Mandy and Kate opened 1b Books on Bolingbroke Street in December 2023, tucked around the corner from Heaton Park Road and painted a distinctive green. The shop mixes new and second-hand stock across fiction, non-fiction, children's and young adult titles, with poetry and queer fiction given the front-of-shop tables rather than pushed to the back. Working-class and LGBTQ+ writing in translation gets particular attention on the shelves. Kate runs a baby and toddler book group every Friday, when the shop rearranges itself into a temporary play area for local parents, and there is a separate young adult book club. Dogs are welcome throughout. Press coverage at the time described it as the city's newest independent bookshop, filling a gap in a high street that had gone without one for some time.
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