"Traditionally Prejudiced" People's Bookshop
Categories: uncategorized
Date: 25 June 2011 14:18:33
Have just managed to get into the People's Bookshop in Durham, which opened last weekend. Was facinated by the place and the way it's carefully targeted approach manages to highlights so many criticisms that can be made of "the left". Now, before I start with this review of the place don't get me wrong - I think it is a wonderful new addition to the town and I wish it well - it's just that it was like walking into a living illustration of some Feminist critiques of Marxism and Neo-Marxism.
It's located in Saddlers Yard, just up the alley from Scorpio, (a wonderful shoe shop) and before you get to Vennels, (a wonderful coffee shop). To get to the bookshop you have to navigate yourself up a steep staircase which is quite narrow. This gives both charm and the feeling that any moment you could end meeting the shop keeper who gave Mr. Ben all those adventures. When you finally manage to get to the summit you find yourself in a small, charming room with a table and two wicker chairs in the mist of the bookshelves. Obligatory copy of the Guardian is on the table together with some post cards advertising the bookshop and some from the Coalition of Resistance Tyne and Wear advertising a "Rally for the Alternative" on Wednesday 29th June 7pm at Newcastle Arts Centre.
Around the shelves there are different sections: academic (which has some general theory type stuff and a bottom shelf of religion), history, kids, poetry, local interest and politics. The religion shelf had one Marxist theology book on it, but generally was uninspiringly mainstream and didn't contain any of the radical theology I hoped I might be able to pick up. The kids section was actually very good and something I would recommend parents to investigate. The poetry I steered clear of, not being of that ilk when there are politics books about. The politics books...well, they were left leaning (obviously) but clearly of the Marxist and Neo-Marxist ilk rather than the anarchist. These were serious books for serious people. There are some very good trade union books there as well.
What struck me though, looking around, was apart from the odd title and the obvious book on the miners wives, oh and one slim feminist volume was how patriarchal the place was. It was packed full of all the theorists and authors you would expect and all except Naomi Klein were male! In this sort of bookshop I would expect, and even if it were only shelf like the religion, a women's politics section. No this appeared to be designed to reinforce the patriarchal nature of the left. There were uninspiring Labour Party and TUC magazines for sale but no others.
Now I appreciate there is little space but in this type of bookshop there are certain things one would expect to see: 1) the women's books (as I have outlined), 2) the religion section - if it is there and thankfully it is - to have a higher representation of radical (including liberation, black and feminist) theology and 3) for there to be the odd Leeds Postcards for sale, (although except this is trying to be a second hand bookshop and they haven't really got the space). Oh and the other thing is that when I got in the place - to the top of the stairs - there was no greeting or anything from the owner behind the till, rather the kind of silence one would have expected in an old fashioned record shop if they had looked you up and down and decided you were not cool enough for the place, although when I did engage him in conversation whilst purchasing a book he was friendly enough.
To sum up this is a rather charming little bookshop stocking books by mainly white, male, middle class leftie intellectuals for mainly white, male, middle class leftie intellectuals. Hope it prospers though - rather liked it.
