From London to Mexico City, Sydney to San Francisco, How Queer Bookshops Changed the World uncovers the revolutionary history of queer bookselling for the first time.
Journeying from the backstreets of 18th century London, to a French bookshop that defied the Nazis in World War Two, and a New York bookstore that helped to invent
Pride and organised the Stonewall riots — these unassuming bibliophiles stood at the vanguard of history.
Narrating stories of extraordinary courage and defiance against a backdrop of sweeping political events, How Queer Bookshops Changed the World reveals how London's Gays the
Word faced down the Thatcher government and inadvertently sparked Section 28; how Toronto's Glad Day forced the government to dismantle its own censorship laws; and
how Philadelphia's Giovanni's Room defied prejudice to support men dying of HIV/AIDS and champion queer authors of colour.
There are also intimate stories of the women who built their own publisher and print-room to defy the patriarchy, the Black writer who compiled the first anthology of queer
Black lives, and the bookseller who secretly delivered queer books to readers across the globe - including to the Vatican.
This is an overdue story, and a love letter to the shops, the books, and the people who provided space for solace, solidarity and connection within their communities — while
actively altering the shape of history.
A. J. West is an award-winning journalist and was the first openly gay BBC television newsreader in Northern Ireland. He is a former director of a national UK queer charity. His last novel The Betrayal of Thomas True was a Sunday Times bestseller and winner of the CWA History award. He has written extensively about queer issues for Gay Times, Attitude, and The Independent. He regularly appears on network television and radio as a panellist on current affairs programmes, often discussing queer topics.
A. J. will be in conversation with Alim Kheraj, who is a freelance writer and the author of Queer London, a guide to LGBTQ+ London past, present and future. His work has appeared in The Guardian , The Observer , GQ , i-D , Time Out and the i and is one of the booksellers here at Juno Books.
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