October 24, 2017, Tuesday afternoon -- Reading Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey

In Dolores Park

He is reading Here, There, and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of The Beatles, by Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey. He's a Beatles fan and borrowed it from friends.

Something else good he read recently was Tenth of December, a book of short stories by George Saunders.

 

October 15, 2017, Sunday evening -- Reading Neil Gaiman

On Potrero Hill

He is reading American Gods, by Neil Gaiman. He got it at the bookstore across the street from where he's sitting. He said it's a change from what he usually reads, which is science related or, lately, philosophy books for school. Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell was the last non-school book he's read.

 

October 2, 2017, Monday morning -- Reading Luís Alberto Urrea

In the Financial District

She is reading The Hummingbird's Daughter, by Luís Alberto Urrea. She found this book, and most of the books she reads, at thrift stores and pays about 50 cents. So far, she said, it's worked out great.

A couple of her favorite authors are Carlos Castaneda and DH Lawrence. 

She told me that I looked like a hippie (maybe it was my new black sunhat) and we started talking about it being the 50th Anniversary of the Summer of Love. She said she was there, in the Haight Ashbury in 1967, listening to Joan Baez.

September 30, 2017, Saturday afternoon -- Reading Eve Babitz

In the Mission District

She is reading Eve's Hollywood, by Eve Babitz. It's a collection of short stories about a single woman in her 20's living in Southern California and New York. The stories written in the 70's, but was published recently.

Her favorite book is the Grapes of Wrath, by Steinbeck.

September 27, 2017, Wednesday evening -- Reading Rachel Cusk

While working at a bookstore on Potrero Hill

She is reading Outline, by Rachel Cusk. She wasn't actually reading it when I walked into the shop, but I saw a book sitting next to her and asked if she would be reading it when I left, and she explained that the book I'd pointed at, The Dinner, by Herman Koch, she was just previewing for her mother, to see if it would be good for her to read on vacation (still undecided), and that the book she was really reading was the one next to it, this one, Outline, by Rachel Cusk, which is about a woman teaching writing in Greece.

Her favorite book is Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. She's read it 4 times. She likes that it's situated between different genres. It was one of the first Science Fiction books, and is also a bildungsroman and a gothic ghost story. She also likes the story behind how it was written and that it was written by an 18 year old woman.