Welcome to City Lights Books
of San Francisco

City Lights is a landmark independent bookstore and publisher that specializes in world literature, the arts, and progressive politics.

Founded in 1953 by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter D. Martin, City Lights is one of the truly great independent bookstores in the United States, a place where booklovers from across the country and around the world come to browse, read, and just soak in the ambiance of alternative culture's only "Literary Landmark."... Read more>>

New at City Lights Bookstore

 

Freedom
Freedom
A Novel
Jonathan Franzen
In his first novel since The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen has given us an epic of contemporary love and marriage. Freedom comically and tragically captures the temptations and burdens of liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of...

The Elephant's Journey
The Elephant's Journey
Jose Saramago
In 1551, King João III of Portugal gave Archduke Maximilian an unusual wedding present: an elephant named Solomon. The elephant's journey from Lisbon to Vienna was witnessed and remarked upon by scholars, historians, and ordinary people. Out of this...

Charlie Chan
Charlie Chan
The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History
Yunte Huang
"An ingenious and absorbing book, that provides a convincing new mode for examining the Chinese experience through both Chinese and Western eyes. It will permanently change the way we tell this troubled yet gripping story."—Jonathan Spence, author of...

    

New from City Lights Publishers!

In Danger
In Danger
A Pasolini Anthology
Pier Paolo Pasolini, Jack Hirschman
In Danger reveals the literary life of internationally renowned filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini

Stranger in Town
Stranger in Town
Cedar Sigo
Redolent of Wieners, Whalen, and Lamantia, Stranger in Town is the second coming of the SF Renaissance.

The Bomb
The Bomb
Howard Zinn
Howard Zinn's personal, historical, and political views on the significance of the U.S. bombings of Royan and Hiroshima

Colorblind
Colorblind
The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity
Tim Wise
How "colorblindness" in policy and personal practice perpetuate racial inequity in the United States today

New World of Indigenous Resistance
New World of Indigenous Resistance
Noam Chomsky and Voices from North, South, and Central America
Noam Chomsky, Lois Meyer, Benjamín Maldonado
Interviews with Chomsky accompanied by commentaries by indigenous organizers on globalization and resistance in the Americas