Housmans

Housmans is a bookshop in London, England, and is one of the longest-running radical bookshops in the United Kingdom. The shop was founded by a collective of pacifists in 1945 and has been based in Kings Cross, since 1959. Various grassroots organisations have operated from its address, including the Gay Liberation Front, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and London Greenpeace. Housmans shares its building with its sister organisation Peace News. Housmans' not-for-profit shop specialises in books on feminism, anarchism, anti-racism, anti-fascism, LGBTQIA+ politics, socialism, and nonviolence. It also stocks radical and socially engaged fiction, children's books, graphic novels, magazines, zines, and poetry Alongside new and second-hand books, Housmans stocks cards, calendars, White Poppies, and merchandise from Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (including the "Pits and Perverts" T-shirt). An online store was launched in March 2010. Housmans is managed by a trust and is a National Living Wage employer. Current book groups include Housmans' Feminist Sci-Fi Book Club, Housmans' Queer Book Club, the Fuse Book Club, and Self-care as an act of warfare: a Black women's reading group. Housmans launched its first Peace Diary in 1953. The diaries are published annually and include an international peace directory listing more than 1,400 organisations around the world. Regular live events are hosted at Housmans including panels, book readings, and musical performances. These are streamed on Housmans' YouTube channel and include appearances from Naomi Klein, Emma Dabiri, and John Sinclair. Guests from the performing arts include Maxine Peake and Christopher Eccleston. Housmans' origins began in the 1930s with key players in the British peace movement connected to the pacifist organisation Peace Pledge Union and one of its projects: the pacifist magazine Peace News. Temporary bookshops affiliated with the Peace Pledge Union existed as early as 1936 with one at 36 Ludgate Hill, London.