List of Books About Oakland, California - Biographies and Autobiographies

Biographies and Autobiographies

• 1917 About "The Hights" at Oakland, California, Juanita Miller (Oakland: Chas. P. MacLafferty).

• 1931 My Own Story, John L. Davie (Oakland: Post-Enquirer Publishing). Autobiography of the long-serving former mayor; revised by Jack Herzberg and reissued 1988 as His Honor, The Buckaroo (Reno: Publisher Jack Herzberg).

• 1937 Everybody's Autobiography, Gertrude Stein (New York: Random House). Brief mention of Oakland, from the woman who coined the phrase, "There's no there there".

• 1938 Dr. Samuel Merritt, His Life and Achievements, Henning Koford (Oakland).

• 1953 The Story of Cyrus and Susan Mills, Elias Olan James (Stanford: Stanford University Press). biography of the founders of Mills College.

• 1967 Some Random Reminiscences of an Antiquarian Bookseller, Harold C. Holmes (Oakland: Holmes Book Company). Holmes Books was a bookstore in downtown Oakland.

• 1972 Celebrities At Your Doorstep, Leonard, H. Verbarg (n.p.: Alameda County Historical Society). A compilation of newspaper columns profiling Oakland and East Bay personalities.

• 1964 Alex Dunsmuir's Dilemma, James Audain (Victoria, B.C.: Sunnyland Publishing). Audain is the great-nephew of local figure Dunsmuir, of the Dunsmuir House.

• 1973 Ina Coolbrith, Librarian and Laureate of California, Josephine DeWitt Rhodehamel and Raymund Francis Wood (Provo: BYU Press). How a niece of Joseph Smith's became Oakland's first librarian and California's first Poet Laureate.

• 1982 Borax Pioneer: Francis Marion Smith, George Herbert Hildebrand (San Diego: Howell-North Books). The story of "Borax" Smith, of Oakland's Realty Syndicate, Key Route, and Arbor Villa (his expansive mansion) fame.

• 1990 Six Gold Stars Vol. 1: Thirty Years of Fighting Sin & High Crime with Oakland's Favorite Cop, Jean Mackellar, ed. (Berkeley: Glen Press).

• 1990 Jack London and His Daughters, Joan London (Berkeley: Heyday Books).

• 1991 Slick: The Silver-And-Black Life of Al Davis, Mark Ribowsky (New York: Macmillian).

• 1992 The Water King: Anthony Chabot, His Life & Times, Sherwood D. Burgess (Davis, CA: Panorama West Publishing).

• 1994 The Calvin Simmons Story, Rina Evelyn Wolfe (Berkeley: Muse Wood Press).

• 1998 One Step From the White House: The Rise and Fall of Senator William F. Knowland, Gayle B. Montgomery and James W. Johnson (Berkeley: Univ. of Calif.). All about our former Senate Majority Leader, newspaper publisher, failed gubernatorial and presidential aspirant, and—in the end—dismal suicide.

• 1999 Jack London: A Life, Alex Kershaw (New York: St. Martin's Griffin).

• 1999 Prophet of the Parks: The Story of William Penn Mott, Mary Ellen Butler (Ashburn, VA: The National Recreation and Park Association). The story of Oakland's former parks superintendent who went on to manage the East Bay Regional Park District, direct the California Parks and Recreation Department, and eventually direct the National Park Service.

• 2000 Lying Down With the Lions: A Public Life from the Streets of Oakland to the Halls of Power, Ronald Dellums and H. Lee Halterman (Boston: Beacon Press). The story of Dellums' 27 years as Congressman for California's 9th District, before entering the halls of power back on the streets of Oakland.

• 2000 Miner, Preacher, Doctor, Teacher: Stories of an Odyssey from Ann Arbor, Michigan to Ketchikan, Alaska, to a Pioneering Medical Career in Oakland, California, Frederic M. Loomis, compiled by Lee Sims (Walnut Creek: Hardscratch Press). Loomis was Sims' grandfather.

• 2001 Yellow Journalist: Dispatches from Asian America, William Wong (Philadelphia: Temple).

• 2001 At The Cross: The Napoleon Kaufman Story, Napoleon Kaufman & Jimmie Hand (San Ramon: CWC Publishing).

• 2003 The Dragon and the Tiger, Vol. 1: The Birth of Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do, the Oakland Years, Greglon Lee and Sid Campbell (Berkeley: Frog, Ltd.). Bruce Lee lived in Oakland and developed much of his early technique in houses in the Grand Lake and Maxwell Park neighborhoods. Vol. 2 appeared in 2005, and then Remembering the Master: Bruce Lee, James Yimm Lee and the Creation of Jeet Kune Do in 2006.

• 2004 On the Jericho Road: A Memoir of Racial Justice, Social Action and Prophetic Ministry, J. Alfred Smith Sr. with Harry Louis Williams II (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press). Smith's life and work, especially his long and fruitful tenure at the Allen Temple Baptist Church (1971–2007).

• 2004 The Jerry Brown Reader, ed. Erik Bucy (Berkeley: Berkeley Hills Books). It includes speeches, essays, interviews, and media profiles up through his residence and mayoral tenure in Oakland.

• 2005 The Promise: How One Woman Made Good on Her Extraordinary Pact to Send a Classroom of First Graders to College, Oral Lee Brown, with Caille Millner (New York: Doubleday).

• 2006 Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford, Jessica Mitford, ed. Peter Y. Sussman (New York: Knopf). Our naturalized muckraking journalist, best known for her exposé of the funeral industry, The American Way of Death, lived in Oakland up to her own death in 1996.

• 2008 Regards from the Dragon: Oakland, George Lee and David Tadman (Los Angeles: Empire Books). Another account of Bruce Lee’s time in Oakland.

• 2008 Oakland, Jack London, and Me, Eric Miles Williamson (Huntsville, Texas: Texas Review Press).

• 2008 BeatCop: A True and Fascinating Journey into the Perilous Career of a Police Officer., Jack Lundquist, Jr. (N.P., Vegasjacklv.com).

• 2009 ViceCop: A Captivating Journey into the Life and World of a Vice Cop., Jack Lundquist, Jr. (N.P., Vegasjacklv.com). Sequel to BeatCop.

• 2010 Charles Finley: The Outrageous Story of Baseball's Super Showman, G. Michael Green and Roger D. Launius (Walker & Company).