In 2019 we – Dave Cope, John Goodman, Rick Seccombe and Maggie Walker – organised a conference on the history of radical bookselling 1970-2000. Our aim was to celebrate the phenomenon of radical bookshops and begin to assess their impact, record their history and preserve what records remain. We invited as many people as we could trace who’d worked in the 100 or so radical bookshops and distributors that existed over that period, plus a few who were still in the much-reduced trade. In February 2020 we published an illustrated report of the conference in pdf format. It is DOWNLOADABLE HERE.
At the conference we undertook to produce an occasional newsletter. In this post you will find an archive of these newsletters. We hope you enjoy reading it. Its future depends on your reactions and what you send us. We need snippets of news, queries, notes about any existing appropriate websites, blogs, archives, obituaries, publications, short biographies, notes on bookshops, reviews, works in progress and so on. Information on new shops would be most
welcome. While the emphasis will be on bookshops we welcome material on publishers, distributors, printers, typesetters, designers, cartoonists, photographers, libraries and archives. As well as below, an archive of the newsletters can also be found here.
Newsletter Issue 7, December 2023
CONTENTS
Housmans Book Launch 16 September 2023
In Praise of Housmans
The Bookselling Research Network
Mudlark Secures Cholmeley’s Silver Moon Bookshop Memoir
Just Books, Belfast: A Tentative History
Sisterwrite Womens Co-operative Bookshop
Oakleaf: The Story of a Radical Bookshop
Federation of Alternative Bookshops and Federation of Radical Booksellers
DOWNLOAD LINK
Newsletter Issue 6, May 2023
CONTENTS
Editorial
Quiet Revolutions 2022
Bookshop Stories
News items, old items, obits and odd bits
Review: Queer Print in Europe
Producing an Archive of Grass Roots Books (1971–1990)
Grass Roots Books 1971–1990
Moved to Draft: Writing and Publishing a Wikipedia Entry
The Revolution Will be Published
Anarchist Papers, Publishing and Bookshops: An Introduction
DOWNLOAD LINK
Newsletter Issue 5, November 2022
CONTENTS
Editorial
News items, old items, obits and odd bits
Left Cultures
Print, Pixels, Pride
Trigger Warning
Corner Bookshop Leeds
Communist Party Bookshops
DOWNLOAD LINK
Newsletter Issue 4, May 2022
CONTENTS
Editorial
News Items, Old Items, Obits and Odd Bits
Mushroom Book Events Remembered
A Bookshop For All – Newham Books
William Cobbett 1763-1835
The Radical Internet Of Its Day: The Story of PDC part 2
DOWNLOAD LINK
Newsletter Issue 3, October 2021
CONTENTS
Editorial
Publications Distribution Co-operative: The Early History
A PDC Day – Repping in Birmingham
PDC – A Bookseller Remembers
My Time at The Independent Bookshop – Sheffield
Richard Carlile 1790-1843
Trouble at Mushroom
Review: The Radical Bookstore: counterspace for social movements
Bits and Bobs
News and Links
Obituaries
DOWNLOAD LINK
Newsletter Issue 2, April 2021
CONTENTS
Editorial
Buying New Books Online
News Items, Old Items, Obits And Odd Bits
Obituaries
Collets
Days Of Hope
Books About Radical Bookshops
Housmans: 60 Years Of Books And Activism
In Other Words
Grass Roots
DOWNLOAD LINK
Newsletter Issue 1, August 2020
CONTENTS
• Editorial
• Photographs
• Oral histories
• Records and archives
• Bookshops listing
• Bookshop (and distributor) histories
• New items, old items, obits and odd bits
• Branching out
• Thomas Spence: A history
