Founded in 1955, with nearly 200 books in print, City Lights publishes cutting-edge fiction, poetry, memoirs, literary translations and books on vital social and political issues.

This year marks our 60th anniversary as a publisher, starting with Pictures of the Gone World by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Pocket Poets No. 1 (a new 60th anniversary edition is forthcoming Fall 2015).

Spring 2015 will see the publication of the City Lights Pocket Poets Anthology, 60th Anniversary Edition, edited by Ferlinghetti and a book of selected correspondence between Allen Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti, I Greet You at the Beginning of a Great Career. We're also publishing our very first book for children, Rad American Women A-Z.

Featured Titles from City Lights Publishers

City Lights Pocket Poets Anthology
60th Anniversary Edition

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Forthcoming! A comprehensive selection from Ferlinghetti's famed City Lights Pocket Poets Series, published on the 60th anniversary of its founding.

I Greet You at the Beginning of a Great Career
The Selected Correspondence of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg, 1955-1997

Bill Morgan

Forthcoming: Marking the 60th anniversary of City Lights Publishers, we present the intimate correspondence of Ginsberg & Ferlinghetti, documenting one of the longest relationships between a publisher and a writer.

Rad American Women A-Z
Rebels, Trailblazers, and Visionaries Who Shaped Our History . . . and Our Future!

Kate Schatz, Miriam Klein Stahl

Forthcoming in March! A book for children—and their parents, teachers, and cool grown-up friends—documenting America's famous and unsung heroines.

Beautiful Chaos
A Life in the Theater

Carey Perloff

NOW Available: Carey Perloff, Artistic Director of San Francisco's ACT, pens a memoir of her career in the theater offering a provocative, passionate, and deeply personal view of theater's role today.

Lit Up Inside
Selected Lyrics

Van Morrison

It's here!! Van Morrison selects his best and most iconic lyrics, spanning 50 years of writing and representing his entire creative journey. Gorgeous hardcover edition now available.

Lunch Poems
50th Anniversary Edition

Frank O'Hara

Now available! Exquisite 50th anniversary hardcover gift edition of the groundbreaking poetry collection by the leader of the "New York School" of poetry.

Man Alive
A True Story of Violence, Forgiveness and Becoming a Man

Thomas Page McBee

Out now from City Lights/Sister Spit: Far from a transgender transition tell-all, here is a personal yet universal story of charting one's course to ultimate self-recognition. Thomas Page McBee's writings on gender have appeared in the New York Times, Vice, and Salon, and he writes the "Self-Made Man" column for The Rumpus

The Penguin's Song

Hassan Daoud

A family in exile from their home in old Beirut contends with claustrophobic conditions, recriminations, and unrealizable dreams of return. Daoud is one of the Arabic world's premier novelists. Translated from the Arabic by Marilyn Booth.

The Poetry Deal
San Francisco Poet Laureate Series No. 5

Diane di Prima

San Francisco Poet Laureate Series No. 5: The Poetry Deal is the first full-length collection of poems in decades from legendary feminist Beat poet, Diane di Prima. "A prolific writer generally associated with the Beat Generation, di Prima deserves wider recognition."—Library Journal

The Violence of Organized Forgetting
Thinking Beyond America's Disimagination Machine

Henry A. Giroux

"Giroux refuses to give in or give up. The Violence of Organized Forgetting is a clarion call to imagine a different America—just, fair, and caring—and then to struggle for it."—Bill Moyers

Deep Code
City Lights Spotlight No. 12

John Coletti

City Lights Spotlight Series No. 12: Deep Code explores "side language," as a subset of other languages, whether slang or metaphor, to both communicate and obfuscate.