You can’t go wrong with a book for Christmas. There’s something for everyone: from Dogs In Jumpers for your magazine editor friend to Jodie Foster: A Biography for your fangirl pal. And so long as they’re from an independent seller, they not only bring Christmas cheer, they’re doing good, too. They help keep that rare, almost extinct and oh-so-precious species alive and kicking – the wonderful community bookshop.
Whilst the world’s oldest operating LGBT bookshop is thriving in Canada’s downtown Toronto, it’s sad to say that there is only one, yes one, surviving gay and lesbian bookshop in the whole of the UK. Fittingly located in the literary area of London’s Bloomsbury, it was also the UK’s first serious LGBT bookstore. Opening back in 1979 with the help of the then unknown Camden councillor Ken Livingstone, Gay’s The Word went on to pioneer through the 80s becoming, amongst other things, headquarters for the action group Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners. With a backstory ripe for a movie, the plucky book-store spawned the marvelous 2014 feature film, Pride.