This Is San Francisco: The Ups, Downs, Ins, and Outs of the City by the Bay

by Alexander Barrett

In the same vein as his other two travel guides, This Is Portland and This Is Shanghai, Andrew Barrett again plays quirky tour guide in This is San Francisco. Distilling the charm of San Francisco into this little book, he makes a pretty good case for why this city is so magical by revealing what its true vibe is. Come along on a walk down one of San Francisco's historic streets or up one of its urban staircases. Through thoughtful and funny anecdotes, essays, and illustrations, Barrett takes you on a journey through one of America's most famous cities and makes you wish you were right there with him.

128 pages, Paperback

Published September 10, 2019

Reviews

[Elvin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A different, quirky take on a travel guidebook. It lacks the recommendations and detailed descriptions of an average guidebook. Instead, Barrett focuses on many locations and aspects that can be easily overlooked (parrots and fire escapes). Barrett's humorous angle makes for an entertaining read, at times giving voice to the landmarks themselves. And he does it all with such brevity. It's a quick read that will give you one person's impression of this great city.

There are some illustrations, but they are a bit lackluster. I wish there were more to give us visually quirky illustrations to match the writing. What we get seems like a half effort.

I wonder why he chose to leave out more popular sites, like Chinatown, Little Italy, the museums, etc. I assume he knew readers could find this info elsewhere and thus wanted to focus more on the things untouched.

Overall, it was an insightful personal view of the city from a comical perspective. Yet I feel like it could have been greater. Because it's a fast read, it wouldn't hurt to add this to other books on San Francisco if you're curious about the city by the bay.