Bookworm: Radical Alternative

NEXT time you are near King's Cross and have a few minutes to spare before you catch the train north to Scotland, do yourself a favour and check out the small pool of unreconstructed idealism about 100 yards away from the station that is Housmans Bookshop.

About 20 years ago almost every city in Britain used to have a radical independent bookshop. Now, the rise of both amazon and high street rents seems to have put paid to that.

Apart from a handful of shops in relatively well-off parts of the country where there isn't a chain bookstore for miles, independent bookshops are already an endangered species. Radical bookshops are almost extinct already: Word*Power, in Edinburgh, which has been flying the flag for leftie book-lovers since it was opened by James Kelman back in 1994, is the only one in Scotland.

To get an idea of what a loss the decline of the radical bookshop is to society, just look at what Word*Power already does. There's the radical book fair they run every October for a start. All the readings they put on. All the small presses they help exist. All the books they help bring into being – like the Tom Leonard's Outside the Narrative, which is in the running for the 30,000 SAC Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book of the Year. If you want to buy it, Word*Power has it on sale at 9.95. Amazon's only copy will set you back 65.

TAKING ON AMAZON

TALKING of amazon, it's worth pointing out that the radical independent bookshops are at least trying to stage a fightback. And efficient as amazon is at selling the books it already has in stock (its record in ordering ones it doesn't is far worse), many people are worried by its dominant position in the marketplace. Their argument goes like this: the bigger you are, the more you can squeeze publishers; the more you do that, the less they can pay their authors; the fewer authors you have ... well, you get the picture.

Anyway, back to Housmans, founded in 1945 by a bunch of pacifists and based for the last 50 years at 5 Caledonian Road (turn left on leaving King's Cross, cross the road, take the next left and you're opposite it: tell them The Scotsman sent you). Because finally, they've decided to do something about amazon. They're taking them on.

Of course, it's not even David versus Goliath. It's Goliath versus a flea that has somehow taken up residence on David's tunic. There's no way they will be able to compete with amazon on price. This isn't a shop with vast cash reserves but a not-for-profit business which advertises for volunteers and donations on its website (www.housmans.com).

"All the same," says Nik Gorecki, the shop's co-manager, "we've got 500,000 titles on offer. And if you want an ethical alternative to amazon, you should check us out."

Maybe we should. And check out word-power.co.uk while you're at it. In an age of cultural and political homogeneity, you don't even have to be a leftie to realise that we need places like these more than ever.