Hello! We are OPEN today 10-8pm but CLOSED tomorrow all day for a team strategy day! We’ll be back on Monday 💕
In the meantime, check out how many amazing events we have coming up, including one with @lamornaaash and @thischarmingham on Tuesday and @jancarsonstories on Wednesday next week! Browse events & get your ticket on our website! 🎟️
"Everyone's healing. No-one's happy."
We promised you a very gay summer and now it's time to deliver - we've teamed up with the lovely babes at @wutheringdykesbookclub to offer you another highly anticipated queer lit event!
This time, we have @gabtorrr joining us with their satiritical queer debut - Hard Place - for what promises to be a fantastic discussion on navigating life whilst queer, sad and broke. The incredible team at @scribneruk have sent us copies of the book early ahead of its 4th June publication date, so if you want to read it before everybody else does, come get your copy now.
Join us on Thursday 8th May at 7PM, tickets on our website 🚇
🦝🐦SEEKING POSTER DESIGNER FOR THE EDINBURGH RADICAL BOOK FAIR 2026!🐦🦝
Edinburgh’s Radical Book Fair is back in 2026!
Taking place at the Roxy Assembly 5th-8th November, the fair is a yearly meeting point for radical books and radical reading, thinking and feeling, as much as it is an opportunity for community-building and for making connections to facilitate crucial action and organising.
We’re on the lookout for a new poster designer for this year’s fair - is this you?
📖THE FINE PRINT📖
- The poster: An A3 poster, with elements of the design to be used both online and in print.
- The theme: “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” @arundhatiroyauthor
- The fee: £150 for the poster design.
- What we need from you: An email to [email protected] with the following: * A few samples of your (existing) work * A couple of lines about why you'd be a good fit to create the poster for 2026's Radical Book Fair * Answers to the following question: If shortlisted, would you be happy for your work to be celebrated in a round-up on the Lighthouse IG and TikTok accounts? * Please note that we're not asking for drafts or finished designs at this point - just a note of interest.
- The deadline: 1st June by 5PM
- Before applying, please check out our website for further info on the theme!
Though not a requirement to apply, we're especially keen to work with and promote the work of artists based in Scotland or the North of England, who are familiar with the bookshop and share our values and ambitions for the Radical Book Fair.
We’re so excited to see your work and hope you will consider sharing it with us!
Join us on 25 May 2026 at the Lighthouse @lighthousebks - Edinburgh's Radical Bookshop - as part of Women in Translation Book Club to discuss BALKAN RHAPSODY by Maria Kassimova-Moisset @kassimovamoisset in my translation from the Bulgarian into English and Scots.
Reserve your free seat or buy the book by using your book club discount via the link in bio.
Thanks to Annie Rutherford @annie_translates for the kind invitation for me to join the book club discussion in person!
#DYK that BALKAN RHAPSODY is the first Bulgarian book in translation to be published in Scotland. Thanks to the independent small press Tippermuir Books. Here's to all independent bookshops and publishers like @lighthousebks & @tippermuir
#womenintranslation
@womenintranslation@readwit@witdatabase@womeninworldhistory
I’m extremely thrilled to be able to share (at last) details of the UK FATHER MATERIAL preorder campaign with you!!
Order your copy from @lighthousebks or @queerlituk to receive three Luc & Oliver vellum overlays + a signed bookplate. (These are the same incentives as the US indie campaign. It’s also while supplies last.) You can find all the l!nks in all the usual places. 💙❤️🥔
An unbelievable amount of finagling and logistics goes on behind the scenes in order for any campaign to happen (let alone several for one book). A big thanks to my publisher for all their hard work. And equally big thanks to everyone who has been patient. We got there in the end! ✊🫶💜
———
Disclaimers:
1. If you ask me a question that is directly answered in the caption or the post itself, I’m afraid I will not able to respond to you.
2. Please do consider visiting my website for further information about my work.
3. In order to make my social media a welcoming and inclusive space for everyone, I filter & actively moderate.
Join us on Wednesday 20th May to celebrate Jan Carson's new, hugely entertaining and moving novel!
In 'Few and Far Between', an archipelago of small islands in Northern Ireland offers a holding space for pain with nowhere to go - secrets are literally swallowed by the ground, people stuck between life and death wander among the trees.
The islands themselves receive the hurt people are unable to carry, as the novel, with lightness, humour and heart, explores difficult truths about peace in the aftermath of collective trauma.
Reading this immensely powerful (and funny!) novel, we got to thinking about other books where a place appears to have agency, even a will, of its own, stories in which cities, forests or houses are fully alive as characters.
Check out our book list and get your tickets on our website!
📖 BOOK GIVEAWAY 📖
Following our latest podcast episode with human rights lawyer and author Nani Jansen Reventlow (@nanijansenreventlow ), we’re excited to announce a giveaway of Nani’s book, ‘Radical Justice’, in collaboration with Lighthouse Bookshop in Edinburgh (@lighthousebks )!
There are five free copies of the book available through Lighthouse Bookshop, on a first come, first served basis. This giveaway is for anyone interested in building a more radical, fairer, and more just world.
You can claim a copy by stopping by the bookshop or by placing an online order, using the code RADICAL-JUSTICE-GIVEAWAY
If you manage to get your hands on a copy, feel free to share a photo on socials! We hope you find the book useful, thought-provoking, and inspiring 🌱
We are so pleased to be bringing you a spring of epic storytelling, with three (!!!) fantastic fiction events over the next few weeks.
First up, we have a gorgeous new graphic novel of spells and rebellions from local legend @goblin_purwin Thursday evening, followed by wickedly funny eco-fiction from @jancarsonstories next Wednesday and a queer historical reimagining of Dickens by @elle.andthebooks on the 27th May.
Whatever your tastes, we have an event for you, with more to come throughout the summer (watch this space for a Very Gay June...)
More info and tickets available on our website, join us! 🎟️
Here you will find the light.
A bookshop so cozy, it really does make you think of how wonderful that feeling must be if you were caught out in a stormy sea and after hours of dread, saw that beacon of hope in the distance. This is what @lighthousebks is to society - a place that celebrates queerness, stands against racism and holds space for those marginalised across every part of their identity because they understand that none of these struggles exist in isolation from one another. The lighthouse sells around 10,000 books, fiction and non-fiction, and takes pride in showcasing the wide ranging tales and tribulations of what it means to be other (as well as your regular-degular bestsellers!). You can understand why they were voted Scotland’s Best Independent Bookshop in 2020.
Scattered and pinned across their shelves they have staff recommended notes that are really insightful and I couldn’t help pick up The Seers because of Tonsy’s lovely message about it. They also have a Trinket exchange - come on 😫 that is so cute- so you will have to go visit to see what’s inside.
PLUS…they were very nice to my dog, Zeus. So all in all, a LOVELY trip to the Lighthouse.
Etch it into your map of bookshops folks, you won’t be disappointed!
#booktrove #edinburgh #indiebookshop #politicalbooks #bookstagrammeruk
📣 FEMINIST EVENT 📣
It's time to take a deep dive into feminist history as we meet Shere Hite— whose notorious work revolutionized how we think about s3x, marriage, and the female orga$m.
Tomorrow evening (13 May), historian of global feminism Rosa Campbell will be with us to guide us through the life, work, controversies and oppression surrounding a forgotten but leading figure of second-wave feminism.
Gearing up for the event, we headed for the shelves to gather up some stand-out books tackling the relationship between sex, pleasure and power, ending up with a stack that includes recent classics on s3x work as well as gems on s3x and disability.
You can find more info on the books and buy your tickets for tomorrow's event on our website, link in bio!
The event will be followed by a social in collaboration with @letschangetheact - come join us 🔥
Sometimes holding the line is enough. And doing that – against impossible odds, is an achievement in itself.
A clip from the Radical Justice event at @lighthousebks in Edinburgh, organised with .
Watch the full conversation at the link in bio.
