The Best Bookstores in San Francisco

San Francisco is a city rich in bookstores - new, secondhand and even niche and specialist shops. The majority of these are concentrated in the Mission, Nob Hill and Haight neighborhoods, but you can find great bookstores scattered far and wide all over the city. Let's take a look at the top destinations of the bunch.

Farley's (1315 18th Street) in Potrero Hill is an all-in-one stop if you want good coffee and browsing through what is possible the most diverse magazine (and indie 'zine) collection in the city. They also have a small art display space for local artists.

Books Inc. (2275 Market Street) bills itself as "the West's oldest independent bookseller." Not everyone agrees that California qualifies as the West, but we'll not pick nits here. They are a chain with about ten stores throughout the Bay Area, but focus on a mix of popular "Harry Potter" type books and more "alternative" fare. They don't seem to deal in secondhand books. Since they are in the Castro there is also a heavy focus on gay lifestyle books.

City Lights Bookstore (261 Columbus Ave.) in North Beach is probably San Francisco's most well-known bookstore. They have three floors of new books with a decided "progressive" and "alternative" theme. It's a nice bookstore but be warned it's in a very old building, gets a lot of visitors and gets cramped pretty fast.

Al's Comics (1803 Market Street) is one of the many good comic book specialty stores in San Francisco. Aside from a large selection they also deal in statues and toys, and Al is refreshingly free of Comic Book Guy 'tude as well.

Kayo Books (814 Post Street) has a focus on pulps and light sleaze from the past century. You might find stuff here that is a little more off-putting than you expected it to be, unless you're one of those creepy dudes, in which case welcome to your second home in the city.

Caffeinated Comics Company (3188 Mission Street) is the first combination of coffee shop and comic books I've ever seen, probably due to fears of the former getting all over the latter. It seems to work out here though and they even offer free WiFi. Nifty.

Green Apple Books (506 Clement Street) has a small selection of new books but most of their trade is in very eclectic used books, and they're probably the most popular used bookstore in the city.

Borderlands Books (866 Valencia Street) in the Mission is a general purpose used book store, but has a specific focus on science fiction and fantasy, and is probably the best in the area for those genres. It's in the Mission between 19th and 20th.

Modern Times Bookstore (888 Valencia Street) is sort of the used equivalent of City Lights, with a similar theme in types of books they carry.

The Booksmith (1644 Haight Street) is a general purpose indie bookstore with a pretty good selection and prices. I dunno if I would make a seperate trip to it, but it's good if you're nearby or you've searched elsewhere for something and not found it yet.

Phoenix Books (3850 24th Street) is about an equal mix of new and used books in a variety of genres. They also operate Dog Eared Books and Red Hill Books, similar stores also in the city.

Pipe Dreams (1376 Haight Street) is first and foremost a smoke shop, but tucked away in the back they have a nice collection of books on "home growing" and cultivation techniques.

Finally, Bound Together (1369 Haight Street) is the place to go if you just watched epic quantities of Fight Club and want to stick it to the system. You'll find good traditional lit here as well as "radical" stuff likely not to be seen in other bookstores.