| Contents |
Part one: First editions -- In the beginning... -- The Highlander & Dove, Cecil Court, London, 1749-unknown -- La Librairie Parisienne, London, 1889-1898 -- Shakespeare and Company, Paris, 1919-1941 -- Part two: A cottage industry -- City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco, 1953-still open -- The London Underground: Secrets in Cecil Court -- The Adonis Bookstore, San Francisco, 1967-it's complicated -- Part three: Gay power -- The Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop, New York, 1967-2009 -- Glad Day Bookshop, Toronto, 1970-still open -- Lambda Rising, Washington and beyond, 1974-2010 -- Giovanni's Room, Philadelphia, 1973-still open -- A Different Light, Los Angeles, 1979-2011 -- Part four: A bookshelf of one's own -- Amazon Bookstore Cooperative, Minneapolis, 1970-2012 -- A Woman's Place, Oakland, 1970-1989 -- Womanbooks, New York, 1975-1987 -- Sisterwrite, London, 1979-1993 -- Part five: Rough trade -- Gay's the Word, London: 1979-still open -- AIDS and the queer bookstore: Refuge and resource, 1981-present day -- Prinz Eisenherz, Berlin, 1978-still open -- Vrolijk, Amsterdam, 1983-2017 -- Lavendar menace and West & Wilde, Edinburgh 1982-still open as archive -- Silver Moon, London, 1984-2001 -- Section 28: Pride and Prejudice, 1988-2003 -- Part six: Pride before a fall -- O Canada: The trials of Glad Day Bookshop and Little Sister's, 19820still open -- A Different Light, San Francisco, 1987-2011 -- The Bookshop Darlinghurst, Sydney, 1982-2025, and Hares & Hyenas, Melbourne, 1991-still open -- Genderqueer -- Requiem -- Revival -- Queerly beloved -- Fanfare. |
| Abstract |
"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"-- Amazon.com. |
