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The death of east London's most radical bookshop

the-londoner.co.uk

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Re: The death of east London's most radical bookshop

#121

Post by cm2012 »

pelagicAustral wrote: post #88

I know this is a tangent, but I just want to share this oddity. I am 38 years old, and I have been trying to buy Neuromancer since 1999. I have been in Santiago, Rome, London, Miami, Madrid, Bogota, live, in situ looking for the book on mainstream bookshops and I have never found a copy to buy. I know Neuromancer by heart but I have never been able to buy a copy of it. 38 Years.

For what its worth, I just checked my local Barnes and Nobles in the suburbs of New York and they had it.

Re: The death of east London's most radical bookshop

#122

Post by pydry »

analog31 wrote: post #84
rjbwork wrote: post #6

Performative radicalism that freaks out wider society instead of slow steady progress has led to the near complete irrelevance of the left in the west, especially the anglosphere. I mean, UK Labor is a centrist pro-capital party now. It's over.

What I wonder is how this didn't also happen to the right.

A) It does, sometimes.

B) The far right has a lot of wealthy donors because it is safe for capital. In this case, I think money would have smoothed over most of the issues.

Re: The death of east London's most radical bookshop

#124

Post by phoronixrly »

immibis wrote: post #114
phoronixrly wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Did you just deliberately not read what the comment you replied to said, just so you could make a super snarky reply?

OP just compared people who listen to RMS to fascists/authoritarians, corporate and Trump bootlickers... Frankly annunhinged take even for this site.

Re: The death of east London's most radical bookshop

#126

Post by badpun »

bombcar wrote: post #58
alexey-salmin wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, margins on coffee are extremely high and a library-like environment can attract paying customers if you play it right.

Independent bookstores stay afloat if they own their building, usually. At least the ones I know of that have remained open are in a building owned by the owner (so they don't have to pay rent).

A business that is only reasonably profitable if it doesn't have to pay rent is not really profitable. If the owner owns the building, he might as well rent out the place and get majority of income without doing any work. The bookstore is just a hobby on top of rental income, which he chooses to plow into his own bookstore.

Re: The death of east London's most radical bookshop

#127

Post by globular-toast »

pelagicAustral wrote: post #88

I know this is a tangent, but I just want to share this oddity. I am 38 years old, and I have been trying to buy Neuromancer since 1999. I have been in Santiago, Rome, London, Miami, Madrid, Bogota, live, in situ looking for the book on mainstream bookshops and I have never found a copy to buy. I know Neuromancer by heart but I have never been able to buy a copy of it. 38 Years.

This is a funny comment because just last week I bought a second-hand copy in Berwick-upon-Tweed. I haven't read it yet but it's been on my list forever and it's a mint copy with a nice yellow cover. It was published in the UK as part of the "SF Masterworks" series which is a trove of previously out of print stuff. If you come to London again you should find it in most large bookshops like Waterstones.

Re: The death of east London's most radical bookshop

#128

Post by Sophira »

This article makes it seem like the whole thing is over and nothing came of it, but The People's Letters have a X account that they're doing updates on[0], and the new location opens on October 1st (this Wednesday)[1].

I'm not entirely sure why the article didn't talk about this.

[0] https://x.com/PeoplesLetters

[1] https://x.com/PeoplesLetters/status/1971482419502198960

Re: The death of east London's most radical bookshop

#129

Post by harvey9 »

phoronixrly wrote: post #124
immibis wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you just deliberately not read what the comment you replied to said, just so you could make a super snarky reply?

OP just compared people who listen to RMS to fascists/authoritarians, corporate and Trump bootlickers... Frankly annunhinged take even for this site.

I read it as saying they are making the same kind of error rather, than a direct comparison. My subjective impression is that the poster is wrong on the point about RMS.

Re: The death of east London's most radical bookshop

#130

Post by badpun »

lostlogin wrote: post #102
overboard2 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you feel about WWI era Germans funding the Bolsheviks in Russia?

Short term it was effective. It backfired though.

It got the Bolsheviks to take over, and one of their main goals on international stage was to estabilish Communism in Germany. They didn't get to it only because they were defeated by Poland in 1920, and you can't get to Germany without conquering Poland first. So, Germans funded a party that nearly started a war with their own country. That's a hell of a gamble.
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