Welcome to Cafés! A dream scene to study in. A place to perform at an open mic. A limited paradise with overheads.

Where we can eat sausage cassoulet and not think about work. Where we can meet friends and not think about love. Where we can meet lovers and be too nervous to eat. In Holly Pester’s unique lyric, the café space is rendered as a fantastical structure through which to explore pressurised subjectivities in the shape of a worker, a lover, a friend, an artist, and a researcher.

At a time when conversations around the decline of the commons and third spaces are heightened, Holly’s book is a stylish and political intervention and call for the necessity of a place for eccentrics, poets, employees, and those taking steps towards the rest of their life.