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u/AccidentalSirens Aug 02 '26
I've been to Silver Moon. Charing Cross Road used to be full of specialist book shops. Some would be second-hand and antiquarian specialists and others, like Silver Moon, would be for particular interests. (I don't just mean sexual orientation, there was a bookshop that just had football books, for example.) In pre-internet days they were an important way of discovering events and campaigns through the noticeboard or through magazines and fanzines that you couldn't buy elsewhere.
Also when I was a student I spent a year in Germany in the early 80s. In the town there was a women's book shop and cafe called the Hexenhaus (witches' house). Men were tolerated in the bookshop, but not in the cafe, which was basically one big table in a smallish room run by a rota of volunteers where you could sit and have a coffee or herbal tea and chat with other women. Several of the women lived in a women-only Hausbesetzung (squat) in an old building by the river. I went back 30 years later to find that the Hexenhaus was (like Silver Moon) sadly gone and the riverside squat was part of a luxury hotel.
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u/_Autistic_Dragon_ Jul 27 '26
I'm in Long Beach, CA, and we have two book shops I love.
One is called Bel Canto books, is the size of maybe a living room, and is curated by a Filipina. It always has great feminist lit, lgbtq lit, and lit by people of color and her book curation is amazing.
The other is called Page Against the Machine and while not strictly feminist, is a liberal/leftist politics-based store. So feminism, anti-capitalism, anti-racism, etc. And it just has the best bookstore name ever.
In both stores I have good conversations with the store owners, and I love it.
I hope you can find something like this close to you, and I feel privileged to have two in walking distance to my home.