Meet the bookworms - Jonathan Atkinson

HOW YOU HELP AT THE BOOKSHOP

I am one of the people who helped save the bookshop from closure back in 2018. A group of six of us helped establish the bookshop as a community co-operative and raised the funds necessary to take on the running of the shop with a mixture of volunteers and Steve, our shopkeeper.

I remain on the bookshop’s committee and do a range of things including helping out with marketing and events. Most recently I’ve helped establish a programme of support for artists to come into the shop and create work in and around Glossop and set up Curiosity Club, a monthly night hosted at the shop where experts and enthusiasts share their passion for a subject.

FAVOURITE AUTHOR (AND WHY!)

I don’t read a lot of fiction and often prefer to read history, environmental or politics books - Colin Ward, town planner and anarchist thinker is someone I come back to again and again.

In terms of fiction, Umberto Eco (In the Name of the Rose, Focault’s Pendulum) and Hilary Mantel (Wolf Hall, In Place of Greater Safety) are two authors whose work I really enjoy.

But my favourite is the science fiction writer Ursula K Le Guin. We read some of her fantasy novels at school but I only came to her science fiction work later in life. In particular her Hainish Cycle of novels that include Left Hand of Darkness, The Word for World Is Forest and the Dispossessed explore themes around power, gender and the environment in light and subtle ways that navigate the ambiguity of these often contentious issues.

SOMETHING YOU'VE BEEN READING RECENTLY THAT YOU'D RECOMMEND

Last year we hosted a Curiosity Club in the bookshop that included local science fiction writer and author of Lamb, Matt Hill. It kick started my interest in publishers Dead Ink Books who host Matt Hill and a range of new and fascinating authors. I particularly like the work of Calderdale native Naomi Booth. I read her fascinating essay on fiction and weird landscapes and can recommend any of her works, including her first novella, the Lost Art of Sinking.