (Crown, 2020). 

Homebody: A Guide To Creating Spaces You Never Want To Leave by Joanna Gaines (Harper Design, 2018). 

Just Kids by Patti Smith (Ecco, 2010). 

Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson (Simon & Schuster, 2017). 

Making Comics by Lynda Barry (Drawn & Quarterly, 2019)

Barry Sonnenfeld, Call Your Mother: Memoirs Of a Neurotic Filmmaker (Hachette Books, 2020).

The Meaning of Mariah Carey by Mariah Carey with Michaela Angela Davis (Andy Cohen Books, 2020). 

The Victory Machine: The Making And Unmaking Of the Warriors Dynasty by Ethan Sherwood Strauss (PublicAffairs, 2020).

Hamilton: The Revolution: Being the Complete Libretto of the Broadway Musical, With a True Account Of its Creation, and Concise Remarks On Hip-hop, the Power of Stories, And the New America by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter (Grand Central Publishing, 2016).

International bibliography of comics literature

Charlie Chaplin in his forward to The World of Lil Abner, writes of this comic strip, "it embodies playful pain, which Max Eastman, an authority on comedy, says is the basis of all humor and drama."

I only came to know that Chaplin wrote these bon mots by perusing the International Bibliography of Comics Literature.  Coming across these names of Chaplin and John Steinbeck (who wrote the introduction) in the index of this bibliography led me to the Lil Abner book that the library owns as a part of the Schmulowitz Collection of Wit and Humor.

It is sometimes assumed that printed indexes and bibliographies have been superseded by the web.  They certainly have not been published in the same quantity since the internet has become popular.  Yet they provide an avenue of exploration and group together a subject around a theme.

A print bibliography from 40 years ago, like the International Bibliography of Comics Literature (which has the dual title of Bibliographie der internationalen Literatur über Comics) can bring together unexpected information and resources on a given topic.

This reference work is especially helpful for anybody researching the early history and reception of comic literature.  In 1974, when it was published, there were relatively few graphic novels or reprints of comic strips and they certainly were as lavishly produced as they are today.

The International Bibliography of Comics Literature is divided into sections about their history, structure, commercial aspects, readership, effects, educational value, as well as their censorship and condemnation.

The work is very international in scope including literature from 19 countries (we don't always realize how global the phenomenon has always been).  For the contemporary student, the two most useful sections would "The use of comics for educational purposes" and "Judicial and other limiting measures against comics."  Here there are articles that give a historical dimension to the for and against arguments that society has been making about the social and educational value of graphic story-telling.

The serious researcher should go beyond the web or the database search and discover what bibliographies have to offer.


Bibliographie der internationalen Literatur über Comics: International Bibliography of Comics Literature by Wolfgang Kempkes (R. R. Bowker Co., 1974).

The World of Li'l Abner by Al Capp; with an introduction by John Steinbeck and a foreword by Charles Chaplin (Farrar, Straus and Young, 1953). [part of the Schmulowitz Collection]

Krazy Kat and Peanuts

George Herriman's Krazy Kat and Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts are two major newspaper comic strips that bookend the twentieth century.  They are works that provided daily entertainment for their readers, but also had a unique artistry.

Deep thinkers found much to think about in these series.  The New York Review of Books has published philosopher, critic and novelist Umberto Eco's 1985 article "On 'Krazy Kat' and 'Peanuts'" on their website.


image source: "Some Say it With A Brick": George Herriman's Krazy Kat," by Elisabeth Crocker

Regarding Krazy Kat, Eco notes "a certain lyrical stubbornness in the author, who repeated his tale ad infinitum, varying it always but sticking to its theme."  Writing of Peanuts, Eco observes that

...you could never grasp the poetic power of Schulz’s work by reading only one or two or ten episodes: you must thoroughly understand the characters and the situations, for the grace, tenderness, and laughter are born only from the infinitely shifting repetition of the patterns... 

image source: Peanuts Wiki

After reading Umberto Eco's essay you will, of course, want to view the source.  Thankfully the Library has large and growing set of reprints of these timeless comic strips published by Fantagraphics.

Here is a book list for your reading pleasure. The Peanuts sets often have introductions written by celebrities from many creative fields.  Many of these volumes are available at the Main Library and the branches.


Krazy & Ignatz. Love in a Kestle or Love in a Hut: Convening the Full-Page Comic Strips, 1916-1918.

Krazy & Ignatz. A Kind, Benevolent and Amiable Brick : Convening the Full-Page Comic Strips, 1919-1921.

Krazy & Ignatz. There is a Heppy Land, Fur, Fur Wwa-a-ay: Comprising the Complete Full-page Comic Strips, 1925-26.
Krazy & Ignatz. Love Letters in Ancient Brick: Continuing the Complete Full-Page Comic Strips, 1927-28.

Krazy & Ignatz. A Mice, a Brick, a Lovely Night: Cataloging the Complete Full-Page Comic Strips, 1929-30.

Krazy & Ignatz. A Kat a'Lilt With Song: Convening the Complete Full-Page Comic Strips, with Some Extra Dailies, 1931-32.

Krazy & Ignatz. Necromancy by the Blue Bean Bush: Compounding the Complete Full-Page Comic strips, with Some Extra Rarities, 1933-34.

Krazy & Ignatz. A Wild Warmth of Chromatic Gravy: Coalescing the Complete Full-Page Comic Strips, with the Usual Extra Rarities, 1935-36.

Krazy & Ignatz. A Brick Stuffed with Moom-Bims: Congregating the Complete Full-Page Comic Strips, with Addenda, 1939-40.
Krazy & Ignatz. A Ragout of Raspberries: Culling Together the Complete Full-Page Comic Strips, with Addenda, 1941-42.

The complete Peanuts.  1950 to 1952.

The complete Peanuts. 1953 to 1954. 

The complete Peanuts. 1955 to 1956.

The complete Peanuts. 1957 to 1958.

The complete Peanuts. 1959 to 1960.

The complete Peanuts. 1961 to 1962.

The complete Peanuts. 1963 to 1964 [foreword by Bill Melendez].

The complete Peanuts. 1965 to 1966 [foreword by Hal Hartley].

The complete Peanuts. 1967 to 1968 [introduction by John Waters].

The complete Peanuts. 1969 to 1970 [foreword by Mo Willems].

The complete Peanuts. 1971 to 1972 [introduction by Kristin Chenoweth].

The complete Peanuts. 1973 to 1974 [introduction by Billie Jean King].

The complete Peanuts. 1975 to 1976 [introduction by Robert Smigel].

The complete Peanuts. 1977 to 1978 [introduction by Alec Baldwin].

The complete Peanuts. 1979 to 1980 [introduction by Al Roker].

The complete Peanuts. 1981 to 1982 [foreword by Lynn Johnston].

The complete Peanuts. 1983 to 1984 [introduction by Leonard Maltin].

The complete Peanuts, 1985 to 1986 [foreword by Patton Oswalt].

The complete Peanuts. 1987 to 1988 [foreword by Gary Trudeau].

The complete Peanuts, 1989 to 1990 [introduction by Lemony Snicket].

The complete Peanuts, 1991 to 1992 [introduction by Tom Tomorrow].

Pretty in Ink: North American Women Cartoonists 1896-2013

We are please to present Pretty in Ink: North American Women Cartoonists 1896-2013 in the Art, Music and Recreation Center of the Main Library.  This display is curated by Trina Robbins, a comics artist and historian, and consists of original art work and other ephemera relating to her book by the same title.

The display includes work by early comic artists such as Grace Drayton, who created Dolly Dingle and other roly-poly tots, Nell Brinkley, famous for the Brinkley Girls, Edwina Dumm, who wrote the comic strip Cap Stubbs and Tippie which ran for over 6 decades, and Dale Messick, creator of dashing journalist Brenda Starr. There is also a display case devoted to the “fighting women of World War II” which presents the work of Tape Mills, Lily Renee, Fran Hopper and Marcia Snyder, who drew comics about competent action heroines who were not looking to be rescued but did the rescuing themselves!

Here is a reading list of Trina Robbin's writings on comics art.




 Pretty in Ink: North American Women Cartoonists 1896-2013, by Trina Robbins (Fantagraphics, 2013).









The Brinkley Girls: The Best of Nell Brinkley's Cartoons from 1913-1940, edited by Trina Robbins (Fantagraphics Books, 2009).







 The Great Women Cartoonists by Trina Robbins (Watson-Guptill, 2001).