City Lights

OUT Review

Founded by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter D. Martin in 1953, City Lights has been on the forefront of alternative culture since it published Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems - for which Ferlinghetti had to fight obscenity charges - and has proudly boasted a "banned books" section for years. A center of protest and a hub for people with revolutionary ideas, it's also a darn fine bookstore, with a grand selection of poetry, alterna-prose, and politics. It's a San Francisco landmark, so if you're even semi counter culture, it's worth a visit.