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Traveler's Guide: Silver Moon Women's Bookshop, London
For book lovers, Charing Cross Road is the heart of London. It's there that lesbian book lovers will find Silver Moon Bookshop, the only women's bookshop in the entire UK and the largest women's bookshop in Europe. The bookshop first opened in May 1984. "We wanted to bring women's writing out in the open, to end the invisibility of women's work without any apology," said confounder Jane Cholmeley. This in-your-face attitude has worked well. In 1992, before a poor exchange rate drove the British pound down, sales amounted to almost a million dollars. The recession not withstanding, the shop is in good health; it and employs five full-time workers and two part-timers. An expansion in 1992 tripled the floor space; the shop now carries some 10,000 titles.
Lesbian mysteries are the store's bread and butter, said Cholmeley. Barbara Wilson, Ellen Hart, Jaye Maiman, Claire McNab, Katherine V. Forrest, and Scottish writer Val McDermid are all popular choices. "We do import a lot from America," said Cholmeley. "The designer dyke in the cashmere sweater sort of thing. A good-looking lesbian detective who drives a Porsche adds to the fantasy."
Mysteries aren't the only thing imported from the States. The store's magazine section, which includes new British women's studies journals and magazines like LIP (a UK national lesbian publication), Girl Frenzy (a women's comix zine), Second Shift ("A Wider Perspective on Women and the Arts"), and...
