News From Nowhere: Liverpool Bookshop Run by Women’s Cooperative

It isn’t exactly outrageous to suggest that Liverpool is a city that has been at the forefront of radical ideas at numerous points in the past.

The uprising in Toxteth at the start of the 1980s can be seen as one of the crucial turning points in race relations in the United Kingdom, for example, whilst the city’s dockers were amongst the first to unionise and gain associated rights as a result.

One of the more unexpected places that Liverpool saw a radical agenda being set was in a woman’s only co-operative bookshop called ‘News From Nowhere’.

A Haven for the Radical Left Wing

In 1974, man called Bob Dent and his partner Maggie opened a bookshop. The not-for-profit venue promised to be a radical location for women and those that supported women’s rights, and has been run collectively by women workers since 1981.

The co-operative nature of the venue means that there is no owner and no one to answer to, becoming extremely popular amongst Liverpool’s more radical communities. Given the left-wing nature of the city, particularly from the 1980s onwards, it is perhaps not all that surprising that it has been such a popular place to go.

Booklovers, radicals and assorted renegades!
We are open:
Mon-Sat 10-5.30pm
Sun 11-4.30pm
Plus Mail Order: https://t.co/Vs2zoLm9A3
[email protected]
0151 708 7270#ChooseBookshops
Shop with #TheRealAmazons pic.twitter.com/hBxVU01gno

— News From Nowhere (@newsfromnowhere) October 25, 2024

Not that that was the case initially. During the latter part of the 1970s into the start of the 1980s, News From Nowhere, a name taken from utopian socialist William Morris’s 1890 novel, was regularly attacked.

It was set on fire numerous times, with the some of the people working in and visiting it physically harmed. It was mostly young fascists doing the attacking, growing out of the conflicts that were everywhere in 1980s Liverpool, thanks in no small part of Thatcherism and the likes of the miners’ strikes and the closing down of Liverpool’s docks.

It Still Exists Today

Having supported the miners’ strikes and campaigning against the Falklands War, to say nothing of forging strong ties with the city’s black community during the Toxteth uprisings, News From Nowhere created a feeling of solidarity with those marginalised in Liverpool.

As a result, News From Nowhere became a strong voice in the book trade, surviving even the lean times. When Bob Dent left in the 1980s, a decision was taken to turn it into a women’s co-operative, which it has remained ever since and thrived as a result.

@tiggysbooks Very cool bookshop 😎 #newsfromnowhere #indiebookstore #bookshopping #prettybookstore #liverpool #fyp ♬ Chopin Nocturne No. 2 Piano Mono – moshimo sound design

Everyone working at the bookstore has an equal share in it and an equal say in how it is run. Whilst there are still conflicts that occur from time to time, they are largely down to people believe the shop should be run and are not to do with anyone’s gender.

Having started off in a small venue close to the Birkenhead tunnel, it moved several times before settling in its current location in 1989. It is now something of a centre for Liverpool’s radical movements, from libertarians to anarchists via the gay liberation movement to those from Liverpool 8.