Blog
5 Questions with Adam Shatz, Author of WRITERS AND MISSIONARIES
Lately I've been revisiting the work of Henry Threadgill, a saxophonist, flutist, and composer whose music has been a part of my life since I was in my teens and first saw a picture of him in, of all places, an advertisement for Dewar's.
5 Questions with Kristen R. Ghodsee, Author of EVERYDAY UTOPIA
I write these words from a temporal oubliette known as late-stage capitalism. We are on the cusp of something new and exciting, but we just can’t see it yet. The radically new is almost always invisible from the perspective of those still stuck in the old.
Catching Heat from Big Brother: Education and Climate in MAGAland
In those states where information and educational systems are increasingly being used as tools for thought control, more and more people will be going through life ill equipped to understand how much ecological peril humanity faces, or how deep a transformation will be required of us.
5 Questions with Brandon Shimoda, Author of HYDRA MEDUSA
I was asked to write the introduction. I couldn’t say no, but how could I say yes? If I said yes, I’d be in trouble, because how could I live up to the invitation to introduce a writer who is so transcendently meaningful to me? But if I said no, I’d be in a different, more enduring kind of trouble. I said yes.
5 Questions with Jane Smiley, Author of THE QUESTIONS THAT MATTER MOST
Jane Smiley answers 5 questions for City Lights about artists who influence her work, books she's reading right now and what is bringing her joy.
Needed: Either Degrowth or Two Earths
Societies must decide: do we want a growing GDP or a livable future? We can’t have both.
5 Questions with Eddie Muller, Author of EDDIE MULLER’S NOIR BAR: Cocktails Inspired by the World of Film Noir
I’d buy an old movie palace and convert it into a combination bar, bookstore, and cinema. Finding the perfect venue would dictate where it would be, but odds are it’d need to be a university town if you really wanted to make a living at it. What would I call it? How about “Lush Life?” Four and four, good for the marquee. If I had an apartment upstairs, I’d never leave.
Viva Bob Sharrard!
Bob was hired on as a bookseller at City Lights in 1977, and he stayed on for a 40-year career, ultimately becoming a Senior Editor and Rights Manager for City Lights Publishers. He retired in 2017 and lived in his longtime North Beach apartment until his passing earlier this year.
5 Questions with Max Porter, Author of SHY
There is a children's book called Angry Arthur which is very important to me and the study of boyhood in my work.
The Old Future Is Gone, and Technology Won’t Bring It Back
Even as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that efforts to prevent ecological meltdown are approaching a “rapidly closing window” for action, the nations of the North are holding back, discussing instead the color of the curtains.