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The award-winning Pages Bookshop in east London is opening a sister shop, dedicated to titles by women and non-binary writers, in the former space of French-English bookshop Caravansérail.
Eleanor Lowenthal, owner of Pages in Clapton, Hackney, and manager Jo Heygate had wanted to run a store of this kind for some time but began planning in earnest a month ago on hearing that the French-English bookshop Caravansérail was closing. Pages Cheshire Street will open just off Brick Lane on 4th May with around 3,000 books across all genres and a regular events programme.
Throughout the 70-square-metre space there will be women and non-binary writers in subjects including literary fiction, politics, feminism, essays, life writing, science and technology, philosophy, psychology, landscape & environment, art, photography, music and children’s books. Heygate and Lowenthal expect there to be a dominance in fiction, life-writing and essays, similar to the Pages Bookshop.
Lowenthal is funding the new shop from Pages “which has been doing well” and has taken over the lease of the building of the 70-square metre shop, which runs for another three years, though she expects “and hopes” to renew it after this time. She and Heygate will work across both shops.
The shop aims to be “a friendly, welcoming bookshop that showcases female authors across many genres”. The pair said: “We will be customer focused and encourage people of all genders to explore, discover and buy books written by women or non-binary people. Our intention is to contribute to a cultural shift that challenges an outdated canon.”
There will be a varied events rota, starting with two for Feminist Book Fortnight – one on 9th May with contributors from Can We All Be Feminists (Virago) and the second on 15th May with Rebecca Tamás, Lucy Mercer and Olivia Sudjic.
Lowenthal said: “When Laura [Cleary, owner of Caravenseil,] contacted us it was the perfect space. What we want to do is build and foster a community that celebrates women writers .
Heygate told The Bookseller: “It started with the space in fact though we’d been thinking about it for a while. In Pages a lot of our fiction books by women and we had wanted to do something around this for a while. Our top 10 at Pages is constantly books by women and so it feels that we’re riding a moment with this.
"It was interesting the stock because we really had to delve into the backlist when we took the books by men out. We saw there are so many books by women who just haven’t got the attention. There is research showing that women read books by men and women but men tend to read books by men. We really wanted to change this and show that there are so many books by women that need to be discovered."
She added: “It was also important not to just have feminist texts but all titles.”
Heygate also spoke of a desire "to pay homage to others who have done similar things… There is a well-trodden path and we wanted to recognise that”. The press statement cites “legendary London bookshops such as Silver Moon, SisterWrite, Persephone Books and, more recently, The Second Shelf, along with the Feminist Library”. It reads: “We salute publishers such as Virago, Silver Press, & And Other Stories’ year of publishing women, as well as the forthcoming Primadonna festival and many more who champion the published works of women.”
Pages of Hackney opened in 2008 and scooped an Independent Bookshop of the Year prize at The British Book Awards last year.
Laura Cleary, co-owner of Caravansérail, said she and her business partner Anne Vegnaduzzo were "very pleased" to hear of the new venture. "It would have been heartbreaking for us to see our shelves ripped off and for the space we created for books and art to be completely gone," she said. "We were very keen for another bookshop to take over and we are particularly pleased to hand over the space to such brilliant and experienced booksellers as Jo and Eleanor.
“We're confident their new shop will be a great success and wish them the best of luck with this new venture.”
Cleary is now pursuing roles in publicity after running the shop for almost two years. To contact her or Vegnaduzzo, email laura.clry@gmail.com or egnaduzzo.anne@gmail.com.
Caravansérail is hosting a closing party on Friday (26th April) from 6pm to 9pm with wine and live music. Tickets cost from £8. Visit this website for more information.