People'S Bookshop

We are delighted to announce that highly acclaimed County Durham musician and author JEZ LOWE will be making an appearance at The Peoples Bookshop. Jez will be reading extracts from his novel, ‘The Dillen Doll’ and performing songs from the album of the same name.
The novel is set at the turn of the nineteenth century, and brings together characters from various folk songs of the period, centrally a woman called Dolly Coxon, who is mentioned, albeit obliquely, in the well-kno...wn song from Newcastle Upon Tyne, ‘Do Li A’. This is her story, as imagined by Jez, going some way to explaining why an impoverished woman from the Tyne quayside should have been celebrated in a song that has survived for over two hundred years. The song itself is one of ‘around fifteen’ that Jez has fashioned into a suite of songs to reflect the narrative and evoke the musical background of this rich North East folk tale.
The bulk of Jez’s time is spent ‘on the road’. He’s long been one of the UK’s busiest folk performers, playing for audiences the world over, either solo, (with guitar, cittern and harmonica accompaniment), or with his band The Bad Pennies and as part of The Pitmen Poets (with Bob Fox, Benny Graham and Billy Mitchell), Jez has helped to rekindle the fire in the tradition of mining songs and culture of his native region.
In relation to Jez’s own songs, his reputation as a fine songwriter continues to grow and over the last couple of decades, titans of the folk world such as Fairport Convention, The Dubliners, The Unthanks, Wizz Jones, The McCalmans, Mary Black, The Young Uns, Cherish The Ladies, Tom McConville and The Clancys have all made it their business to add Jez Lowe penned songs to their repertoires.
‘No-one else writes or sounds like Jez Lowe, and chances are, even if you’ve never heard the man himself, you’ll have heard his songs, sung at festivals, club-gigs, open-mikes or on CD, by the great and good, the professional and the enthusiast, the young and not-so-young’. – Mike Harding (Former Radio2 Folk DJ)
‘The best singer-songwriter to come out of the UK for a long time’ - Richard Thompson
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Come along and meet Steve Howell, member of Jeremy Corbyn's team for the 2017 election, and hear his insider story of the election that turned the predictions of just about every media commentator on their head. Learning from the story of how Corbyn's team carried out this enormous political upset is vital for the success of the left in the future, so we're honoured to be able to host Steve. Copies of his book will be available to buy and to be signed. We regret that the venue is not accessible.

"Bookshops being attacked show how frightened they are of ideas of a different world of social justice and equality." Solidarity Bookmarks.

Solidarity to our comrades at Bookmarks. No pasaran.

Interested in learning more about the Israel/ Palestine conflict? Here are a few of the books we have in the shop on the conflict. Open till 5- pop in to learn more! 🇵🇸

Ignore the previous post- we’re open until 5 again!

Sorry! We are closing the shop at 2:30 today due to staff shortages.

Check out this Rosa Luxemburg graphic biography we have in the shop! Open 12-5 today!

Now open! It's a beautiful day in Durham, why not make it even better by popping into the People's Bookshop! 🌞

We still have a small number of the updated version of 'The Candidate', including coverage of the 2017 general election, remaining from the Miners Gala! You might even be able to get your hands on a signed copy if you're lucky! We're open till 5 today!

Thanks to Ben Chacko, editor of the Morning Star, for popping into the bookshop today! We hope you enjoyed it, thanks to our collective member Mollie for bringing Ben along!

Great to have an impromptu visit from Richard Burgon this afternoon, the first time he’s visited our bookshop. One of our best MPs, and part of a generation of Labour representatives who are transforming politics. Thanks and come back soon, Richard.

Alex Nunns has arrived and is ready of sign copies of the essential reading on all things Corbyn! Come and say hi.

The absolute lad Liam Young has arrived at the Bookshop stall and is ready to sign copies of Rise and answer all of your questions!

Our fantastic t-shirts are flying off the stall! £15 each.

The People’s Bookshop is up and running!! Come and give us a wave on the field.

*FINAL GALA HYPE POST* (probably)
We’ll have copies of The Candidate, the classic account of the Corbyn campaign updated to take account of the general election, on the stall tomorrow. Along with its amazing author Alex Nunns! Get your copy signed by Alex and ask him your questions.
We are all so excited!!

It was great to speak to Angela Rayner today at Redhills Durham! Angela is here for the gala, be sure to pop down to People's Bookshop stall on the racecourse to get one of the 20% off vouchers Angela has, to be used in the shop! See you all there!✊

Top lefty bookstore in Durham. Would reccomend.

The peoples voice ... speaking out to defend our legal rights and justice

The people were welcoming and engaging. I felt energised after visiting and will certainly be returning shortly.

The Peoples Bookshop always has interesting books that you just find anywhere else. They put on music, comedy, films, book launches and even welcome you with a cuppa. You don't get that at Amazon.

Socialism in a shop.

Communism in printed form.

Visit.

One of the best spots in the North East, hands down

Best bookshop in the land! A goldmine of working class political history and theory.

An absolute book gold mine and place for great friendly chat, pop in get hooked

A great little shop run by committed staff. A good stock of books, and they are happy to order things in for you.

A great little gem hidden in the courtyard in Durham. A radical bookshop with volunteer staff. Always friendly, quite often offered tea or coffee and plenty of discussion and chat. It has become my favourite haunt on Saturday afternoon.

I had an absolutely fabulous visit to this bookshop and would highly recommend it.