Grass Roots Books

1971 — 1973

Upper Brook Street, Manchester

1973 — 1974

100 Oxford Road, Manchester M13 0JN

1974 — 1975

178 Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9QQ

1975 — 1979

109 Oxford Road, Manchester

1977 — 1990

1 Newton Street, Manchester

Grass Roots Books first opened its doors in 1971 on Upper Brook Street, Manchester. By the mid-1970s, it became the largest radical bookshop outside of London.

In 1973 it relocated to 100 Oxford Road, Manchester M13 0JN in a short-life community use building nearer to the University.

The bookshop offered a vast selection of feminist, gay and lesbian publications, books by Black and African writers, Marxist and Maoist texts, and literature on broader socialist themes. Its collection also included materials on anarchism, peace and anti-racism, Eastern philosophies, hallucinogenic experiences, homoeopathy, and vegetarianism. Grass Roots Books offered a platform to a new breed of radical publishers such as Pluto, Verso, Virago, Women’s Press, Sheba and Central Books. It did a bit of publishing itself and produced booklists to enable stock to be sold by mail order.

The bookshop was also a target for the resurgent National Front of the 1970s.

In the spring of 1974, management of the shop was passed to a small collective who ran it from a basement room at 178 Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9QQ. This building belonged to Manchester University and was used by a Third World shop (Shanti) and for other community activities. The shop then moved to 109 Oxford Road in 1975, where it found a more prominent and accessible location.

Grass Roots Books officially became a worker cooperative in 1976, meaning that the staff controlled the shop and no profit went to shareholders or owners.

In early 1977 Grass Roots opened a new shop at 1 Newton Street, a basement premises but in a prominent location in the city centre. The Oxford Road shop also continued trading for 2.5 years.

In the 1980s the bookshop organised successful events notably with Maya Angelou, Black Women Poets, a Jewish feminist and Lesbian Nuns.

Grass Roots closed in 1990 due to financial difficulties and changes in the collective. However, the creation of Frontline Books from the legacy of Grass Roots ensured the continuation of radical bookselling in Manchester.

Sources:

Maggie Walker, Gay Jones, Fran Devine and Rick Seccombe, 'Grass Roots Books, 1971-1990', Radical Bookselling History Newsletter Issue 6 May 2023, ISSN 2752-3977 [https://www.leftontheshelfbooks.co.uk/pdf/Radical-Bookselling-History-Newsletter-Issue-6-May-2023.pdf, accessed 14.05.2025]

Radical Bookshops Listing, Radical Bookshop History Project (November 2023) [Available online here, accessed 14.05.2025]

Launch of the Grass Roots Books Archive [https://stayhappening.com/e/launch-of-the-grass-roots-books-archive-E2ISV0EUI3C, accessed 14.05.2025]

Rick Seccombe, Mike Don obituary, The Guardian, 4.7.2021 [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jul/04/mike-don-obituary, accessed 14.05.2021]

The Radical Bookseller No. 50 Nov/Dec 1986; No. 55, Sept/Oct 1987; No. 72 Apr-Jun 1990; No. 73 Jul - Sept 1990; No. 75, 1991; No. 76, winter 1991

Black and white photo of Grass Roots Bookshop in Manchester with its distinctive black shopfront. — Grass Roots Bookshop in Manchester, showcasing its black shopfront in the 1970s. © Grass Roots

1975 — 1986

108, Salisbury Road, Cardiff, CF2