cover image San Francisco

San Francisco

Santi Visalli. Universe Publishing(NY), $22.5 (128pp) ISBN 978-0-7893-0848-1

Part of Universe's series covering U.S. cities (New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc.), this book serves less to show us something new about this relentlessly exposed city than to hit the high notes with enough grace to get through yet another touristic monograph. Visalli is a veteran photojournalist, and this set of expected shots shows some admirable restraint: only about a dozen of the nearly 100 shots here (including the front cover) are of the Golden Gate Bridge, while the pics of the Transamerica Pyramid building can be counted on one hand and the oft ignored Bay Bridge shows up in a lovely night skyline. Starr, state librarian of California and a San Francisco native, gives a full-bodied account of the city's multi-ethnic composition and ethos of tolerance that rings true. Very few of the pictures here include people, though, and there is little in them that hasn't been better covered elsewhere, particularly given a by-the-numbers lay-out that fails to lift the book out of the pack.