Radical bookshops in the United Kingdom promote radical literature on topics including animal rights, environmentalism, postcolonialism, self-help, and sexual politics.
Function
Radical bookshops offer activist and countercultural literature for browsing and purchase on topics including animal rights, environmentalism, postcolonialism, self-help, and sexual politics. The shops also serve as venues for activist meetups, book launches, lectures, and other events for similarly inclined people to discuss social issues.
History
In the 1980s, there were about 80 radical bookshops in the United Kingdom, which The Guardian described as the prime age of radical bookshops.
The Federation of Radical Booksellers was set up in the 1980s to support radical bookshops but has dissolved. The contemporary Alliance of Radical Booksellers has about 40 members.
Despite a rapid decline in independent bookshops leading into 2010, rising grassroots activism from climate activism, the antiglobalisation movement, the green movement, and the feminist movement contributed to resurgent interest in radical bookshops. Amazon and other large book retailers drove down book prices with their purchasing power, putting independent bookshops at a price disadvantage and offering radical titles that once were confined to smaller bookshops. There were six radical/alternative bookshops in the Booksellers Association as of 2010: Bookmarks, Housmans, News from Nowhere, October Books, Radish, and Word Power. Housmans launched an online bookseller in 2010. The anarchist publisher Freedom Press and cafe co-op Cowley Club both have bookshops where anarchists and Greens congregate.
List
- Bookmarks, Bloomsbury
- Central Books, London
- Collets, London
- Compendium, London
- Cowley Club, Brighton
- Freedom, London
- Frontline, Leicester
- Grass Roots, Manchester
- Greenleaf, Bristol
- Housmans, London
- Mushroom, Nottingham
- News From Nowhere, Liverpool
- October Books, Southampton
- Radish, Leeds
- Silver Moon, London
- Word Power, Edinburgh
References
- ^ Hanman, Natalie (12 April 2010). "The return of radical bookshops". The Guardian.
- Worpole, Ken (22 November 2022). "The radical bookshops shaping Britain's literary culture". New Statesman. Retrieved 12 August 2024.
- ^ Ensslin, Astrid; Round, Julia; Thomas, Bronwen (30 August 2023). The Routledge Companion to Literary Media. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-000-90245-7.
Further reading
- Chester, Gail (2019). "Sex, race and class: the radical, alternative and minority book trade in Britain". The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain. Vol. 7. pp. 616–645. doi:10.1017/9780511862489.028. ISBN 978-1-107-01060-4.
- Crispin, Aubrey; Landry, Charles (6 September 1980). "In Other Words: Shelf on the Left". The Guardian. p. 15. Retrieved 13 March 2024.
- Delap, Lucy (April 2016). "Feminist Bookshops, Reading Cultures and the Women's Liberation Movement in Great Britain, c. 1974–2000". History Workshop Journal. 81 (1): 171–196. doi:10.1093/hwj/dbw002. ISSN 1363-3554.
- Sissons, Richard; Kennedy, Steven (22 March 1980). "The growth of the new radicals". The Bookseller (3874): 1330. ISSN 0006-7539.
- Tranmer, Jeremy (2010). "Taking Books to the People: Radical Bookshops and the British Left". In Collé-Bak, Nathalie; Latham, Monica; Ten Eyck, David (eds.). Les vies du livre, passées, présentes et à venir. Regards croisés sur le monde anglophone. Nancy: Presses universitaires de Nancy. pp. 101–116. ISBN 978-2-8143-0021-7.
External links
- Radical Bookselling History Project
- Mapping Radical Bookshops project
- Alliance of Radical Booksellers
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