A new member to the Alliance is Connolly’s Wee Bookshop, run by Christopher Connolly. Christopher used to jointly run The Besotted Wretch in Sheffield but the rent was too much to survive so he has started again inside Carlisle’s historic Market Hall.

A small second hand shop, the specialist subjects are football, politics, history & philosophy. Absolutely no chance of finding any right wing polemics, war stories or books about hunting!

Connolly’s Wee Bookshop, Unit 1, Market Hall, Scotch Street, Carlisle, CA3 8QX
Open Tue, Wed, Fri & Sat. 20% discount for customers in receipt of Universal Credit.

ARB member The Cowley Club in Brighton is a much-loved, long-established and well-used co-operatively run bookshop, cafe, social center and music venue.

Their building is over a hundred years old, and is facing some costly and urgent repairs. They need to raise enough money to hire contractors, put up scaffolding and pay for materials.

They are aiming to raise £11,700 to repair the crumbling plaster on the front on the building, the leaking roof, and the cracked chimneys.

Once the plaster is repaired, we will create a permanent memorial to Anna Campbell (Hêlîn Qereçox) in the form of a mural visible from the busy London Road.

Before travelling to Kurdistan, Anna was a valued volunteer and organiser at the Cowley Club. She was tragically killed while fighting with the Kurdish Women’s Protection Unit in 2018.

How can you help?

Every donation helps, no matter how large or small, and all money raised through this crowdfund will be used exclusively for the urgent repairs mentioned above.

They have some great perks to thank you for your generosity. You can also visit their website and learn how to set up a regular donation or invest ethically in the Club; this will form part of our regular income and reserves:

Please visit their crowdfunding page to find out more!

https://www.chuffed.org/project/lets-repair-the-cowley-club

The Quaker Centre Bookshop is based in Friends House, Euston Road. Our stock is informed by Quaker faith and work, with books on peace, social justice, anti-racism, politics, LGBT rights,  activism, ecology, feminism and religion and spirituality, as well as a large selection of progressive and spiritual children’s books. We also sell books published by Quakers in Britain. Our adjoining café has excellent cake.

www.quaker.org.uk/bookshop

October Books, Southampton’s only independent bookshop, is buying a bank! We’re borrowing funds directly from the community to buy the Natwest building on Portswood Road in Southampton. The aim is to create not only a new home for the bookshop, but also a venue for community events, workshops and meetings.

We’re looking to raise £360K from loanstock and donations and we’re now over half way there. We have a crowdfunder for donations, however, most of the funds are being raised through the issuing of loanstock. Loanstock is a kind of community share in which interested people can purchase stock which is then later paid back with interest when the stock matures.

On Saturday 27th January 2018 Derry will host its, now annual, second Radical Bookfair at Pilots Row Community Centre in the city’s Bogside area.

We are pleased to announce that following on from last years successful first ever Radical Bookfair in Derry that we will begin plans to hold our second annual Radical Bookfair in 2018.

Following on from this years event held during the Bloody Sunday week of events we have had continuous support and encouragement to make the Radical Bookfair an annual event as part of the political calendar of Derry.  Our first Radical Bookfair played  host to many participants from all over Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales played  part of the Bloody Sunday week of events leading up to the annual Bloody Sunday March, which itself hosted a series discussions and debates, film and theatre that centred around a wide range of local, national and international contemporary social justice issues.

As ever we would like to extend our hand to participants again to the Radical Bookfair with different visions, ideas, practices and radical traditions.  Again we hope that our second annual book fair will be used as an opening in support of small press publishers and independent book sellers and producers, circulating radical reading materials and information from independent distributers, non-party political campaigns and groups to share their publications and merchandise, which normally would be hard or impossible to find at mainstream book shops. Books of local, national and international interests including social and labour history as well as themes covering radical feminism, queer liberation, anarchism, marxism, republicanism and environmentalism.

It is worth noting that Derry has a long and proud tradition of working class radicalism which has influenced many historical events, standing out beyond most other cities that has both challenged and changed society around us for the better.

At present we are allocating stall space and as seen last year at our first ever radical bookfair, space is limited.

If your book store, distribution or publishing collective would like to book a place at the radical bookfair then now is the time to confirm.

At the moment things are staring to take shape and its looking to be an amazing day of stalls, books, records, zines from independent booksellers, political and historical groups, local radical projects, small press and more.

Check out our website for stallholder info and how you can book you place. https://derryradicalbookfair.wordpress.com/

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Derry Radical Bookfair

Online: derryradicalbookfair.wordpress.com

Email: radicalbookfair.gmail.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/derryradicalbookfair/

Freedom needs your help! Or at least the Freedom Building in Whitechapel does.

One of East London’s last radical bastions, since we moved into 84b in 1968 the Freedom building has weathered firebombs, arrests, police infiltration, stalkers, threats of all kinds and more movement shenanigans than you can shake a very large stick at. And now we’re facing a major rebuilding project, costing up to £50,000, including vital works to fix the roof, walls and even stairs.

A survey carried out last year highlighted that emergency repairs are needed to the roof and walls that will total around £13,000. Our aim is to raise this amount by August 2017 so that the building works can take place in the Summer. As of February 2017 we have raised £5,000 to get us started.

But the fun doesn’t stop there – over the coming three years we will need a lot more money to treat dampness in the walls, insulate the building, install a boiler and look into making the whole place more accessible. In the long term costs could be between £40-50,000 to bring the building back to its best, including things like fixing up the lovely (but old-style) sash windows.
The building is an important resource providing space for; an anarchist bookshop that is open 7 days of the week; Freedom news and publishing group that has been producing anarchist propaganda since 1886; office space for Haven Distribution, Soldiarity Federation, Anarchist Federation, Corporate Watch, IWW UK, the National Bargee Travellers Association – London branch and the Advisory Service for Squatters ; Decentre , a social room for meetings, events and organising; and for supporting groups such as London ABC , Legal Defence and Monitoring and the Green and Black Cross who regularly use the building.

Help us bring 84 back to its best so we can continue to work as a vital hub for the anarchist movement!

All of the rewards on offer are for collection from Freedom Bookshop in Whitechapel. If you would like to organise for postage of your item(s) please contact shop(at)freedompress.org.uk

Rewards up for grabs include

Freedom Tote Bag

Save the Freedom Building t-shirt

The All Important Link:

https://www.gofundme.com/thebigfreedomrebuild