Don't Call It Frisco

by Herb Caen

Herb Caen (1916-1997), Pulitzer Prize-winning legendary San Francisco-based columnist wrote, "One day if I do go to heaven...I'll look around and say, 'It ain't bad, but it ain't San Francisco.'" In "Don't Call it Frisco", he went on to be considered the ultimate authority on all things San Francisco for the next 44 years. In the San Francisco Chronicle, Herb Caen wrote, "Caress each Spanish syllable, salute our Italian saint. Don't say Frisco..." Another writer compared that kind of assumed familiarity to a lack of respect, akin to shortening the name of the famous composer Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff to Rocky.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, History

287 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1953

About the author

Herbert Eugene Caen was a San Francisco humorist and journalist whose daily column of local goings-on and insider gossip, social and political happenings, and offbeat puns and anecdotes—"A continuous love letter to San Francisco" —appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle for almost sixty years (excepting a relatively brief defection to The San Francisco Examiner) and made him a household name throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

A special Pulitzer Prize called him the "voice and conscience" of San Francisco.

Reviews

[Lenny Husen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a poetry book--prose poems in praise of a City.
I am delighted to say that I own a First Edition signed by the author.
Like all poetry volumes, not for everyone, and best consumed in small doses.
This is a book only for those that especially love San Francisco--on the other hand, if you don't, you are not worthy of reading this tome anyway.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this after reading Kevin Starr's history of California in the 1950s. Lots of snappy San Francisco one-liners, some of them admittedly quite corny but there's lots of interesting history buried in this collection of daily columns by veteran newspaperman Caen.

[Sheehan · Rating 5 out of 5]

All praises due to the king of ellipses!

This book is by far the best homage to a city I have read to date, Caen is a true insider, with a writing style that is succinct and insightful. This is not news to anyone who has lived in the Bay Area in the era of print papers.

The book is a great city history, an "on the ground" examination of what was happening with the people pf San Francisco. Filled with so so many persistent themes, which I still see played out to date, who "owns" SF? who claims it? "change is crazy because..." it's all still happening, and seeing the modern dilemmas in relief to the historical dramas is awesome in it's consistency.

Herb Caen is San Francisco.

[B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rather sentimental... oh wait, that's the whole idea! Reading great-grandmother's copy of the 1953 edition, jacket price $3.50.

[Vinnie Mann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Learn what it means to be from San Francisco

[Duke Cullinan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved reading Caen's daily columns in the San Francisco Chronicle in the late '70s and onward. He's engaging and witty. Really doesn't get old.

This book is stuff from the '40s and '50s when he was younger, more florid and less concise (not a flaw). He's quite poetic about that golden age of San Francisco, and it's neat to see what he wrote real time - whereas in later years he would often drop a nostalgic column about the old days. In that regard, you can really see what it was like to live it, not just remember it.

Ahh, to be young and find yourself in paradise . . .

[Tessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

love letters to san francisco through and through. if i ever have kids i will read this book outloud to them.

[Mw Moses]

11/2013

[Steve]

Herb's third book, written in 1953, after Baghdad By the Bay (1949) and Baghdad '51 (1951). Again, it is a compilation of his San Francisco Chronicle newspaper column, with additional anecdotes.