Indie bookselling in Sheffield, a guest post by Eve Risner

"Over two years ago I got together with a small group of women and we decided to 'open a cafe/bookshop' in Sheffield city centre! Six months later the red tape and crazy rent and rates had defeated us but I remained focussed and determined to find an alternative way of becoming an independent bookseller in Sheffield.

"Having tested public reaction at local markets (and finding it very enthusiastic) I took on a small unit within a 'shopping emporium' called Birds Yard in Sheffield city centre. This was a way for local businesses to sell their products without the massive overheads of a shop. Birds Yard opened in December 2012 and is still going strong - although the future is not secure.

"My 'product' is the non-mainstream book - beautifully illustrated editions, many hardbacks but at an affordable price - books to cherish, books you wouldn't know you wanted until you saw them on my shelves.

"Since opening at Birds Yard I have also rented a small unit at the Nichols Building in Sheffield. The Nichols building sells largely vintage furniture, artifacts and clothing - as well as my new books, I don't generally sell children's books.

"I have also expanded to Handpicked Hall (no relation) Leeds - another centre for independent businesses to 'get started' and to test out whether there is a market for their product.

'Handpicking' the books is what I enjoy most and seeing people's pleasure on discovering books that they may not have found themselves."

You can find Handpicked Books at http://handpickedbookssheffield.tumblr.com/

The picture below is from Handpicked, one of several books by the Nottingham writer Dorothy Whipple, published by Persophone. I want those bookends...

Twelve questions about the bookshop

Answering the twelve most asked questions about the bookshop (and reprinting the logo)
1) When will it open?
November 9th and, thereafter, 10-5.30, six days a week.
2) What will it stock?
New books, not second-hand, with an emphasis on landscape/cityscape, politics, fiction and poetry, lesbian and gay, weird and wonderful, psychology. Magazines and journals. Specialising in independent publishers.
3) Will it be radical?
Don't you know me?
4) Will it only be radical?
Well, the landlord will want rent, the staff will want paid, so no. But no Jamie. No celeb biogs.
5) Can I be one of those staff?
Sorry, we are fully staffed already.
6) I've looked on Long Row and can't find it. Is it the alleyway with the public toilets?
No, that's Greyhound Street. Head towards Primark, our alleyway is between these two landmarks. There will be signage.
7) Will you stock children's books?
Some. To see if there is interest, but primarily it will be a bookshop with adult stock (no, not that sort of adult stock).
8) How big is it?
400 square feet plus office and storeroom. Not huge, but big enough to start with.
9) Is this just a vehicle for the books published by Five Leaves?
No. They will be there but the stock will be much wider.
10) Cafe?
Too small. Too many problems with food hygiene certificates. But if there is somewhere we can have a serve-yourself percolator we'll do it. Maybe even a dry biscuit.
11) Will it stock my book?
Ah. If we think we can sell copies and if we know it exists. Email us on bookshop@fiveleaves.co.uk. BUT we are getting a lot of pitches for self-published novels, which are much harder to sell and we've got to be strong.
12) Will there be events?
Yes. We welcome pitches/suggestions for these. The shop has to be what the trade calls a "destination" bookshop to survive. So there will be events.

Nairn returns

The book will be available very shortly

Five Leaves Bookshop. No cause for alarm.

Little time to post on the blog the last period... the bookshop has swamped us. Here's a nice story in the local paper - http://www.nottinghampost.com/Independent-book-shop-fresh-chapter-retail-city/story-19922880-detail/story.html. I'd never thought of myself as a businessman before. I'd better join the Rotary and the Chamber of Commerce and buy a tie and a razor. But things are moving along - all staff appointed, computing equipment ordered, half the books already on order, events starting to take shape and it is ages away. One month before we open. Easy peasy. AAARGH - opening time is only a month away! Panic!! Panic!!

Five Leaves is opening a bookshop in Nottingham!

Press Release: immediate

New independent bookshop to open in Nottingham

The Nottingham-based publisher, Five Leaves is to open a bookshop in Nottingham, the first independent bookshop in the city since 2000.

The bookshop will open in mid-November at 14a Long Row, opposite the Tourist Information Centre, in premises that have been used as an art gallery and a café and will trade under the name Five Leaves Bookshop.

Ross Bradshaw, owner of Five Leaves, said “When I came to Nottingham in the late 70s there were several independent bookshops and in subsequent years various chains were represented, but for many years there has only been Waterstones in the city centre. It's a great shop but there's plenty room for an independent as well.”

The new bookshop will specialise in history, politics and landscape; fiction and poetry; lesbian and gay books; and international writing, with an emphasis on independent publishers

Ross Bradshaw added “Nottinghamshire has a flourishing literature scene, with more professional writers than ever and a very active events programme including the longstanding Lowdham Book Festival which I've been involved with since the start. The bookshop will provide another focus and we will work with local and national writers to build the shop's own programme. The premises became available suddenly and we are working hard to open by mid-November. Several of our own writers and other local publishers are pitching in to help.”

Initial events will include a memorial evening for the Nobel Literature Prize winner Seamus Heaney and a speaker from the peace movement in Israel.

One of Nottingham's leading writers, Jon McGregor, said “I'm hugely excited at the prospect of a new independent bookshop in Nottingham. Despite the impact of online retailing, there is still a place for the personalised experience of a well-run independent bookshop; not just as a place to buy a book, but as the hub for a community of readers and writers. Ross Bradshaw has many years of experience in publishing and bookselling, and I'm sure will make a fine job of it; I'm equally sure that Nottingham's thriving community of writers and readers will support the venture from day one."

The Five Leaves Bookshop will complement other local independents including The Bookcase in Lowdham and the graphic novel specialists Page 45 in Nottingham city centre.

For further information please contact Ross Bradshaw, info@fiveleaves.co.uk, 0115 9895465 (w) 0115 9693597 (h).

Background

Ross Bradshaw worked at Mushroom Bookshop in Nottingham from 1979-1995 (the shop closed in 2000) and since then has run Five Leaves Publications, initially part-time while working as Nottinghamshire County Council's literature office, then full time. He is a trustee of the East Midlands Book Award and the Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing. Five Leaves jointly runs the Lowdham Book Festival with The Bookcase in Lowdham, the biggest book festival in the region. Together with Housmans Bookshop in London, Five Leaves established the London Radical Book Fair in 2012.

Five Leaves Publications forthcoming books include a collection of essays on Crime, a biography of the architectural writer Ian Nairn and A Brief History of Whistling by Nottingham writers John Lucas and Allan Chatburn.

Five Leaves Bookshop will be linked to the social enterprise Howie-Smith Project, which supports small creative enterprises in Nottingham.

The Five Leaves Bookshop will open for trading on 9^th November, but there will be a grand opening on 16^th November with events in the shop all day.

ENDS

Nairn night at the LRB

Ian Nairn: Words in Place. With Gillian Darley, David McKie and Owen Hatherley

Tuesday 19 November at 7.00 p.m. 

Ian Nairn erupted onto the architectural scene in 1955 with the publication of The Architectural Review issue ‘Outrage’. A mathematician by training, and a former RAF pilot with no formal architectural education, Nairn’s visceral and savage attack on the blandness of post-war British design struck an immediate chord with a surprisingly diverse array of traditionalists and modernists, and gave rise to a new concept: that of ‘Subtopia’. Gillian Darley and David McKie’s study of Nairn - Ian Nairn: Words in Place – published by Five Leaves, introduces to a new generation an architectural critic whose work has influenced writers and critics such as J.G. Ballard, Will Self, Iain Sinclair and Jonathan Meades, who once described Nairn as ‘a great poet of the metropolis’. Gillian Darley and David McKie will be discussing Ian Nairn’s life and work, and Owen Hatherley, author of A New Kind of Bleakand A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain will be in the chair.

Full details: 

http://www.lrbshop.co.uk/product.php?productid=65337&cat=0&page=1

Calvert Journal and Yiddish writers

Calvert Journal is new to me, but it is an ezine I'll need to watch out for. Not only has Owen Hatherley written about the Moscow Metro (a joy for anyone to see) but he has written a long review of the Five Leaves book From Revolution to Repression - Soviet Yiddish writing 1917-1952 in which is included some of the early Chagall illustrations reprinted from the book. (I mention them as one of the illos appears in the current Chagall exhibition in Liverpool, but is wrongly attributed there!). The journal specialises in Russian art and life.
We are very pleased with the review - perhaps too long to reprint here, other than the start: Current events must make the recent opening of a Museum of Tolerance in Moscow look like a bad joke. The museum in fact concentrates on a quite specific area of “tolerance” — the experience of Russian Jews. As ever, the word “tolerance” suggests a certain guilty conscience. Historically, Russia's Jews were perhaps the most visible minority in a territory which has always been a multiplicity of different groups, languages and peoples, entirely inadequately subsumed under the term “Russian”. Even after the break-up of the USSR, the Russian Federation still includes many autonomous republics and national territories inherited from the old Russian Federated Soviet Republic. A new book, From Revolution to Repression: Soviet Yiddish Writing, 1917-52 (Five Leaves Press), edited by the late Yiddishist Joseph Sherman, is a reminder of the distinctive culture that arose in this space — and a reminder of why some would prefer to forget it.
The whole review is on http://calvertjournal.com/comment/show/1427/owen-hatherley-revolution-to-repression-yiddish-literature.
Hatherley seems to suddenly be in Five Leaves' orbit as he is also a contributor to our forthcoming book on Ian Nairn.
From Revolution to Repression has sold its first printing, but the reprint will be through very shortly.