THEBookshops worth finding in person.
PLACES TO WANDER · ISSUE 001Map: Esri, TomTom, Garmin, FAO, NOAA, USGS, © OpenStreetMap contributors and GIS User Community. Selected streets and water; numbered points use the existing address matches. Use directions for your visit.
Browse the drawings. Open a shop for visiting details.
The poetry room is upstairs. City Lights puts its publishing history within reach of the shelves: the Pocket Poets series belongs to this place, alongside new writing.
A slim poetry book can hold a whole afternoon.
261 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94133
Green Apple grew into its Clement Street building a room at a time, adding a mezzanine and another floor. New and used books share the address.
The book you came for need not be the only one.
506 Clement Street, San Francisco, CA 94118
Small presses and local literature give Dog Eared its particular accent. The Valencia shop mixes new, used and remaindered books, with paintings by local artists also on display.
New, used and remaindered together, paintings on the wall. The pile gets less predictable.
900 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA 94110
Books and coffee share Black Bird’s Irving Street home. The selection moves from fiction and poetry to science, cooking and illustrated children’s books.
Art shows and author events add other ways into the place, without requiring you to arrive with a reading list.
4541 Irving Street, San Francisco, CA 94122
Noe Valley Books makes room for readers of different ages on 24th Street. Its catalog moves between adult fiction and children’s books, from board books to graphic novels.
One for now, one for later. The neighborhood shop is built for exactly that trip.
3957 24th Street, San Francisco, CA 94114
A bookshop puts someone else’s choices in front of you. Spend time with a subject outside your work. See what comes back with you.
LGBTQ+ writing leads at Fabulosa, alongside bestsellers and less expected finds. The Castro shop also supports Books Not Bans, which sends queer books to places restricting them.
A shelf, and who gets to read it, are the same question here.
489 Castro Street, San Francisco, CA 94114
A bookstore and gallery on 24th Street: Medicine for Nightmares is this issue’s Detour. Books sit within a wider invitation to look, gather and encounter work.
Let the gallery change the pace of the visit before returning to the shelves.
3036 24th Street, San Francisco, CA 94110
Dinner is only one way into Omnivore. New cookbooks share its subject with vintage and antiquarian volumes; author talks bring the people behind food writing into the conversation.
Dinner is one way in. A vintage cookbook is a maker's notebook: someone solving the same problem, in their own kitchen, decades ago.
3885A Cesar Chavez Street, San Francisco, CA 94131
The Booksmith. These selections remain in the draft; their branch portraits are not ready.
The Corporate Artist: The Art of Working Beautifully is Morgan Sage Norman’s book about bringing your creative self to everyday work. It explores how the roles we play, the conversations we have and the decisions we make can become creative practice.
Find your copy ↗Try Every Role Has a Medium (Your Craft) for a different way to look at what you do.
Or turn to Nothing Is Wasted and Rightsizing Importance. Begin with the title that catches you.
Another city. Another way to look.