When Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter D. Martin founded City Lights in San Francisco in 1953, they opened it as the first all-paperback bookstore in the country. The idea was to have an affordable shop in the heart of the city’s bohemian North Beach district—a literary “meetingplace” that kept its doors open until 2 a.m. on weekends. Times change. The bookstore now sells hardcovers as well as paperbacks (and closes at 10 p.m.). Gone are many of the bohemians, but City Lights endures.
The all-paperback bookstore may be a thing of the past—and the mass market paperback is dying—yet sometimes I imagine a pair of quixotic friends opening up their own paperback shop, catering to poets and freethinkers in a city—Baltimore, Detroit, Pittsburgh?—that hasn’t priced them out. There’d be no shortage of paperbacks to stock shelves; for starters, I’d recommend these new releases, all of which received starred reviews:
Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbotham (Avid Reader Press, Jan. 27). The winner of the 2024 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction, this extraordinary book by the author of Midnight in Chernobyl details—and humanizes—the shocking and tragic backstory of the 1986 space shuttle disaster. Our review called it “a deeply researched, fluently written study in miscommunication, hubris, and technological overreach.”
Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People by Imani Perry (Ecco/HarperCollins, Jan. 27). A finalist for the 2025 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction, this short but powerful work by the Harvard scholar is both a profound cultural history and a stirring personal meditation. “Blues are our sensibility,” Perry writes.
Patriot: A Memoir by Alexei Navalny (Vintage, Feb. 3). The late Russian activist and opposition leader’s tenacity—and humor—are on full display in this posthumous book. Our review praised it as “a true profile in courage, written with verve and wit.”
Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live by Susan Morrison (Random House, Feb. 17). Morrison, a longtime editor at the New Yorker, shines a light on Lorne Michaels, the creator of the landmark show that has entertained the nation for half a century. Our critic applauded it as “a top-shelf showbiz biography.”
Raising Hare: A Memoir by Chloe Dalton (Vintage, Feb. 24). Who knew leverets could be such endearing companions? Dalton found out by accident, nursing one back to health in the English countryside. In doing so, she also learned a thing or two about herself. Our review described the memoir as “a soulful and gracefully written book about an animal’s power to rekindle curiosity.”
Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America by Clay Risen (Scribner, March 3). Risen, a New York Times reporter, revisits one of our nation’s darkest chapters. As our reviewer said, the book is “an exemplary work of political and cultural history that invites a gimlet-eyed look at our own time.” It’s also a paperback that City Lights would have proudly displayed in their front window back in the McCarthy era.
John McMurtrie is the nonfiction editor.
