City Lights Booksellers

Legendary San Francisco bookshop, birthplace of the Beat Generation

City Lights in San Francisco is a legend among independent bookshops. Founded in 1953 by the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, it became the epicentre of the Beat Generation. Its defining moment came when Ferlinghetti published Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems – provoking an obscenity trial that ended in acquittal and a place in literary history. Designated an official historic landmark in 2001, City Lights today combines a bookshop, a small press, and a living cultural archive.