Award-winning Kibworth bookshop gears up to kickstart 2022 in style by moving into new premises

An award-winning Kibworth bookshop is gearing up to kickstart 2022 in style by moving into new premises.

Kibworth Books will treble in size as owner Debbie James and her team prepare to make the exciting move next month after setting up 12 years ago.

And her current shop at 52 High Street in Kibworth Beauchamp will become her second bookshop, specialising in dealing in rare and collectable books.

“We could not be more excited about the move,” said thrilled Debbie.

She launched Kibworth Books in December 2009 – and she now boasts a team of six, working both on the shop floor and behind the scenes.

Debbie doubled the size of her business in 2016 by taking on a second storey of the property, converting it from an apartment into two more book-lined rooms.

Her bookshop will now move just yards down the road to The Barn at 29 High Street.

“We will now have the space to give over a whole room to children’s books.

“That’s 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,” said Debbie.

“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.”

Debbie will lead the operation to renovate and rebrand their current outlet at 52 High Street.

They will then open a second bookshop there, focusing on rare and collectable titles.

The shop is due to open in the second half of 2022.

In its 12 years of trading, Kibworth Books has set up eight book clubs, an annual Book Festival and a Children’s Book Festival.

They have hosted hundreds of events with top authors such as Rob Biddulph, Ann Cleeves, Lisa Jewell, Mahsuda Snaith and Nina Stibbe.

Upcoming 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 high-achieving bookshop has won Regional Independent Bookshop of the Year and Vintage Independent Bookshop in its illustrious decade or so in Kibworth Beauchamp.

And just last month Kibworth Books starred 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 their work in promoting a love of books and reading to children as well as the Booksellers Association (BA) Diversity and Inclusion Award for their book festival programming and book stock selection.

Debbie also sits on the BA’s Independent Booksellers Panel, Green Bookselling Task Force and Divisional Board.

Kibworth Books has also been writing its own headlines after raising over £2,200 to give new books to ill children being treated at Leicester Royal Infirmary over Christmas.

The shop set out to raise enough money to give a book to every child in the 130 beds on the wards – and back the hospital’s Christmas gifting campaign run by the University Hospitals of Leicester’s Specialist Play Team.

And they had raked in an impressive £2,247.60 by Christmas Day – as every child on the wards received a Christmas gift.

Kibworth Books has vowed to run the fundraising effort for 12 months from the launch.

You can find more here: https://kibworthbooks.com/blogs/news/book-fundraiser-gifting-books-to-children-in-hospitalAnd you can donate money here on the Kibworth Books website: https://kibworthbooks.com/collections/charitable-donations