Most requested Art, Music & Recreation Center books (Dewey 700s) - March 2023

It's not surprising to see our list topped with a celebrity autobiography like Love, Pamela by actress Pamela Anderson. Rock star autobiographies also popular with U-2 front man Bono's Surrender and Los Angeles punk rocker King Congo Powers' Some New Kind of Kick. Another popular book in this category is A Heart that Works, actor-comedian Rob Delany's memoir of losing a young child.

The Grand Affair is being regarded as the definitive biography of prolific American expatriate artist  John Singer Sargent whose paintings are currently on display at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor.

There are two sports related titles. Good for A Girl by Lauren Fleshman is both a memoir and a work of advocacy for young women runners. The Inner Game of Tennis, published 15 years ago, is a surprising title on a list of otherwise current titles showing that must continue to provide insights into achieving success in that competitive sport.

Interior design books are consistently popular at the San Francisco Public Library. How to Live with Objects, Patina Modern and Home Therapy are the latest titles to appeal to our patrons.  Ballet books also circulate well and there are two new works on that subject on our list. Mr. B. is a biography of famed choreographer George Balanchine; The Wind at My Back is a memoir by African-American ballerina Misty Copeland who pays tribute to pioneering ballerina Raven Wilkinson who served as an important inspiration to her.

Women Holding Things is a collection of art and essays by another San Francisco favorite, Maira Kalman. The most surprising title on the list is The Architecture of Suspense. This university press title mixes architectural history with the corpus of director Alfred Hitchcock's films.

Happy reading!

Love, Pamela by Pamela Anderson (Dey St., 2023).

Good for A Girl: A Woman Running in A Man's World by Lauren Fleshman (Penguin Press, 2023).

The Grand Affair: John Singer Sargent in His World by Paul Fisher (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022).

Patina Modern: A Guide to Designing Warm, Timeless Interiors by Chris Mitchell and Pilar Guzman (Artisan, 2022).

How to Live with Objects: A Modern Guide to More Meaningful Interiors by Monica Khemsurov & Jill Singer; photographs by Charlie Schuck (Clarkson Potter/Publisher, 2022).

The Architecture of Suspense: The Built World in The Films of Alfred Hitchcock by Christine Madrid French (University of Virginia Press, 2022).

Home Therapy: Interior Design for Increasing Happiness, Boosting Confidence, and Creating Calm by Anita Yokota, principal photography by Ali Harper, additional photography by Sara Ligorria-Tramp (Clarkson Potter/Publishers, 2022).

A Heart that Works by Rob Delaney (Spiegel and Grau, 2022).

Mr. B: George Balanchine's 20th Century by Jennifer Homans (Random House, 2022).

Surrender: 40 songs, One Story by Bono (Alfred A. Knopf, 2022).

The Wind at My Back: Resilience, Grace, and Other Gifts from My Mentor, Raven Wilkinson by Misty Copeland, with Susan Fales-Hill (Grand Central Publishing, 2022).

The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to The Mental Side of Peak Performance by W. Timothy Gallwey (Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2008).

Some New Kind of Kick: A Memoir by Kid Congo Powers with Chris Campion (Hachette Books, 2022).

Women Holding Things, text and art by Maira Kalman (Harper Design, 2022).

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).

The Most Requested Art, Music and Recreation Center books in January 2017

The top three titles on our current list match well with the nonfiction bestsellers listed in last Sunday's Chronicle.  In the Bay Area, Born a Crime ranks at number 6 and The Princess Diarist ranks at number 4.  Bruce Springsteen's memoir ranks number 3 nation-wide.

Books on hollywood, show business and entertainment in general often do well on the lists of holds.  Memoirs by Anna Kendrick, Lauren Graham, Megyn Kelly as well as the oral history of the Daily Show are all very popular.  In past lists rock and pop music memoirs have also faired well, but only Born to Run and Robbie Robertson's Testimony place on this list.

One slightly surprising title is Walking Through Walls by Marina Abramović.  While Abramović has achieved great renown in performance art circles, she seems out of place among the celebrities of this list.  But, I think the book's popularity reflects San Francisco's readers who have also shown favor towards two books about fine art - How To See by David Salle and a History of Pictures by David Hockney.

Sex sells - even sex from 80 years as Mary Astor's Purple Diary shows.  And anything with the Murakami touch will do well with our readers as can be seen with his book of conversations about music with Seiji Ozawa.

If these books excite you as well, you may have get in line to read them.  Thankfully, the majority of the titles are also available in eBook formats.

Happy reading.


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

2. The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher (Blue Rider Press, 2016).

3. Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen (Simon & Schuster, 2016).

4. Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick (Touchstone, 2016).

5. Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls, (And Everything In Between) by Lauren Graham (Ballantine Books, 2016).

6. Settle For More by Megyn Kelly (Harper, 2016)

7. The Daily Show (The Book): An Oral History As Told By Jon Stewart, The Correspondents, Staff and Guests by Chris Smith (Grand Central Publishing, 2016).

8. The Godfather Notebook by Francis Ford Coppola (Regan Arts, 2016).

9. Kathy Griffin's Celebrity Run-Ins: My A-Z Index by Kathy Griffin (Flatiron Books, 2016).

10. Mary Astor's Purple Diary: The Great American Sex Scandal of 1936 by Edward Sorel (Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2016).

11. Testimony by Robbie Robertson (Crown Archetype, 2016).

12. Superficial: More Adventures From the Andy Cohen Diaries by Andy Cohen (Henry Holt and Company, 2016).

13. The Magnolia Story by Chip & Joanna Gaines, with Mark Dagostino (W Publishing, , 2016).

14. Walk Through Walls: A Memoir by Marina Abramović, with James Kaplan (Crown Archetype, 2016).

15. How To See: Looking, Talking, and Thinking About Art by David Salle (W.W. Norton & Company, 2016)

16. Absolutely On Music: Conversations by Haruki Murakami with Seiji Ozawa, translated from the Japanese by Jay Rubin (Alfred A. Knopf, 2016).

17. Celebrate Everything!: Fun Ideas to Bring Your Parties To Life, written and illustrated by Darcy Miller (William Morrow, 2016).

18. Harry Potter: The Artifact Vault, written by Jody Revenson (Harper Design, 2016).

19. A History of Pictures: From the Cave to the Computer Screen by David Hockney & Martin Gayford (Abrams, 2016).

20. Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World by Steven Johnson (Riverhead Books, 2016).

Fashion Archives from Proquest

We are very pleased to announce the addition of the Fashion Archives from Proquest to our list of full-text databases! With high-resolution color and article-level indexing, the online archives provide unprecedented historical coverage of leading fashion and women’s magazines.  The Fashion Archives collection includes:

The Harper's Bazaar Archive

A comprehensive, searchable archive of every page, advertisement, and cover of every issue of Harper's Bazaar from its first appearance in 1867 to the current month. Reproduced in high-resolution color page images and supported by fully searchable text and indexing, this resource provides access to a chronicle of 20th century American and international fashion, culture, and society, supporting researchers by offering a cultural lens into the modern era.
Coverage: 1867 - current

The Vogue Archive

A complete searchable archive of American Vogue, from the first issue in 1892 to the current month, reproduced in high-resolution color page images. Every page, advertisement, cover and fold-out has been included, with rich indexing enabling you to find images by garment type, designer and brand names. The Vogue Archive preserves the work of the world's greatest fashion designers, stylists and photographers and is a unique record of American and international fashion, culture and society from the dawn of the modern era to the present day. Coverage 1867 - current.

Women's Magazine Archive

An archival research resource comprising the full backfiles of leading women’s interest consumer magazines. Titles are scanned from cover to cover in high-resolution color and feature detailed article-level indexing. Coverage ranges from the late-19th century through to 2005 and these key primary sources permit the examination of the events, trends, and attitudes of this period. Among the research fields served by this material are gender studies, social history, economics/marketing, media, fashion, politics, and popular culture.  SOme titles included are Better Homes and Gardens, Ladies Home Journal and Redbook.

The Women's Wear Daily Archive

A comprehensive archive of Women’s Wear Daily, from the first issue in 1910 to material from within the last twelve months, reproduced in high-resolution images. Every page, article, advertisement and cover has been included, with searchable text and indexing. The Women’s Wear Daily Archive preserves one of the fashion industry's most influential reads. Key moments in the history of the industry, as well as major designers, brands, retailers and advertisers are all covered in this publication of record.

Also included in this collection is the Design and Applied Arts Index which is not full text.  We do however own many of the journals and books in print.

Design and Applied Arts Index (DAAI)

This database is the premier source of information for all aspects of design and crafts, from textiles and ceramics to vehicle design, advertising and sustainability. Covers journal articles, exhibition reviews and news items from 1973 to the present.
Coverage: 1973 - current

How to search:

Go to sfpl.org and hover over eLibrary then click on "Articles and Databases".  Choose "Topics" then click on "Art & Music".

 














Each of these databases can be searched individually or concurrently.  By clicking on "Fashion Archive" you are taken to a search screen that limits the search to only the five databases listed above.  There is a basic search screen which is a keyword search and an Advanced Search screen that allows for more focused searching and results.

In the Advanced Search it is possible to limit to document type such as advertisement, catalog, correspondence, fiction, interview and many more.  The advanced search defaults to a keyword search but can be narrowed down to author, title, publication name, document text, etc.

An Advanced Search for "Hemline" and limited to Advertisement reveals this 1928 Lord and Taylor advertisement from Vogue:

Advertisement: Lord & taylor. (1928, Jan 01). Vogue, 71, 34. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.sfpl.org/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/904318506?accountid=35117

Another search limiting to "Article" reveals over 3,000 results including this 1928 article in the "Styles for Smaller Women" section of Women's Wear Daily.

Styles for smaller women: Afternoon frocks retain uneven hemline for spring. (1928, Nov 26). Women’s Wear Daily, 37, 1. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.sfpl.org/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1653748519?accountid=35117

The Most Requested Art, Music & Recreation Books - December 2015

 The year-end list of the titles with the most holds is topped by music memoirs, especially by women (Carrie Brownstein of Sleater / Kinney, Patti Smith, Carly Simon and Grace Jones).  Eight months earlier memoirs by Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth) and Viv Albertine (The Slits) were near the top.

One surprising title on this months list is The Arab of the Future, a graphic memoir of life in the Middle East.  There were two history books by noted rock historians - Peter Guralnick's biography of Sam Phillips, and the revised 6th edition of Greil Marcus' classic Mystery Train.

Works on architecture and interior design are popular.  Tiny House Living is a natural fit for 21st century San Francisco and is the only carry over from the April 2015 blog list of requested books.

Two of the more unusual books on the list are Ivory Vikings, an investigation of a set of walrus ivory chess pieces more than a millennia old, and The White Road, a history of porcelain penned by the author of The Hare with the Amber Eyes.

While there may be a queue of people awaiting their holds to be filled on these books, we frequently order extra copies to meet demand, so go ahead and place your holds on these popular new books.


1. Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl: A Memoir by Carrie Brownstein (Riverhead Books, 2015).

2. M Train by Patti Smith (Alfred A. Knopf, 2015).

3. The Arab of the Future: A Graphic Memoir: A Childhood in the Middle East (1978-1984) by Riad Sattouf, translated by Sam Taylor (Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2015.

4. Boys in the Trees: A Memoir by Carly Simon (Flatiron Books, 2015).

5. I'll Never Write My Memoirs by Grace Jones as told to Paul Morley (Gallery Books, 2015).

6. Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink by Elvis Costello (Blue Rider Press, 2015)

7. Styled: Secrets for Arranging Rooms, From Tabletops to Bookshelves by Emily Henderson with Angelin Borsics (Potter Style, 2015).

8. Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock 'n' roll by Peter Guralnick (Little, Brown and Company, 2015).

9. Tiny House Living: Ideas for Building and Living Well in Less than 400 Square Feet by Ryan Mitchell. (Betterway Home, 2014).

10. Love Style Life by Garance Doré (Spiegel & Grau, 2015).

11. Peggy Guggenheim: The Shock of the Modern by Francine Prose (Yale University Press, 2015).

12. The Kinfolk Home: Interiors for Slow Living by Nathan Williams (Ouur/Artisan, 2015).

13. Becoming by Cindy Crawford (Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 2015).

14. Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' roll Music by Greil Marcus (Plume, 2015).

15. Keeping an Eye Open: Essays on Art by Julian Barnes (Alfred A. Knopf, 2015).

16. Ivory Vikings: The Mystery of the Most Famous Chessmen in the World and the Woman who Made Them by Nancy Marie Brown (St. Martin's Press, 2015).

17. Cabin Porn: Inspiration for Your Quiet Place Somewhere, collected by Beaver Brook, edited by Zach Klein (Little, Brown and Company, 20150.

18. The White Road: Journey into an Obsession by Edmund de Waal (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015).