Bradford Anarchist Bookfair 2010 Report

Housing possibly the largest anarchist library in the country, the 1in12 club is the perfect venue to kick off the bookfair season[1]. With a huge variety of stall holders and visitors to the bookfair coming from as far as Ireland especially for the fair, it was a great place to meet new friends and find something new to read.

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Starting, so far as anyone can remember, at the Autonomy Centre in Wapping in 1983 [2], anarchist bookfairs have developed a long tradition of drawing together different strands of thought and opinion, and provided a useful forum for socialising, networking, sharing and developing ideas, and for reminding ourselves that we are not alone. The first Bradford Anarchist Bookfair was held in the 1997 and then, in 1998, as part of that year's May Day celebration [3] a national bookfair was held in Bradford.

Since then bookfairs have occasionally been held in Bradford, the last in 2008.

This year, on the 1in12 gig floor book sellers could be found with stalls from:

AK Press
SOLFED
Leeds Anarchist Federation
Northern Voices
Phosphor
Northern Herald Books
Leeds ABC
Commonweal Library

Meanwhile on the Bar Floor stalls were represented by:

Leeds/Bradford Zapatista Solidarity Group
Jeez Lousie Zine Distro 
Animal Rights  SAEAB?
West Yorks Hunt Sabs
Dysophia
Northern Indymedia Zine Library Free Distro

In addition to the books and zines available, the event also included a talk from SolFed, Bradford Prisoner Support Cafe fund raising through cakes and pasties for Palestinian Detainees[4] (£100 raised!) and an animal rights stall doing a brisk trade in cakes.