Housmans specialises in books and periodicals of radical interest and progressive politics.

Over 40 years ago, generous individuals made funds available to buy and equip the building at 5 Caledonian Road, in London’s Kings Cross district, as a resource for the British and international peace movement and for a broad spectrum of radical and alternative groups.  The building’s public face, Housmans Bookshop, a not for profit organisation, continues to offer a range of peace, radical, left-political, progressive and alternative literature that is not available anywhere else under one roof.

Five Caledonian Road and Housmans Bookshop are part of my personal cultural/political background – one of my major landmarks for negotiating London. I use the Housmans Peace Diary every year. Being a building for the peace movement, it needs especial support from the peace movement to ensure it carries on providing a focus for our continuing work. I hope everyone will contribute.

Volunteers at Housmans

Volunteers are vital to the shop’s survival and we are seeking to recruit people to assist with a range of tasks which will enable us to do serious promotional work and guarantee the future of the shop. In return we can offer expenses of up to £8 per day and a 10% discount on books.

If you are interested in volunteering please complete and return the attached “Housmans’ Volunteer Details” sheet, alternatively visit our website and download an online form, or call in to see us. We would be profoundly grateful for any assistance you feel you are able to provide.

Support the shop that supports your campaigns

If you can’t spare any time just now but believe that the existence of a non-sectarian, broad-based radical political bookshop is beneficial to you, your friends, and the wider community buy your books here, check out our new website, join our mailing list and actively raise awareness of us to your friends and neighbours.
We would ask you to make donations but a painless way to raise funds for the shop is to save and send your old computer cartridges to the shop. We can raise £3.50 per cartridge. If we could receive one hundred cartridges per month this would be worth £4200 pa . This is the equivalent of book sales worth £1400 so please save your own, collect from friends and bring or send those cartridges in!
   
Changing times, changing issues

The building has been used by many people and organisations over the past forty years – emphasising the value of a conveniently situated building, safe in committed hands. Over the years it has provided a home for London Region CND and the Campaign Against Arms Trade started in an office here.  The building provided the first home for the Gay Liberation Front, and housed Gay Switchboard’s phones lines for many years.  Currently 5 Caledonian Road houses War Resisters’ International, Campaign Against Climate Change, Voices in the Wilderness UK and the Lansbury House Trust Fund, as well as the publishing offices of Peace News.

Housmans  -  more than just a shop.  It has published various series of pamphlets, as well as acting as European distributor for US radical publications and Gandhian literature form India.  Housmans bookshop still publishes the annual Peace Diary – the first, and one of the last remaining, ‘alternative’ diaries – about to celebrate its 51st edition.  The shop also provides space for the separate Housmans Peace Resource Project, publisher of the World Peace Database – used around the worlds as a unique reference resource – from which the directory in the Peace Diary each year is derived.

Moving Forward

Housmans has recently seen a change in management, on the ‘shop floor’, and the new staff are in the process of focussing the stock profile to fit the changing needs of the various ‘movements’ that we aim to provide a resource for.
We cannot compete with some of the internet bookshops on price, but we do offer a 10% student discount on almost all items in stock, and we offer some expertise and human interaction that web-shops do not provide.  We also have regular in-store events, with expert speakers, debates, poetry readings and so on.
Housmans Bookshop and the services and facilities offered by 5 Caledonian Road have a long and varied history.  The recent past has been difficult, but we are convinced that there is a vibrant future ahead, where we will play a vital part in campaigning for peace and social change.