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How Queer Bookshops Changed the World
Brief Description
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...
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How Queer Bookshops Changed the World
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The remarkable tale of how queer bookshops built communities, nourished minds, redefined literature – and changed the world
The remarkable tale of how queer bookshops built communities, nourished minds, redefined literature – and changed the world
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Description
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.
How Queer Bookshops Changed the World is a celebration of these vibrant spaces and the significant roles they have played in history.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781836431695
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
Format: Hardback
Date Published: 07 May 2026
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Oneworld Publications
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 29.0mm
Width: 135.0mm
Height: 216.0mm
Weight: 0g
Pages: 336
About the Author
A. J. West is an award-winning former BBC journalist and broadcaster from Buckinghamshire. He is the author of Sunday Times bestseller The Betrayal of Thomas True and The Spirit Engineer, which won HWA Debut Crown Award. How Queer Bookshops Changed the World is his first work non-fiction.
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