This is a picture of beautiful San Francisco from the island on August 11, 2012 (The 78th Anniversary Reunion of the Prison's Opening, to the day).
There are a lot of great books out there for Alcatraz fans (can't wait to add mine), and here is a list of some that I have read:
Albright, Jim. Last Guard Out. Bloomington, IN: Author House, 2010
Babyak, Jolene. Bird Man: The Many Faces of Robert Stroud. Berkeley, CA: Ariel Vamp
Press, 1994.
Babyak, Jolene. Breaking the Rock: The Great Escape from Alcatraz. Berkeley, CA:
Ariel Vamp Press, 2001.
Babyak, Jolene, Eyewitness on Alcatraz. Berkeley, CA:
Ariel Vamp Press, 1988.
Beacher, Milton Daniel, M.D. Alcatraz Island: Memoirs of a Rock Doc.
Lebanon, NJ: Pelican Island Publishing, 2001.
Burke, Dennis. Doing Time: Finding Hope at San Quentin. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press,
2008.
Coon, Darwin E. Alcatraz: The True End of the Line. Sacramento, CA: New Desmas
Press, 2002.
DeNevi, Don. Riddle of the Rock: The Only Successful Escape from Alcatraz. New
York, NY: Promethius Books, 1991.
Eshelman, Byron E.; Riley, Frank. Death Row Chaplain. Englewood Cliffs,
NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1962.
Esslinger, Michael. Alcatraz: A Definitive History of the Penitentiary Years. Carmel,
CA: Ocean View Publishing, 2003.
Esslinger, Michael. Letters from Alcatraz. Carmel, CA: Ocean View Publishing, 2008.
Gregory, George H. Alcatraz Screw. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2002.
Heaney, Frank; Machado, Gay. Inside the Walls of Alcatraz.
Self-Published, 1987.
Luke, Robert. Entombed in Alcatraz. Self-Published, 2011.
Sevinga, Anne. Good Men on the Rock. Holland: Self-published, 2004.
Quillen, Jim. Alcatraz
From Inside: The Hard Years 1942-1952.
San Francisco, CA: Golden Gate National Parks Association, 1991.
Vercillo, Kathryn. Ghosts of Alcatraz. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 2008.
Ward, David and Kessebaum, Gene. Alcatraz: The Gangster Years. Berkeley
and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2009.