Holiday Gift Guide: 10 Picks from S.F. Booksellers

By Alexis Coe Wed., Dec. 5 2012 at 9:30 AM

Categories: Advice, Books and Literature, Holiday, Read Local

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3. Soft Apocalypse, Borderlands Bookstore

I'd like to recommend Soft Apocalypse by Will McIntosh, published by San Francisco's Night Shade Books. This is a harrowing (and all-too-possible) story of what might happen if our society started to crumble. It's about ordinary people dealing with the loss of everything familiar; the ways in which they create new social structures and new modes of survival. It's not cheerful, but it is right on the mark, and perfect for fans of apocalypse fiction like The Road. -- Jude Feldman, bookseller

2. Poses, Bird & Beckett

Genine Lentine's new book, Poses, from Kelly's Cove Press in Berkeley, is an exquisite book -- a fascinating essay, or perhaps sequence of prose poems, probing questions raised by some Richard Diebenkorn pencil sketches of art models, beautifully assembled by the publisher with fine reproductions of the sketches in question. Lentine is one of the most interesting young poets at work in the Bay Area, and the press is forging new ground in creating beautiful books at the intersection of art and literature. -- Eric Whittington, owner

1. Cindy's Supper Club, Omnivore Books

Cindy Pawlcyn is best known for her pioneering Napa restaurant, Mustards Grill, which was on the scene way before any of that crazy stuff happened in Yountville. Her other restaurant, Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen, is less well-known, but locals in St. Helena flock to it for her Supper Club, in which meals from around the world are served twice a week. Pawlcyn's book pays homage to the Supper Club, and creates full menus for countries all over the world you may never even go: Peru, Georgia, Japan, Lebanon, Ethiopia, Norway, and Brazil, just to name just a few. The recipes work, and the results are delicious, so push your boundaries and dive in. -- Celia Sack, co-owner

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