Feminist books and fabulous cakes
FOR her tenth anniversary as owner of a feminist bookshop, Dr Jacqui Robertson achieved her ambition of ensuring that every one of the 10,000 books on her shelves is written by a woman.
She has run the Reading Lasses shop and cafe in Wigtown since July 2015, gaining a reputation for her amazing homemade cakes too.
At the busiest times of year Jacqui starts baking at 5.30 am, returning to yet more baking after closing time.
And the former scientist, lecturer and schoolteacher is already planning which cake creations she’ll be serving up for this year’s Wigtown Book Festival next month: the 120 eight-inch sponges will include coffee cakes, rose and pistachio, raspberry and white chocolate and even tahini and lime or “ras el hanout”.
She also expects to dish out 560 scones, 500 litres of soup, 140 litres of tea and 1600 cups of coffee during the festival period.
Reflecting on the last ten years, Jacqui said: “I used to visit Galloway a lot and loved to visit Wigtown – I’m an avid reader so I loved the place. Reading Lasses came up for sale in 2010 and I considered it, but the time wasn’t right. It came up again in 2015 and I decided the moment had come for my next adventure in life.
“I took over in late July and had an absolute baptism of fire when the festival took place – everything was so incredibly busy.
“I realised from the start that I would need the café to support the bookshop, but I had no experience in baking or catering. I decided I would approach it like a science project and keep experimenting until I got it right.
“To my surprise it revealed a creative side to me that I hadn’t known was there. And while I very much think I have a bookshop with café, I know some people think of it as a café with books.”
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Reading Lasses was the first new bookshop to open in Wigtown when it was designated Scotland’s National Book Town in 1998.
Its original owner ran it as a feminist bookshop and cafe specialising in women’s studies, gender studies and social sciences.
This appealed to Jacqui as someone who wanted to showcase female creativity.
In addition to having sections which have prizewinning books by women authors, she has created sections on art, travel, nature, science and for 18th and 19th-century women authors.
She said: “I have a stock of about 10,000 books and for the past ten years my aim has been for every title to be by a woman author. I’ve finally had time to achieve that.
“I’m proud to have a section where people can discover writers like Fanny Burney, Maria Edgeworth and Charlotte Lennox. They are the sort of authors who would have inspired Jane Austen, as good if not better than many male authors of their time, yet who were often dismissed as scribblers.
“A female author-only bookshop celebrates a specific aspect of literary diversity, it’s something that rebalances rather than divides. That’s what I hope Reading Lasses exemplifies. It has been my passion and a project of love over the last decade.”
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