Big Alma: San Francisco's Alma Spreckels [Paperback]

Bernice Scharlach (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 334 pages
• Publisher: Scottwall Associates (October 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0942087119
• ISBN-13: 978-0942087116
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #606,224 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Very readable biography of a free spirit in old San Francisc, November 16, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Big Alma: San Francisco's Alma Spreckels (Paperback)

A well researched history of Alma Spreckles, of the Spreckles sugar fortune. The life of Alma, a determined woman, active arts patron, and socalite, is told in a fast moving story. I bought this for my mother, who enjoyed it and sent it back for me to read too.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a woman!, March 16, 2003

By 

J. Clerkin "J. Clerkin-Whitcomb" (richmond, ca United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Big Alma: San Francisco's Alma Spreckels (Hardcover)

Alma Spreckles led a life most of us only associate with heroines
in novels - but she was the real deal. Ordinarily, I'm not a huge fan of biographies, but author Bernice Scharlach brings vivid life to her subject and the times she lived in. Outside of the SF bay area, how many people are aware of this great lady and the role she played on an international scale in bringing not only fine art to the masses, but help and comfort to thousands in need over the decades? Alma de Brettville Spreckles was truly one of the great "characters" of the past century, anyone with an interest in history, art, or just a great story will enjoy this book - where's the movie?

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Live large, live vividly, swim nude, March 21, 2007

By 

J. D. Foy "David Foy" (Calgary) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Big Alma: San Francisco's Alma Spreckels (Paperback)

Bernice Scharlach may not be quite the writer her subject deserves. But never mind. Nothing, not even Scharlach's sometimes pedestrian prose could flatten Alma deBretteville Spreckles, who was easily -- hands down -- one of the most vivid personalities associated with a State, and a time, that took the concept of "vivid personality" to a whole new level.
And give Scharlach her due. She's a thorough, and -- importantly -- a level-headed researcher. God bless her for interviewing some of the people, now very old, who knew Alma personally. God bless her for keeping a detached look at the sometimes highly personalized views of who, and what, Alma really was. It's not hard to understand why Alma could be loved by some and reviled by others. She was an amazing amalgam of vulgarity and class, the likes of which we seldom get to witness. Scharlach accurately portrays the complex woman Alma was, who could never neatly be slotted into some category or other. Item: the De Young girls never missed a chance to cut Alma dead at society functions, and Alma had enormous fun with this. She'd usually respond by saying to her companions, in her loud, raspy voice, "Never mind. They haven't spoken to me since my husband shot their father." Read this book and discover what that was all about!