We have recently changed our opening hours to the following:
10:00 – 6:00 Tuesday to Friday
10:00 – 4:00 Saturday
If your a member of a group looking to have a meeting or hold an event outside of these hours please contact us by ringing during opening hours or using the contact form or emailing on info ( at ) hydrabooks.org. We very much look forward to hearing from you.
Filed under Shop News
One hundred years ago immigrant workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts led by the Industrial Workers of the World organized a strike that held for over two months for fairer wages and better working conditions.
This was an momentous event in the history of labour relations in the United States and has inspired the Bread and Roses award for radical literature given by the Alliance of Radical Booksellers (of which The Hydra is of course a member).
Can you imagine a two month strike in these times? comments welcomed…
Filed under History
Date: Thursday 26th January 2012
Time: 7:00 pm
Place: Hydra Books
Counterpower is the single idea which explains why social movements succeed or fail. It has helped win campaigns, secure human rights, stop wars and even bring down governments.
Change can and does happen. But why is it that some campaigns succeed while others fail? Is it luck, or is there a common strategy unifying those that have achieved their aim, and what can we learn from the past? In Counterpower, activist Tim Gee seeks to get to the root of how change happens by taking an in-depth look at the strategies and tactics that have contributed to the success (or otherwise) of some of the most prominent movements for change from India’s Independence Movement to the Arab Spring. He concludes that any campaign is winnable in theory, but only if we are aware of our power.
About the Author: Tim Gee delivers training sessions for political activists. He studied Politics at Edinburgh University, where he was also active in the student movement. Tim has also contributed to several campaigning guides and manuals.
Published by New Internationalist Books – People, Ideas and Actions for Global Justice
Filed under Events, Good Reads, New Books
Come and hear about the BFN’s activities in 2011 and plans for 2012
Date: Wednesday 18 January 2012
Time: 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Place: Hydra Books
The Bristol Feminist Network write:
Our fourth year has been the busiest ever for the Bristol Feminist Network. Starting in January with the Where are the Women – Here They Are! cabaret night where we celebrated women’s music, poetry and art, our activity hasn’t stopped.
Since then we have had numerous discussion groups, including Feminism 101, Sisterhood, Feminism and Relationships and Feminism and Eroticism. We hosted a sell-out event about women’s representation in the media with renowned journalist Bidisha. We’ve ran two packed film and panel events on female genital mutilation, and a film and speech night on violence against women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We ran a workshop on women’s rights in Afghanistan and joined women up and down the country when we hosted a candle lit vigil to demand women’s voices are heard as peace negotiations with the country progress. Most recently, we marched through the streets to Bristol to Reclaim the Night.
Our members have attended conferences, written articles, contributed to reports, ran workshops, sat on committees and marched on Slut Walks.
This year has seen a number of feminist-related stories in the headlines, often demonstrating how far we have come – but also how far we have to go. In our own city, we have seen how entrenched victim-blaming myths are, with the initial police safety advice after the murder of Jo Yeates (which BFN successfully challenged and changed). The reactions to the allegations against Julian Assange and Dominique Strauss-Kahn revealed the investment we have in rape myths that excuse the alleged perpetrator and blame the victim. The opening of the Playboy Club in London and the Miss World event showed we have a long way to go before the normalisation of women as sex objects is over. And the cuts from the coalition government continue to entrench inequality as they turn back the clock on women’s rights.
Filed under Uncategorized
Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans History Month takes place every year in February. It celebrates the lives and achievements of the LGBT community.
The following events will be taking place at Hydra Books, 34 Old Market, Bristol BS2 0EZ.
Changing images of trans people in speculative literature
Cheryl Morgan
Thursday 2 February 2012 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
The availability of magic and advanced science have allowed writers of fantasy and science fiction literature to explore issues of gender in their work. Hugo Award winning critic, Cheryl Morgan, explores how the way in which trans characters have been portrayed in speculative literature has changed as real trans people have become better known to the general public.
Cheryl Morgan is, to her knowledge, the only out trans person ever to have won science fiction’s highest honour, the Hugo Award. Born in Somerset, she has lived in Australia and California and now resides near Bath where she runs a small ebook publishing company and bookstore. She blogs regularly at www.cheryl-morgan.com
Celebration of Lesbian and Gay Literature
OutStories Bristol
Tuesday 7 February 2012 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
From love poems to sci-fi and satire – come and join us in an evening of readings from literature with LGBT themes. Bring your favourite poem or excerpt and share it with the audience. Tell us what it means to you and where we can find more like it. Help us raise the profile of this new bookshop in the heart of Bristol’s Gay Village.
Organised and run by OutStories Bristol, a community group collecting and documenting the stories of LGBT people in Bristol.
Transgender before transgender: Cross-dressers and the establishment in Victorian England
Juliet Jacques
Thursday 9 February 2012 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
The emergence of public cross-dressing in the 19th century industrial city caused great anxiety to the Victorian legal establishment and England’s new police forces alike. In this talk, Guardian and New Statesman writer Juliet Jacques (longlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2011) explores how those who cross-dressed were criminalised, most famously in the scandalous trial of Ernest “Stella” Boulton and Frederick “Fanny” Park in 1871, and how contemporary transgender identities began to evolve in response.
Juliet Jacques is a journalist and author, best known for writing A Transgender Journey for The Guardian – the first time that the gender reassignment process has been serialised for a mainstream British publication. She has also written for the New Statesman and TimeOut, and was longlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2011.
Celebrating Trans Lives: Trans People’s Contributions to Modern Medicine and Culture
Dr Louis Bailey
Thursday 16 February 2012 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Far from being passive and unwitting subjects of medical experimentation, trans people are here shown to be active agents of change – within the NHS, social justice, and British society as a whole. This talk demonstrates the ways in which trans people have contributed to the development of modern-day healthcare, and how the trans community continues to shape medical understandings of, and social responses to, gender variancy.
Dr Louis Bailey is the Co-Founder of TREC – the Trans Resource and Empowerment Centre (www.transcentre.org.uk) – and represents TREC as a Strategic Executive Partner of the National LGB&T Partnership (Department of Health). Dr Bailey’s research concerns the medical history of gender variancy, and issues of trans life course and ageing.
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