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City Lights Launches Our Blog!
The virtual home for our growing collection of favorite authors writing on their favorite topics.
Look forward to posts from some of our favorites authors on topics ranging our breadth of interests. We're kicking off this endeavor with pieces from
Philip Huang, D. Scot Miller, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore,
Andrew Joron, Sesshu Foster, and Ben Ehrenreich.
This week at City Lights: Weds. Feb. 22 at 7pm John Nichols, and Thurs. Feb. 23 at 7pm Gayle S. Rubin.
More upcoming events at City Lights here.
New! Live from City Lights Podcasts featuring Charlie Newton and the RE/BEAT Manifesto, and Jarrett Kobek with Katrina Palmer!
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Welcome to City Lights Books of San Francisco
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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>>
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New at City Lights Bookstore
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At Sea
A poem for Pablo Neruda by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
EXCLUSIVELY AVAILABLE AT CITY LIGHTS!
Exquisite handmade letterpress edition of Lawrence Ferlinghetti's new poem, "At Sea".
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The H. D. Book
Robert Duncan, Michael Boughn
This magisterial work, long awaited and long the subject of passionate speculation, is an unprecedented exploration of modern poetry and poetics by one of America's most acclaimed and influential postwar poets.
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Rub Out the Words
The Letters of William S. Burroughs 1959-1974
William S. Burroughs, Bill Morgan
In this long anticipated collection, editor Bill Morgan takes readers through Burroughs' correspondence from the early sixties through the mid-seventies, in more than three hundred letters that document Burroughs’ steady drift away from the Beat circle...
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Useless Landscape
Or, A Guide for Boys
D. A. Powell
In D. A. Powell's fifth book of poetry, the rollicking line he has made his signature becomes the taut, more discursive means to describing beauty, singing a dirge, directing an ironic smile, or questioning who in any given setting is the instructor...
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China in Ten Words
Yu Hua
From one of China's most acclaimed writers, his first work of nonfiction to appear in English: a unique, intimate look at the Chinese experience over the last several decades, told through personal stories and astute analysis that sharply illuminate...
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Hope: A Tragedy
A Novel
Shalom Auslander
The critically acclaimed writer Shalom Auslander's debut novel is a hilarious and disquieting examination of the burdens and abuse of history, propelled with unstoppable rhythm and filled with existential musings and mordant wit. It is a comic and...
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Autumn in The Heavenly Kingdom
China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War
Stephen R. Platt
A gripping account of China's nineteenth-century Taiping Rebellion, one of the largest civil wars in history. Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom brims with unforgettable characters and vivid re-creations of massive and often gruesome battles...
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Thinking the Twentieth Century
Tony Judt
The final book of the brilliant historian and indomitable public critic Tony Judt, Thinking the Twentieth Century maps the issues and concerns of a turbulent age on to a life of intellectual conflict and engagement.
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The Last Holiday
A Memoir
Gil Scott-Heron
This posthumous publication of The Last Holiday is a fitting testament to the career and achievements of Gil Scott-Heron. But it is also a heartfelt and highly personal account of his growing up in the South, a touching portrait of Stevie Wonder...
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New and Forthcoming from City Lights Publishers
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Redefining Black Power
Reflections on the State of Black America
Joanne Griffith
Just published: Conversations with black leaders and activists exploring current African American political and cultural life.
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Dear White America
Letter to a New Minority
Tim Wise
Just out: Wise addresses whites' anxiety about cultural shifts displacing their power and privilege, and offers ideas on how to move forward.
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Making the Future
Occupations, Interventions, Empire and Resistance
Noam Chomsky
New from Noam Chomsky: Short, forceful commentaries on U.S. politics, from the economic crisis to Obama's strategies in Afghanistan and around the world.
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Citizen
Aaron Shurin
New!: In Citizen, Shurin has collected vibrant new poems that are, by turns, romantic, visceral, edgy, and unabashedly beautiful.
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Los Angeles Stories
Ry Cooder
Available Now: World-famous musician Ry Cooder publishes his first collection of stories.
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Crusade 2.0
The West's Resurgent War on Islam
John Feffer
Forthcoming in March: Why anti-Muslim sentiment is on the rise in the U.S. and Europe, and what can be done to stop it.
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I Must Resist
Bayard Rustin's Life in Letters
Bayard Rustin, Julian Bond, Michael G Long
Forthcoming in March: Bayard Rustin's life story told in his own words through his intimate correspondence, published on the centennial of his birth.
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Friends, Followers and the Future
How Social Media are Changing Politics, Threatening Big Brands, and Killing Traditional Media
Rory O'Connor
Forthcoming in April: Award-winning journalist Rory O'Connor explores how social media is transforming not only politics, media, and business, but every aspect of how we live.
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Occupy the Economy
Challenging Capitalism
Richard Wolff, David Barsamian
Out in May: A hot-button primer on the taboo subject impacting most Americans today: the failure of the capitalism to deliver public good.
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