Brighton Reading Room

Brighton Reading Room

In Spring 2023, the Centre for Global Political Economy, Hopeful Solidarities and One Church Brighton established the Brighton Reading Room in One Church’s Florence Road Café in central Brighton.

The café and reading room is open 8.30pm to 4pm Tuesday to Friday.  It’s designed to be a space where people can read, learn, listen, share ideas, and drink top quality, anticapitalist Skylark Coffee. We want to catalyse creativity, collaboration and conversation in our community.

Our library is stocked with thought-provoking books from Pluto Press, one of the world’s oldest independent radical publishing houses, with additional contributions from Left Book Club and a growing list of publishers.  We also host talks, reading groups and opportunities to meet authors, outside of café opening hours.

The Brighton Reading Room is part of a nationwide network of similar projects, supported by Pluto Press. As well as physical library spaces, The Reading Room project opens up forums to debate both global and local issues that affect everyday lives, such as impoverishment, climate catastrophe, employment injustice, feminist & queer politics, structural racism and much more.

You can read more about Brighton Reading Room’s local partner organisations here.

 

How to use the Brighton Reading Room

Visit us 8.30am – 4pm Tuesday to Friday at the Florence Road Café in the church building on the corner of Florence Road and Southdown Avenue – BN1 6DL.

This space is all about bringing people into conversation around important issues through books. So, grab a cup of coffee, have a browse, and sit down for a chapter or two.

If something stands out to you, we’d love you to make an entry in our Reading Room Journal. This could be a quote or something you’ve been prompted to think about or act on. Don’t forget to add the title, author and page number so others can find the inspiration too.

Book Groups There’s a monthly Left Book Club reading group on a Tuesday evening, all are welcome. You may wish to arrange a time to meet with friends to read a book, explore a topic, or discuss related actions. If you’d like to join in a reading group, email readingroom@onechurchbrighton.org.

Borrowing Books If you want to take a book home, please jot down your name, the book you’re borrowing and the date, and bring it back within a month if possible. No one’s going to come after you, but we want to keep the books available to as many people as possible so please help us out!

The Brighton Reading Room project team are: Amy Clarke, Lara Montesinos Coleman, Sam Corry and Ben Rogaly.  We welcome volunteers who would like to help.  Contact Sam: readingroom@onechurchbrighton.org