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.

Scroll down for a selection of our new and notable titles, and take a look at our recent releases and our forthcoming titles!

Imprints & series include:

City Lights Pocket Poets Series
Classics such as Howl and Other Poems and Lunch Poems, as well as books by Jack Kerouac, Anne Waldman, David Meltzer, Julio Cortázar, Philip Lamantia, Jacques Prevert, Pier Paolo Passolini, and many more.

City Lights Open Media Series
Committed to solidarity with social movements promoting greater freedom, justice, and democracy by publishing the most outspoken scholars, advocates, and dissidents of our time. Authors in the series include Howard Zinn, Angela Y. Davis, Ralph Nader, Noam Chomsky, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Tim Wise, Henry A. Giroux, and John Gibler.

City Lights Foundation
The Foundation's role is to advance deep literacy, which is not only the ability to read and write but fluency in the knowledge and skills that enable us to consciously shape our lives and the life of our community. Our San Francisco Poet Laureate Series is published by the Foundation, as well as memoirs, anthologies, and other nonfiction.

City Lights/Sister Spit
Queer-centric, feminist, irreverent books from artists across the U.S. Includes our New York Times bestselling book for kids, Rad American Women A-Z, and critically acclaimed books by Thomas Page McBee, Chinaka Hodge, Lenelle Moïse, Beth Lisick, Dia Felix, and Ali Liebegott.

City Lights Spotlight Series
In the tradition of the press's storied poetic origins, City Lights Spotlight hopes to shine a light on the wealth of innovative American poetry being written today using the cultural visibility of City Lights to bring their work to a wider audience. Authors include Norma Cole, Anselm Berrigan, Lisa Jarnot, Catherine Wagner, Julian Talamantez Brolaski, Julien Poirier, and Will Alexander.

Featured Titles from City Lights Publishers

Whistleblower at the CIA
An Insider's Account of the Politics of Intelligence

Melvin A. Goodman

Russia expert and former CIA analyst Mel Goodman tells the inside story of political corruption at the organization, and what he did to try to stop it.

Behind the Moon

Madison Smartt Bell

One of "O Magazine's" Top 20 Books to Read This Summer: "a kind of primal storytelling that crackles with dread and desire."

Have Black Lives Ever Mattered?

Mumia Abu-Jamal

"A must-read for anyone interested in social justice and inequalities, social movements, the criminal justice system, and African American history. An excellent companion to Michelle Alexander's "The New Jim Crow" and Ava DuVernay's documentary "13th"."—Library Journal, Starred Review

Breaking Through Power
It's Easier Than We Think

Ralph Nader

"Anybody who says that they don't know what to do and that they're horrified by what's going on in Washington—this is the book for you to start with."—Ralph Nader discussing his new book Breaking Through Power: It’s Easier Than We Think

"For those interested in resisting, I highly recommend Breaking Through Power."—Tavis Smiley

America at War with Itself

Henry A. Giroux

An eye-opening critique of how America's drift toward authoritarian intolerance is dividing the nation and intensifying social and political conflicts.

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

Kate Schatz, Miriam Klein Stahl

New York Times Bestseller! A book for children—and their parents, teachers, and cool grown-up friends—documenting America's famous and unsung heroines.

On to the Next Dream

Paul Madonna

The tech gentrification of San Francisco, forcing out everyone from artists to middle-income families, captured in a first-person illustrated story.

Selected Poems of Malcolm Lowry
Pocket Poets Series Number 17

Malcolm Lowry, Earle A. Birney

First collection of Lowry's poetic canon, including most of the Mexican verses related to his novel, Under the Volcano.

In Memory of an Angel

David Shapiro

The first full-length collection in fifteen years from New York School prodigy and master of lyrical abstraction David Shapiro.

Holy Ghost
City Lights Spotlight No. 15

David Brazil

Anarcho-socialism meets Christian mysticism in an Occupy veteran's avant-garde poems.

Lost Profiles
Memoirs of Cubism, Dada, and Surrealism

Philippe Soupault

A literary retrospective of a crucial period in modernism—the transition from Dada to Surrealism––via portraits and encounters with its literary lions, including Joyce, Proust, Reverdy, Apollinaire, Crevel and more by the co-founder of the Paris surrealist group.

and then we became

devorah major

Reaching from the kitchen table to the stars, ruminations on who we are, and how we became who we are.

Dated Emcees

Chinaka Hodge

"These are poems to read every day. To make mantras from. They are the best poems you've ever read."––Daveed Diggs, star of Hamilton

Save Twilight: Selected Poems
Pocket Poets Number 53

Julio Cortázar

Newly expanded edition of a classic: the first and only collection of Cortázar's poetry to appear in English.

Notes on the Assemblage

Juan Felipe Herrera

"[This year] Juan Felipe Herrera's Notes on the Assemblage has been a ladder of hope . . ."––Ada Limón, The New Yorker

Old Angel Midnight

Jack Kerouac

"The only book I've ever written in which I've allowed myself to say absolutely anything I want."—Jack Kerouac