Bringing the News From Nowhere

A week ago I mentioned News From Nowhere bookshop in my World Book Night blip.

The shop - one of Liverpool's greatest treasures - opened on May Day 1974 and I was lucky enough to be there tonight to celebrate its 39th birthday!

I haven't been a customer of the shop for quite that long but it certainly changed my life when, as a callow student, I discovered it back in the 80s. At last, here was a place to buy the sort of books and magazines that I couldn't find anywhere else or hadn't previously known even existed!

And today, at a time when so many radical and independent booksellers have been forced to shut up shop, it continues to fly the flag.

This evening began with union songs from local Paul Robeson expert (and architect) Tayo Aluko (with backing vocals from the assembled throng!) to mark International Workers' Day and was followed by talks and readings from three authors whose work has been collected in the Utopia anthology published by Five Leaves Publications.

The anthology editor, Ross Bradshaw, talked about the genre of utopian literature and read from a selection of utopian books from Thomas More to Marge Piercy - with an honourable mention for William Morris's 'News From Nowhere', the book that gave the shop its name.

Gillian Darley gave an illustrated talk on utopian communities built by nonconformists, socialists and anarchists down the years - with particular emphasis on the settlements built by the Moravians in the 18th century.

And Mandy Vere - the star of today's blip - gave a very entertaining reading from her excellent history of the shop - the triumphs, the tragedies and the political landscapes it's lived through.

Mandy's been a stalwart of the News From Nowhere collective for 37 of its 39 years and the shop, indeed Liverpool itself, just wouldn't be the same without her!

Happy Birthday News From Nowhere! Long may you flourish.