We love News From Nowhere!
For Independent Bookshop Week we've teamed up with 5 of our favourite independent radical booksellers, which we will be profiling on our blog all week. We've also given them Verso Books filled tote bags for you to pick up in their shops on the Independent Bookshop Crawl on Saturday 27th June. See here for more details on how you can get your hands on one!
The bookshop that we're profiling today is: News From Nowhere
96 Bold Street, Liverpool, Merseyside L1 4HY
News From Nowhere is a workers’ co-operative bookshop in Liverpool. It is owned and managed collectively by the paid workers - tasks, responsibilities and decision-making are shared – and no-one makes money out of the bookshop. Any profit remains within the business, paying for essential running costs & building up our stock.
They first opened their doors on Mayday 1974 in tiny premises on Manchester Street and celebrated their 41st birthday this May! In its thirty years of existence News From Nowhere has moved three times before occupying its current site on Liverpool's bohemian Bold Street. Since 1981 the shop has been a Women’s Collective, enabling women to build up their skills in bookselling, retail and accounts. The Collective have overcome difficulties such as dilapidated buildings, economic hardships, ruthless landlords, the rise of chain bookselling – and not least a determined campaign of arson attacks from fascist groups in the '80s – but News From Nowhere has shown what can be achieved through the dedication of its workers (who now have over sixty years bookselling experience between them!).
News From Nowhere's philosophy is strong and simple: to provide access to books and information on the reality of the world and how to change it and ourselves for the better. Thus books on the History of Slavery nestle alongside manuals on Environmental Change, and volumes on Tai Chi or Feminism sit opposite Lesbian, Irish and Black fiction. Their aim is to stock literature that will empower and inspire people to make positive changes to the world - from challenging the power of corporate capitalism to breaking down prejudiced attitudes to others and ourselves.
The Collective has never been afraid to confront controversial issues, for example stocking information on British repression in Ireland long before the Peace Process, pioneering self-determination for survivors of sexual abuse before it was widely recognised, or boycotting cheques from Barclays bank during apartheid. At the same time the bookshop's stock and philosophy reflect the hopefulness that 19th century socialist William Morris espoused in his utopian novel "News From Nowhere": that a better world is possible.
They strive to be as fast, friendly and helpful as is humanly possible! Visit them here.
And, if you pop into News from Nowhere on Saturday 27th you can pick up your own VERSO TOTE BAG filled with VERSO GOODIES! (whilst stocks last. More info here)
