Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love
“I read Season of the Witch, an awesome book about San Francisco.”
Why it is worth your time
Season of the Witch is David Talbot's 2012 history of San Francisco from 1967 to 1982. Talbot founded Salon in 1995. The book runs from the Summer of Love through Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple, the Jonestown deaths, the killings of George Moscone and Harvey Milk, and the first AIDS cases, and ends with the 49ers' first Super Bowl win as the moment the city came back together. Jason posted in July 2019 that he had read it and called it an awesome book about San Francisco. He has long ties to the city and strong views on how it is run, a theme the podcast returns to often. It suits readers who want the city's recent history told through its people. The caveat is that much of it is dark: the Zodiac and Zebra killings, Jonestown, the Moscone and Milk murders, and early AIDS. Kirkus also found Talbot a little too enamored of the city's romance.
