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City Lights Bookstore is Open Every Day from 12–8PM. 

Please note that everyone must wear a face mask covering both nose and mouth at all times while in the bookstore.

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View the complete calendar.

 

New Merch Item
 

It's back! - The Kerouac Alley Shoulder Bag

This sturdy canvas shoulder bag features a whimsical depiction of the scene in Jack Kerouac Alley when our next-door neighbors, Vesuvio Cafe, have their tables out in the alley for outdoor service. It's magic!

$25.00

 


 

 

New at City Lights Bookstore

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¡Printing the Revolution!: The Rise and Impact of Chicano Graphics, 1965 to Now
Claudia E. Zapata , Terezita Romo , Tatiana Reinoza, E. Carmen Ramos
A groundbreaking look at how Chicano graphic artists and their collaborators have used their work to imagine and sustain identities and political viewpoints during the past half century --recommended by Paul

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The Prophets
Robert Jones Jr.
A singular and stunning debut novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation, the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence.

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The Benjamin Files
Fredric Jameson
The Benjamin Files offers a comprehensive new reading of all of Benjamin's major works and a great number of his shorter book reviews, notes and letters. Its premise is that Benjamin was an anti-philosophical, anti-systematic thinker whose conceptual interests also felt the gravitational pull of his vocation as a writer.

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The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart
Alicia Garza
An essential guide to building transformative movements to address the challenges of our time, from one of the country's leading organizers and a co-creator of Black Lives Matter --Recommended by Paul

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The Dead Are Arising
The Life of Malcolm X
Les Payne, Tamara Payne
An epic biography of Malcolm X finally emerges, drawing on hundreds of hours of the author's interviews, rewriting much of the known narrative.

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The United States of War: A Global History of America's Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to the Islamic State (Volume 48) (California Series in Public Anthropology)
David Vine
In The United States of War, David Vine traces this pattern of bloody conflict from Columbus's 1494 arrival in Guantanamo Bay through the 250-year expansion of a global US empire.

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That Was Now, This Is Then: Poems
Vijay Seshadri
The brilliant new collection from Vijay Seshadri, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning 3 Sections

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For Now
Eileen Myles
In this raucous meditation, Eileen Myles offers an intimate glimpse into creativity's immediacy.

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His Truth Marching On
John Lewis and the Power of Hope
Jon Meacham
An intimate and revealing portrait of civil rights icon and longtime U.S. congressman John Lewis, linking his life to the painful quest for justice in America from the 1950s to the present—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Soul of America

   

New and Forthcoming from City Lights Publishers

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A Short History of Presidential Election Crises
(And How to Prevent the Next One)
Alan Hirsch
An urgent primer on what can be done to combat emerging threats to the core of U.S. Democracy––presidential elections.

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Dispatches from the Race War
Tim Wise
Essays on racial flashpoints, white denial, violence, and the manipulation of fear in America today. "Drawing on events from the killing of Trayvon Martin to the Black Lives Matter protests last summer, Wise calls to account his fellow white citizens and exhorts them to combat racist power structures."—The New York Times

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The Poetry Deal
San Francisco Poet Laureate Series No. 5
Diane di Prima
Rest in Peace. Diane di Prima (1934 - 2020)

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Funeral Diva
Pamela Sneed
A poetic memoir about coming-of-age in the AIDS era, and its effects on life and art. "She is a writer for the future, in that she defies genre."—Hilton Als

*Get a signed book plate by Pamela Sneed! We'll include one with each book purchase while supply lasts.


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Every Day We Get More Illegal
Juan Felipe Herrera
A State of the Union from the nation's first Latino Poet Laureate. Trenchant, compassionate, and filled with hope.

*Get a signed book plate by Juan Felipe! We'll include one with each book purchase while supply lasts.


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Under the Dome
Walks with Paul Celan
Jean Daive
An arresting memoir of the final years and tragic suicide of one of twentieth-century Europe's greatest poets, published on the centenary of his birth.

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ReTargeting Iran
David Barsamian
A timely primer on the conflict between the United States and Iran by scholars of Middle Eastern politics who advocate diplomacy and de-escalation.

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Eat the Mouth That Feeds You
Carribean Fragoza
In gritty, sometimes fantastical stories about Latinx life, women challenge feminine stereotypes and make sense of fractured family histories.

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ELADATL
A History of the East Los Angeles Dirigible Air Transport Lines
Sesshu Foster, Arturo Ernesto Romo
A breathtaking free fall into the long-buried (and fictional) history of a utopian era in American lighter-than-air travel, as told by its death-defying, aero-acrobatic heroes.

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Natch
City Lights Spotlight Series No. 20
Sophia Dahlin
Queer pastoral lyrics take on the romantic sublime in a stunningly assured debut collection.

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Facing You
City Lights Spotlight Series No. 19
Uche Nduka
From acclaimed Nigeria-born, Brooklyn-based poet Uche Nduka, a book of love poems written with compact elegance and vivid eroticism.

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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

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No Fascist USA!
The John Brown Anti-Klan Committee and Lessons for Today's Movements
Hilary Moore, James Tracy
"Smash fascism! Read this book!"––Tom Morello, songwriter and guitarist with Rage Against the Machine

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Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself
A New Critical Edition by Angela Y. Davis
Frederick Douglass, Angela Y. Davis
A new edition of the African American masterpiece featuring critical essays by Angela Y. Davis

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The Green New Deal and Beyond
Ending the Climate Emergency While We Still Can
Stan Cox
A clear and urgent call for the national, social, and individual changes required to prevent catastrophic climate change.

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Little Hill
Alli Warren
Despite the dystopian now, Alli Warren finds promise in the smallest human instances of tenderness, ecological connection, and political solidarity. Little Hill is about learning to live and love in the 21st century while not shying away from all there is to struggle against.