"Season of the Witch," by David Talbot

I was absolutely blown away by "Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love" (Free Press, 2012), by David Talbot. The story of the city of San Francisco from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, the book is riveting: well-researched, well-written, well-shaped, propulsive, full of vivid details, and shot through with the thesis that what happened in San Francisco was, on the one hand, unique, and on the other hand, a sort of representation of trends that would reverberate throughout the United States. Among the many events and themes covered are the rise and fall of the Haight Ashbury district, the pioneering music scene, the freedom that the city provided to many who fled the Midwest and other parts of the country, the home that S.F. provided for gays and lesbians, the best and the worst of city politics, the Patty Hearst kidnapping, the Jim Jones/Guyana tragedy, the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, the scourge of AIDS and the ways in which S.F. pioneered compassionate treatment and care and support of sufferers of the disease. My connection to the time period and events of the book, as a resident of San Francisco for a good part of the period covered, was obviously one reason for my appreciation of and enthusiasm about the book. Reading this book brought back many memories, and at the same time provided new information and details that I hadn't known at the time. Although the book was published in 2012, and the events covered are only up to the mid-1980s, and although San Francisco has changed in many ways since that time period, the city and its residents are still, whether we/they realize it or not, influenced by the powerful events and trends of that time period. I thank my brother P., who was also a resident of San Francisco during a large part of this time period, for recommending this book to me. I think anyone who lives in, or has lived in, S.F./the Bay Area, would be caught up in this book, as would other readers in or from other places who will recognize the profound and widespread consequences of what Talbot describes in "The Season of the Witch."

The Ten Best Books I Read in 2023

Most years, I have posted on this blog a list of "the best books" or "my favorite books" that I have read during those years. Today I list the ten best books, in my opinion, that I read during the calendar year 2023. Most, but not all, of the books were also published in that year. I list the books in the order that I posted on them here, with the date of each post in parentheses. 1. "Signal Fires," by Dani Shapiro (2022) (novel) (see my post of 2/2/23). 2. "Hello Beautiful," by Ann Napolitano (2023) (novel) (5/13/23). 3. "You Could Make This Place Beautiful," by Maggie Smith (not THAT Maggie Smith) (2022) (memoir) (6/12/23). 4. "Lives of the Wives: Five Literary Marriages," by Carmela Ciuraru (2023) (biography) (7/4/23). 5. "Tom Lake," by Ann Patchett (2023) (novel) (8/13/23). 6. "A Life of One's Own: Nine Women Novelists Begin Again," by Joanna Biggs (2023) (biography) (8/30/23). 7. "Somebody's Fool," by Richard Russo (2023) (novel) (9/24/23). 8. "All Things Consoled," by Elizabeth Hay (2018) (memoir) (10/14/23). 9. "A Living Remedy," by Nicole Chung (2023) (memoir) (11/7/23). 10. "Day," by Michael Cunningham" (2023) (novel) (12/12/23). Although novels will always remain my first love in reading, I notice that this year my list tilts more heavily to memoir and biography than usual. I also note that as usual I have read more books by women authors than by men. (I do not claim that books by women are "better," only that they very often appeal to me more, and often I can relate to them more.)

"Onlookers," by Ann Beattie

How could I forget about Ann Beattie? I have been reading her fiction, especially her stories (for which she is most known) for decades. Perhaps I haven't thought of her recently because I have seen fewer of her stories in The New Yorker, where she used to publish regularly? In any case, when I saw that she had a new story collection, "Onlookers" (Scribner, 2023), I was delighted, and immediately requested a copy at my wonderful local library. I have just finished it, and (mostly) liked it very much. There are six stories, each quite long, and the stories are somewhat interrelated (although mostly peripherally, just enough to establish that many people in the city are acquainted with each other), but each stands on its own. All the stories are set in Charlottesville, Virginia, before, during and after the time of the tragic, shocking white nationalist rally in 2017, in which one woman was killed and other people were injured. Intertwined with this event was and is the controversy over the Confederate monuments in the town, most notably the statue of General Robert E. Lee on his horse, and whether these statues should be removed. (Eventually that statue and others were removed.) The stories in "Onlookers" are, as suggested by the title, not directly about that rally or those statues, but about the lives of people who lived in Charlottesville and how they were affected by the events and issues, directly or, more often, indirectly. Without being didactic, Beattie makes readers confront the continuing presence of racism and the lasting effects of the Civil War, and the way those historical and current elements of American society infect and contradict the reputation of beauty and gentility in a city such as Charlottesville, and by extension in the larger society. As always, Beattie's characters are intriguing, vivid, often anxious, sometimes eccentric, imperfect, but usually understandable and often relatable. One common theme is the decline of many of the characters of old age, illness, incipient dementia, and sometimes just exhaustion; their caregivers are also vividly portrayed. Beattie's writing in this book is as good as that in any of her books. How fortunate we readers are to have had the gift of her 22 books (so far!)