City Lights Booksellers and Publisher Review

One of the best bookstores out there. Always love browsing the shelves.

Great book story, nice amount of staff rated suggestion on display. Cafe looked and smelled really good also but didn't try it this time

Their lectures and publishing company are one of the best in America. The book store itself is a heaven of material from the poetry room upstairs to the magazine section on the ground floor. In an age where online book selling and digital books are the mood, City Light reminds us how wonderful walking through book isles has always been.

Bohemian historic bookstore plenty of diversity, in the heart of the Italian area and right at the corner is Chinatown.

Poetry floor upstairs. Great selection.
Prices are OK. Good selection of SF specific authors. Supporting the community is always good.

Amazing selection of books. I have never seen such a great selection in one place, specifically for educational books. Staff is wonderful and they do staff book picks, so you can learn a little more about the book from someone there. They do cool events and signings. It's in a cute area that is close to good food.

Great bookshop!
Green Apple has a healthy mix and selection of both used and new books.
The tables out front are definitely worth a look! I spend quite a while rifling through them & emerged with too many gems for cheap.

Smells like an actual bookstore, if you know what I mean . Cozy little place though

Please let me know what to expect from my house and Senate

I love window shopping here, seeing the latest literature in the windows. Then going in the alley behind the bookstore to have a smoke and look at the latest graffiti murals on the walls.

the best bookstore for their gigantic selection of poetry and books on beat culture. plenty of chairs encourage sitting and trying a book before purchase. feels like a home full of books rather than a store.

Beacon of the beat generation. Not sure how relevant it is today but do visit for the love of books

Interesting collection of books you likely will not find elsewhere.

there are lots of book, categorized well. If you like a book, you have to visit.

The bookstore is very good but in the plant you enter, there is a lot of people moving and you have to be giving way all the time. To read quietly or to be flipping through books, better the plants above and below. They have toilets.

There is a certain aura of this bookstore that is only those special ones. The feel the second you walk in is such an overwhelming welcoming feeling that arises in you. Open till midnight for those night owls. Comfy sofa chairs that you will get lost in. So grab a book, and get LOST! Best bookstore I've ever visited.

We are lovers of bookstores, real bookstores. Bouquiner is a way of life and this bookshop offers us an incomparable experience. You have to go to the poetry section. And all these messages on the walls!

Legendary City Lights Bookstore, founded by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti in 1953, is probably the best bookstore in the world. A shrine for booklovers and a Temple of reading. Books of all kinds, art, poetry, music, novels - all you can wish for. The staff make excellent recomendations. A must see when in San Francisco.

I like the selection of books, its interior with wooden shelves and atmosphere in general, but the staff seemed to me not very friendly and quite indifferent to customers

Mecca for poetry lovers and beat era writers. It was celebrating their 71st birthday that day. Lawrence Ferlinghetti wasn't there yet. Warning: not terribly ADA friendly but entirely worth the risk.

Best used an new book store in SF. Go here instead of ordering on Amazon.

Exciting to enter this library knowing its history! The neat corridors with bookshelves are a maze in which getting lost is easy, the selections of the books are very interesting, there are hours to spend.

The best bookstore in North America (okay maybe tied with The Strand). A must see in San Francisco.

Small little bookstore in the middle of downtown San Francisco! There are 3 levels. I can easily spend the entire afternoon hanging out here. It is very quiet. There are limited seating throughout the store. The building is old, historical, and full of characters. They do not have a large collection of books, but good enough. They also included staff pick as recommendation for good reads!

Will come back for sure!

Lots of books but missing academic/professional books

Everything you would want in an independent bookstore.

So many book, such a great place, and so many banned books to buy!

City Lights booksellers is one of the greatest book stores on the planet.

A beautiful book Shop, with a broad range of poetry upstairs.

A place to get lost in. There's a lovely reading corner on the 2nd floor. Lots of great books.

Excellent (and historic) bookstore. Well worth a visit. Particularly strong on poetry for obvious reasons.

Classic bookstore to visit while in SF. Real bookstore- filled with books, but organized and small. Lots of different genres to choose from and does have a downstairs.

What a wonderful experience - an entire room devoted to poetry, and it was crowded!

A bit overrated IMHO. May be I'm not the poet guy I think the staff were not friendly at all. They have collection of some philosophy and poets but not much about other topics. Very limited on the topic about Jazz music. And very limited selection of cook book. Staff certainly has some "I couldn't care less" kind of attitude. Almost feel like the didnt even like having customers in there. I travelled across the world to this place with high hope but came back disappointed.

This is a historic place to browse books. This location, practically adjacent to the similarly famous Vesuvio Cafe, was where the Beat Poets hang out. You can feel the sophistication in that corner! In this day and age of amazon, it's hard to find bookstores like this. City Lights keep hanging on. Go there, browse, feel the history, and buy a book!

One of my favorite bookstore in San Francisco. Interior and energy simply beautiful. Rich book selection and great customet service. Thank you for all good memories and books.

Narrow selection. Specialized in alt culture books.

The amount of truly superb literature a person can lo are here is astonishing.

It's an old hang out as a kid back when the small roof room above was still open.
Would get lost for hrs reading sci fi/fantasy or look up bits of history or whatever struck my fancy at the time. A historic landmark that has appeared , cameos usually, in many movies & tv series over the years. Including one live action kid show..Cpt.Powers.

A good bookstore that has many collections of various topics.

I once asked the woman behind the counter if they sold "How to Win Friends and Influence People," and she gave me a holier-than-thou look and said "No, we don't sell books like that." Kind of a weird attitude for a place with "peace" and "love" signs in the window. But it's otherwise a nice, creaky little stop in North Beach.

Famous for decades....A real San Francisco Treat! Shop here... A world famous bookstores from the time of The Beat Generation... amazing Bookstore...it has been. Vast collection of great book. Check their calendar...a real Go to place
in SF for decades..

3-Stories of Radical publishing. Drips of history and located near / in Chinatown.

Best bookshop in town. An amazing collection of poetry.

wonderful bookstore that shared social history of local

Awesome and historic SF bookstore. Be prepared to pay full cover price for all the books though. What s great about this place is that there are great staff picks marked in each section.

What a bookstore, really bought lots of great books here.

This is honestly the best bookstore I've seen in my life. Love the vibe and selection here.

Lots of independently published books, forward-thinking authors and staff, and a perfect location for wandering around the City.

escape and discover! Historical library. Dichter und Denker .. El Mundo is a libro. Cute bookstore with a lot of charm. Well worth a look.

Great place. Huge collection. Well organized. Nice reading chairs. They have a poets chair as well. Interesting place

If you want to be enlighten, educated, and entertained, please come to City lights Booksellers!

Amazing and inspiring bookshop that opens until midnight!!

Old and dusty bookstore, which smells of carpet dust. I fail to see the magic in this place.

Awesome bookstore with curated offering for staying at the edge! Don't miss it.

Full of reading nooks, jokes for bookworms. Awesome space.

Best book store ever. You could get lost for days in this store.

A must-visit place for any book lover! One of the coolest bookstores ever!

A booklover's paradise. A comparatively small space crammed with books worth reading.

Lovely bookstore that is a SF institution. It is small so you have to navigate around the 3 floors carefully. There are some great local finds.

What a charming bookstore with a fantastic selection

Bookstore. 5 stars for existing in the physical world. Would give more for the other attributes, like the extensive collection on offer, the historical backdrop and vintage vibe, the creaky floors and polished shelves and magical light - but Google Maps only allows 5 so...

A nice big bookstore. I would go there again. Nice diverse selection of literature.

Wonderful, Interesting, Quiet Place For Investigating Your Interests. Well organized with Helpful Staff!!!!!

Such an SF institution! I've spent many an afternoon wandering its aisles, reading poetry on the top floor.

They publish local writers (Paul Madonna, etc.), and you'll find a full shelf of these offerings to the right when you come here.

Lots of staff recommendations on the bookcases.

Loved this sf icon, lots of books you won't find elsewhere

A must-visit if you are a fan of Beat Poetry or are an avid reader. This is still a legit bookstore with a unique selection and great recommendations. Stop by Vesuvio next door for a drink to complete the tour.

Great book store with a great range of books, not for your latest/popular stuff, this place is for the good stuff!