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Welcome to City Lights Publishers!

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.

Featured Titles from City Lights Publishers

Cha-Ching!

Ali Liebegott

New from City Lights/Sister Spit! A tender, unforgettable story about being young and broke in America, and the conjoined hearts of love and addiction.

Poems Retrieved

Frank O'Hara

A reissue of the classic, essential companion to O'Hara's "Collected Poems," with a new foreword by Bill Berkson. Berkson and Richard O. Moore will join us on Thursday, May 2nd, 7pm at City Lights to discuss the remarkable life and work of Frank O'Hara.

Joie de Vivre
Selected Poems 1992-2012

Lisa Jarnot

New Spotlight Poetry: A selection from twenty years of poetry from one of the key avant-garde women poets of the post-Language generation.

Love Poems from Spain and Spanish America

Perry Higman

The nearly seventy poems in this bilingual anthology are concerned with many kinds of love: erotic love, sublime love, filial love, maternal love, and love between brother and sister. They also explore feelings of friendship, solidarity, and the...

The End of San Francisco

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

Just in! An elegy for the dream of a radical queer community, and the mythical city that was supposed to nurture it.

Los Angeles Stories

Ry Cooder

Available Now: World-famous musician Ry Cooder publishes his first collection of stories.

Who's to Say What's Obscene?
Politics, Culture and Comedy in America Today

Paul Krassner

Satirical essays by a countercultural icon about the moral obscenity of contemporary politics, culture, and comedy

Howl and Other Poems
Pocket Poets Number 4

Allen Ginsberg

The epigraph for Howl is from Walt Whitman: "Unscrew the locks from the doors!/Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!" Announcing his intentions with this ringing motto, Allen Ginsberg published a volume of poetry which broke so many social...