Wood Green co-operative bookshop secures new premises

Wood Green's co-operative bookshop, The All Good Bookshop, has secured temporary premises and plans to open this week. 

Veteran bookseller Tim West, who is launching the co-operative with former Zed Books director Farouk Sohawon, says The All Good Bookshop will open its doors with a soft launch tomorrow (Tuesday 20th August) at Blue House Yard. 

West, the co-founder of Wood Green’s Big Green Bookshop which shut down its physical premises in January with fellow co-founder Simon Key taking the business online, says The All Good Bookshop will be based at Blue House Yard for at least the next six months. 

Blue House Yard a redevelopment of an empty and underused site at 5 River Park Road, London, is the product of a partnership between with High Street Works and the London Borough of Haringey to transform the site into a place for local creatives, entrepreneurs and residents. The site contains private space for rent and public spaces for meeting friends and events. 

Co-operative member Chris Brosnahan said: "It's a great fit for us. Blue House Yard is very community focused and that's part of why the bookshop co-operative formed in the first place. When Big Green was open in Wood Green, there was so much going on there and lots of it community-focused and we are loathe to lose it."

West added: "We're opening with a very soft launch as it's all happened so quickly. It's just nine square metres and it's absolutely teeny, but it's there for us to branch out from."

The search continues for a larger and more permanent venue continues and if a second venue is found, the co-operative hopes to run both branches at the same time, with fundraising plans in the works. For now, the Blue Yard site will stock roughly 400 books in the shop, with a curated mix of new books, classics and children's, with the shop able to take orders on anything that is not in stock by Twitter or email.  

Brosnahan said: "All Good Bookshop will be more than just a place that sells books, it's a community project as well. We are hoping for a long and fruitful partnership with Blue House Yard." 

Ahead of the opening, the bookshop is taking orders through Twitter at @allgoodbookshop and email at control@allgoodbookshop.com.