Spartacus Books

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SPARTACUS BOOKS
VENEWS

words by Charmaine Li
illustrations by Gillian Cole
photos by Han-Yu Lee
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  Duck under the Sky­train over­pass in the un­as­sum­ing Kensing­ton Cedar Cottage neigh­bour­hood of East Van­couver and you’ll find Sparta­cus Books, a non-profit run by a dedi­ca­ted volun­teer col­lect­ive. Here lies every­thing from $2 copies of Harry Potter books, local zines and so­cial just­ice pub­lica­tions. The store is also a venue for events as ec­lec­tic as ac­cord­ion and fiddle nights. It’s a curi­ous cross between used book­store and com­mun­ity chill-out centre, with a very D.I.Y. store sign that reads more like a doodle on a ban­ner in black paint. Curi­ous about queer lit­era­ture, begin­ner’s guides to Marxism, en­viron­mental just­ice, or the latest issue of Jacobin? You’ve come to the right place. Grab some­thing off the shelf, help your­self to a cup of coffee, and slide into a couch for as long as you like. There’s even a gui­tar to play with, and a row of com­put­ers with free Wi-Fi.   Spartacus began as a book table at Simon Fraser Uni­vers­ity in 1972, of­fer­ing al­tern­at­ive titles that couldn’t be found in the main­stream. The cur­rent loca­tion

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on Findlay Street is only a year and a half old. The col­lect­ive was “gentri­fied out” of its previ­ous loca­tion in a his­toric build­ing on East Hastings Street, ac­cord­ing to event co­ord­in­ator (and self-labelled “shift nag”) Alan Zisman. Spartacus won some press as a result, bring­ing at­ten­tion to the im­port­ance of main­tain­ing a non-profit, col­lect­ive-run, liter­acy-driven com­mun­ity space in the Downtown Eastside. The col­lect­ive’s de­term­ina­tion and pas­sion for their cause is clear—Sparta­cus has lived through a lot in four previ­ous loca­tions, in­clud­ing a fire that de­stroyed a mem­ber-written log of the com­mun­ity’s history. This log­book con­cept has been re­vived, for­tun­ately, along with a guest­book you can con­trib­ute to loca­ted in the wash­room.

  Books in Sparta­cus come from all sorts of nooks and cran­nies. Many titles are used and don­ated, others are given by local pub­lish­ers and authors. Find­ing some­thing to read is af­ford­able—the aver­age price of a book is $5, and few things cost more than $30. “Our niche is books about so­cial change,” Zisman ex­plains. Pop­ular titles and authors aren’t over­looked either, and I found two new and shiny copies of Hyper­bole and a Half. He also claims, you can find “the cheap­est left­ist pocket organ­iz­ers in North Amer­ica.” There are also a wild pleth­ora of records, CDs, and local band merch. Art­ists are wel­come to drop by and put up their art, if there’s space for it.

  The Sparta­cus calen­dar is chock-full of events, from First Nations talk­ing cir­cles, to movie nights, to group meet­ings like Social Just­ice Stitch ‘n Bitch. Most events are liter­acy-rela­ted, like book clubs and poetry work­shops, but on some nights the volun­teers push aside the book shelves and build a make­shift stage area with milk crates and plywood. “Some­how we’ve gotten on some lists as a ‘Van­cou­ver venue,’” says Zisman, who is also an ac­cord­ion player in The Gram Part­isans. “I hope we have more music stuff hap­pen,” volun­teer co­ordin­ator Meika Johnson adds, “the [shows] are small scale, but still super fun.”

  Because intim­acy and com­mun­ity is key. Sparta­cus is run by a col­lect­ive of vol­un­teers; every­one does a little bit of every­thing, and all sales pro­ceeds go towards the main­ten­ance of a com­mun­ity area. It is prim­arily a book­store, but also a space of inter­sec­tion. As col­lect­ive mem­ber Ethan Reyes de­scribes it, “[There are] lots of

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books, lots of like-minded people to hang out with, and meet and col­labor­ate with.”

  The col­lect­ive itself is a small but pas­sion­ate group of in­div­idu­als, many of whom were simply new to the city and look­ing for a place to get in­volved, and en­cour­age so­cial change. There’s no boss-man, no hier­archy. Some­times great ideas get lost when there’s no one to spear­head them.

  “People join with great in­ten­tions, and partly they want to change the world,” Zisman con­tinues, “Some­times the con­nec­tion between [work­ing in a non-profit book­store] and changing the world can get a little un­clear.”

  But that’s okay; Sparta­cus’ em­pha­sis since the ‘70s has been on com­mun­ity, and this one has kept the store open almost every day of the year, through sev­eral loca­tion changes. Walk in, and who­ever’s on shift will prob­ably say hello, wel­come you, and maybe even in­vite you to play music here if you’re a new band in town.

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  Sparta­cus Books is loca­ted at 3378 Findlay Street in East Van­couver. Visit their web­site at spartacusbooks.net, or follow their activ­ity on Facebook for event up­dates and new titles.