I was on the hunt for a specific magazine that had Lady Gaga on it. I went to every supermarket in…read moreand around my neighborhood, called up all the local bookstores, and even went to Barnes & Noble outside the city. Nobody had it. Couldn't buy it online. I found Smoke Signals on Yelp and gave them a call and asked if they had it. "Yes, of course." Of course?? I drove right over and he had a whole stack of them waiting for me. But although I got what I came here for, I took my time perusing his expansive collection of magazines. absolutely incredible inventory. You have magazines from all over the world, limited editions, special editions, etc. The fashion collection alone is a collector's dream. He has it all - business, politics, sports, cooking, hunting, tabloids, adult magazines. If it exists, he probably has it. Of course, he also has a pretty wide variety of newspapers, and a section full of cigars. This is one of those stores that are just so niche, which makes them really special. I will be sure to buy any magazines from here in the future, instead of some big-box store. Check it out! You'll be sure to find something you enjoy here.

I cannot say enough to praise this store elegantly. It is a gift to the City to be able to peruse…read morethe great variety here in a cool setting! I got 3 cycling mags completely unavailable anywhere it seems - I can spend forever and a day here!

Good little local newsstand in North Beach (corner of Columbus and Green - by Bank of the West)…read more Go early, he can run out of key newspapers (like when the SF Giants clinched the Workd Series in 2010/2012/2014!). But they had the Warriors cover on he SF Chronicle today, so I was able to get my 3 papers).

First went to this place for the opening event and had a great time...rumor has it that maybe more…read morelive acts will happen in the future, and that sounds really fun! I didn't have my card with me that night, so I came a few days later after work. The craft market was bustling pretty hard that day, but the shop girl, Courtney (ps anyone who has the same name as me is a+!!) made sure to give me some good recommendations. I walked away with a really cool food focused zine (Remedy) a San Francisco zine (Wonder & Wander) and a hilarious red hot chili peppers fan fiction zine. Courtney recommend a few others, but I grabbed all my lil bag could carry. Despite the small little store front, I felt like there was a pretty good mix of things to look through. A lot of feminist lit, lots of political stuff, travel, food, and just general aesthetically pleasing things. I told her id be really interested in reading more queer zines, (they definitely have some!) and she assured me that she cosigns in small quantities to keep the shelves fresh and to date. I really enjoyed the market itself, but this newsstand is definitely a gem and brings a lot of community to a place where some locals would consider a tourist trap. I look forward to seeing The Grand Newsstand soon!!

This is perfectly awesome small 'zine, poetry and art kiosk right off of market street by that…read morepublic market thingy they do. This is a walk up kiosk by justin herman plaza/fountain and thus you will not be driving here. This is however, one of the most walkable parts of one of the most pedestrian friendly cities in the world so you have about a half dozen non driving ways to get here from around the city. This is the business inspiration of one local artist (it's the woman running behind the counter) and it sells art. It's in an re-purposed ticket booth and as such it's super tiny. There is no interior space so you'll be browsing via the sidewalk. Small whimsical locally produced self published pamphlets (hereafter referred to as 'zines), buttons, patches, cards and suchlike. The written items focus on various themes-love, city life, humor etc. are the stock in trade, made both by the owner and by other local artists. Pricing can be as low as a couple of bucks for a tiny booklet to 20 ish for a full size book. This is a perfect place to get some unique, local art/spoken word items and to find a little inspiration.

Vapid, socialite slick consumerist fodder…read more Content is Not for the typical Yelper. I canceled my subscription 2 months ago, but they're still sending it to me. Like I'm going to buy a $1million SOMA condo or a $50,000 diamond for my wife. Yeah right!

I'll never forget my first San Francisco magazine. I had just moved to the Bay Area, only to be…read moreheaded on a trip to New Zealand, and I was browsing the airport bookstore for reading materials when I saw it: the extra-large mag with a pic of Gavin Newsom on the front. I was glued to the pages the whole flight and subscribed the second I got back. Those were the heady days of my budding love affair with San Francisco, when the city could do no wrong and waves of discovery were washing over me at an almost unbearable rate. So the magazine was quite helpful for marinating my brain in the local flavor and gaining some semblance of orientation. But now, I've got a lot more personal experience with SF (and, let's face it, I've got Yelp), and the magazine isn't quite the eye-opener it once was. More importantly, though, the city (and, let's face it, Yelp's uber-populist medium/message) has turned me into something of an anti-consumerist eco-hippie, and the dream of high-society hobnobbing and owning that killer loft has palled considerably since I realized I was just being subjected to the incredibly paradoxical mass-marketing of luxury "lifestyles". Unfortunately, though, there are still a lot of Boomers (ok, and some young folks) in this city who subscribe to that dream, and SF Magazine is catering to them more than ever these days. So aside from the excellent "Reporter's Notebook" articles, there really isn't much to interest me anymore, and I find myself on the lookout for a Bay Area lifestyle magazine that caters to my *actual* lifestyle. Sorry SF Mag--to quote one of your ads, you may have overlooked nothing, but I don't actually want to overlook everything.

I was impressed by Nick's a long time ago. I worked at Fog City News and we would recommend it as…read more"the" place to get out of town newspapers. The, I assume, owner is not that bad of a guy. It's his "lackey" that's the issue. This guy is complete a*#hole, and has turned me off of Nick's forever. I had been ordering Seattle Times Sunday Edition for 6 weeks straight. These papers cost $6.00, and I have to order them a week in advance. I was on a roll, and then I planned a trip there this weekend so I didn't need to pay $6 for one next week. He said that he already ordered it and that I cost him money. "Tough s#*t", I said. "That's your problem, and I've ordered six of these f*&%ing papers the last 6 weeks! Don't tell me I've cost you money, I've made you money, you a$*hole!" Never again. Thank god I'm moving to Seattle.

In whatever city I'm living in I try to buy The Economist on the Friday afternoon it comes out. I…read morelike to get my first read in over my Friday lunch. This newsstand seems to get the latest edition before Border's, Stacey's, or the other bookstores downtown. They also don't charge me the sales tax on it, so the $5.40 magazine is just $5 here. Those two things make me come back each week.

No glorious market building is complete without a bookshop and this is the one crowning the Ferry…read moreBuilding. Book Passage has great readings, is convenient to the financial district, and is a beautiful place to browse. I usually read between 40-80 books per year and you can never have enough. It's a joy to have local booksellers.

Friend invited me to "Benjamin Schneider with John King - The Unfinished Metropolis: Igniting the…read moreCity-Building Revolution" at the Book Passages location, it was a treat to visit this store! * Shop is compact but multiple bookcases were rearranged to allow for fold-up chair seating for ~30 or so, with standing room at the back. * Staff was very helpful & helped crowd with seating. * Hour-long event was free to the public (no RSVP required), and was a great opportunity to hear the author both speak on his book and hold audience Q/A session. Great event, will definitely be monitoring the calendar for more opportunities!

#71/2016 I really…read morecan't believe I have to give this once-fine magazine a three-star review. What has happened to the writing? I find the same self-confessional tone in another Conde Nast title, Vanity Fair. You're engrossed in an article and then the writer inserts how he identifies with the subject, often in a self-congratulatory way. (How many times did I have to use the word "self" in my thesis? I ask you: When did the writer become the subject?) Case in point, reading a perfectly adequate review in the May 9th 2016 issue of O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey Into Night", my eyes widen at the parenthetical musings of writer Hilton Als: "I have been in love with James and Mary since I started reading plays; I was barely a teen-ager when I first picked up O'Neill's script and followed his family, in every sense of the word, into that awful home..." WHO CARES ABOUT YOUR LIFE? THIS IS A THEATER REVIEW, NOT AN "ABOUT YOU" REVIEW! (And PS, I almost threw the magazine across the room that you consider yourself so precocious. And PPS, Did you REALLY teleport yourself back to 1912 and actually walk through that awful home "in every sense of the word" 'cause that's what you wrote, fool). This editorializing crept into TV news many years ago (Dan Ashley, you're the king) but now it's HERE, in the lauded New Yorker? There was another writer in a long ago issue who apparently never heard of a complex sentence or the usefulness of punctuation like semi-colons but this latest ...stain is almost too much. William Shawn, Dorothy Parker- you're spinning in your graves.

One of the neatest bookstores in the US. The Poetry room upstairs is wonderful. So much fun…read morehistory here to learn about. And this bookstores has some amazing staff book recommendations with little tags on the bookshelf telling you why they loved that book so much; found some great new finds that way. Dont forget to get your books stamped with their bookstores stamp on the way out!

An amazing bookstore and so glad I asked chatGPT to give me some ideas for a stroll around SF near…read moreUnion Square. Well, ok, this place isnt close to Union Sq, about a mile away, but it was a perfect delicious end destination for a post dinner stroll! I like bookstores and I like eclectic, unique ones. I'll go to Barnes & Noble if I had no other choice, but my favorite bookstores are independent ones and ones where they carry very unique books you can't find elsewhere. This bookstore made my inner little nerdy self so happy. I immediately got lost up front looking at very recent publication by Ai Weiwei. I then wandered onto the main floor and found an entire section of Asian works, which you will not find at B&N. I also found books from Norwegian writers too which I had never seen before, which thrilled me. I then made my way up to their attic floor which is dedicated to poetry and seems I just missed Allen Ginsberg's Howl centennial celebration. Ugh! I then came back down and then proceeded to their basement section and again I was quite pleasantly surprised by the depth and breadth of Asian themed books they had. They had plenty of the Chinese classics in English and found so many different versions of Journey to the West, I was completely overwhelmed. And then, saw an entire section on Africa and I had to fight hard to not pick up a copy of a book titled Prison Letters, which is a collection of Mandela's letters while imprisoned. I ultimately settled on two books by Ai Weiwei as he has continued to inspire me to be proud, to not conform, to be brave, to speak up, to be authentically and unapologetically me, to honor my ancestry and to push boundaries and to fight for what matters. And it just so happens too that my Chinese give name is also Weiwei. I loved coming to this bookstore and it will definitely be on rotation for me when I am in SF again.

Initially, I was afraid to come here because of all the bad reviews. It was my first time taking…read morethe ferry from SF to Oakland, and I didn't have a Clipper card, so I had no choice but to buy an actual ticket. Before I approached, I expected to get chewed out or at least glared at. I've been here twice now with no issues. On my first visit, I got a guy who was really friendly and helpful. He got me my ticket, and even told me which direction to go to and which port I should look for, without me having to ask. The second time, I got a guy who seemed to be in training with the first guy guiding him. The trainee was able to get the job done without a problem. I usually don't give places like this a review, but I felt the need to write up a good one, so others won't be afraid to come here like I had been and give them a shot.

Based on a recent rude and abusive "customer service" experience at this location on a weekday…read moreafternoon when I attempted to replace a lost Clipper card, I fled to the Embarcadero transit centerto replace it,