Bound Together Books

Written by Joey Cain and Tom Adler

Bound Together Bookstore was created in 1976 as an all volunteer, collectively run, community serving project and was originally located at Ashbury and Hayes Streets. Its focus was on the “new” ways of living, including vegetarianism, holistic health, decentralized urban planning, communes and communal living, consciousness expansion, and all the arts associated with the new ways. In 1983, the Store moved to the present location at 1369 Haight Street and renamed itself Bound Together Anarchist Collective Bookstore as better representing the politics and ideals of the Collective’s members. After half a century, the Store is still all volunteer and collectively run.

The Collective set up The Prisoner Literature Project (PLP), providing free books to incarcerated people. The PLP has gone on to become its own separate community project that still provides thousands of books a year to prisoners. In 1996, to celebrate its 20th Anniversary, the Collective started the Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair, held at the San Francisco County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park. It quickly grew to become the premier Anarchist Book Fair in the USA and inspired many other similar Books Fairs to start up. The Collective ran the Book Fair until 2013 and the fair still continues today.

Bound Together's connection with avant-garde Gay activism and vision was close and supportive due to several Collective members’ involvement in that community. From the 1970s to now the Store has hosted many speakers and events that supported a radical vision of who LGBTQ people are and what they could be. In the 1980s and 90s, Gay visionaries presented by the Store include Harry Hay and his partner John Burnside, Fag Rag Magazine writer Charles Shively, writer Arthur Evans, poet James Broughton, writers Will Roscoe and Bradley Rose, poet Sparrow Laughing Wand 13, and many others.  

The San Francisco Radical Faeries began holding their Thursday Night Circles in the Bookshop in 1983 after having previously met in several private homes in the Haight- Ashbury neighborhood beginning in 1980. 

The Thursday night Circles were the generating engine for much of San Francisco Radical Faerie activities and action throughout the 1980s. Several Radical Faerie households were created both in the Haight-Ashbury and elsewhere in SF through the Circles.

The best known Radical Faerie action planned at the Circle was for a SF Health Commission meeting where they were to discuss closing the Gay Bath Houses due to AIDS. Radical Faeries show up at the meeting wearing nothing but bath towels protesting the possible closure of the baths. The action gained worldwide coverage and helped delay the closing of the baths. Out of the Thursday Night Circle Radical Faerie participation in demonstrations and LGBT Pride Parades were planned.

Bound Together Anarchist Bookstore continues to have a sizable Queer membership in it’ Collective to this day.

Have a look at our e-Zine on the Radical Faeries on Instagram!

Want to learn more?

Queer History Happened Here is a project put on by Eye Zen Presents. A queer theater company in San Francisco whose mission is to unearth and uplift the voices of queer ancestors, making LGBTQIA+ history visible. This is part of an on going project called Walk With Me, a self-guided audio tour of the queer countercultural history of the Haight-Ashbury. The tour is in production and will be launched in 2026!