Leicester indie Kibworth Books moves to larger premises and expands business

Independent bookshop Kibworth Books is to expand its business and will move to larger premises next month.

The Leicester store will be moving from 52 High Street down the road to The Barn at number 29 in February, a site that will allow the team to stock three times as many books.

Its old premises will be be renovated and rebranded, launching as a second bookshop, specialising in rare and collectable titles. This is due to open in the second half of 2022. 

Kibworth Books was launched in December 2009 by Debbie James (pictured). It now has a team of six working both on the shop floor and behind the scenes. In 2016, the shop doubled in size by taking on a second storey of the property, converting it from an apartment into two more book-lined rooms. 

“We could not be more excited about the move," James said. "We will have space to give over a whole room to children’s books, four times the size of the space we currently have for that, and there will be another room just for cards, stationery and gifts too. The main part of The Barn will house over three times as many fiction and non-fiction titles as we can offer at the moment and will also function as a great space for author events, social events and book clubs.”

In its 12 years of trading, Kibworth Books has set up eight book clubs and two annual book festivals. The shop has hosted events with authors including Rob Biddulph, Ann Cleeves, Lisa Jewell, Mahsuda Snaith and Nina Stibbe. 

Its next events in February include an evening with the poet and author Brian Bilston as part of Leicester Comedy Festival and a talk from Beth Morrey. The bookshop has won Regional Independent Bookshop of the Year, Vintage Independent Bookshop of the Year and last month appeared on "The Most Brilliant Bookshops in the World" list in the Financial Times.

The team has also been presented with three James Patterson Awards for its work in promoting a love of books and reading to children and the Booksellers Association (BA) Diversity and Inclusion Award for its book festival programming and book stock selection. James currently sits on the BA’s Independent Booksellers Panel, Green Bookselling Task Force and Divisional Board.