How Queer Bookshops Changed the World

by A.J. West

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 336
Rating:

Synopsis:

The remarkable tale of how queer bookshops built communities, nourished minds, redefined literature – and changed the world.

For over a century, LGBTQ+ bookshops have been the unsung heroes of queer liberation.

Home not only to books but chaotic community noticeboards, vicious rescue cats and countless meet cutes, queer bookshops have always been more than just bookshops, offering friendship, solidarity and sanctuary.

Travelling the world – Shakespeare and Company in Paris, Gay’s the Word in London, the Oscar Wilde Bookshop in New York – A. J. West explores the remarkable history of these bookstores. Tracing their evolution from under-the-counter operations to beloved out-and-proud institutions, West reveals how the queer bookshop stood at the vanguard of LGBTQ+ rights, offering support and vital information through the AIDS crisis and bringing the fight to Section 28 and book bans.

A powerful testament not only to bookshops but to the courage of queer booksellers, from Sylvia Beach hiding books from the Nazis in laundry baskets to Craig Rodwell facing off against the police at the Stonewall riots, A. J. West celebrates the shops and booksellers that brought queer literature and lives into the mainstream.

Bookshops covered include: The Highlander & Dove, The Librarie Parisienne, Shakespeare and Company, City Lights Bookstore, The London Underground, Adonis Bookstore, The Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop, Glad Day, Lambda Rising, Giovanni’s Room, A Different Light, Amazon Bookstore Cooperative, A Woman’s Place Bookstore, Womanbooks, Sisterwrite, Modern Books, Housmans Bookshop, Prinz Eisenherz, Gay’s The Word, Lavender Menace & West and Wilde, Vrolijk, Silver Moon, London, The Bookshop Darlinghurst, Paperxclips, Gay-on-Wye, Gayberystwyth Books.

A.J. West’s How Queer Bookshops Changed the World is a history of the concept of the queer bookshop, as well as a chronicle of how queer bookshops have changed the world. The back of the book has a bit of a run-down of queer bookshops that exist now — hopefully non-exhaustive, but still including some queer bookshops I personally know of, like Portal Bookshop — while the chapters deal with mostly one or two bookshops at a time, discussing their impact on their communities and the people around them.

Inevitably, it’s an emotional journey, because it touches on homophobia, transphobia, sexism, racism, etc. It shows how queer bookshops have been at the heart of things all along, from Stonewall to AIDs to section 28 (which shouldn’t have applied to bookshops as they were not local authorities!) to now. Sometimes it’s easy to feel like things are secure now, that those were the bad old days, but I know that queer bookshops receive homophobic and transphobic abuse right now.

A.J. West recounts the history with sympathy and awe, highlighting the ways queer bookshop owners and operators have gone above and beyond, have been key to the political push for queer equality, and have held their communities together — and even supported others, as in the case of the queer collective who supported the miners’ strikes.

A few sections made me choke up a bit, discussing Gay’s the Word’s persecution by the police, the responses of various queer bookshops to dealing with AIDs, the queer man in Aberystwyth who never came out except to the owners of the queer bookshop. But it’s not all grim: the book celebrates the successes and the radical kindnesses too. All of it must be remembered, because we’re not done yet.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)