How Did This Book Get Into My Hands

Paul Yamazaki

Head Buyer, City Lights Booksellers

Paul Yamazaki has been the head buyer at the iconic City Lights bookstore in San Francisco since 1982. In this episode, Paul traces a singular life: from the music clubs of LA and the cultural ferment of late-1960s San Francisco, to more than four decades of deciding which books to shelve at one of the world’s most beloved bookstores. A longtime champion of independent presses and underrepresented voices, Paul Yamazaki shares his perspective on why books matter.

INTERVIEWED ON: May 11th, 2026

Books discussed:

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Widely considered one of the finest novels by a living writer, Blood Meridian is an epic tale of the violence and corruption that attended America’s westward expansion, brilliantly subverting the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the “Wild West.”

Heart the Lover by Lily King

From the New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers comes a magnificent and intimate new novel of desire, friendship, and the lasting impact of first love.

Questions 27 & 28 by Karen Tei Yamashita

Questions 27 & 28 reaches backward and forward from the time of the loyalty questionnaire during Japanese internment, chronicling the individuals who arrived in the US from Japan at the turn of the century, their children who came of age during war and incarceration, and their descendants who lived in its aftermath.

Nothing Random by Gayle Feldman

The “exhilarating” (The Boston Globe) story of the legendary Random House founder, whose seemingly charmed life at the apogee of the American Century afforded him a front-row seat to literary and cultural history in the making.