Paramount Books

Spectacular old-​fashioned secondhand bookshop
Open only Friday to Sunday, Paramount Books manages to hang in there in an age of digital books and online selling. Full of wonderful treasures, you have to dig through the stacks, the shelves taking up every space and the shop extending backwards with more and more delights to be found. I’ve found out-​of-​print classics, favourites as gifts and unusual books that I wouldn’t have seen anywhere else. Staff are lovely and knowledgable and you could spend hours in here.

I walked into this place and it felt like this is where I belong, books everywhere, and here’s the shocking part, I don’t like reading books that much but I loved this place for some reason. Before you walk in you hear amazing classical music coming out of the shop onto the streets, you walk in and you see this cozy place filled with almost every kind of book you could think of, and in the back there is a section filled with old classic comic books, I literally spend hours in that shop just walking around and looking at the amazing collection of books this place has, knowing that you could look around the entire shop in 5 min, it’s not a big place, but the settings, the atmosphere, to me it was beautiful. And the best part about this place is the owner, Paul, he’s the most amazing human being I’ve ever met, describing him with a million words won’t be enough. You’ll understand what I’m saying once you meet him. Whether you like books or not, I recommend that you visit this place cuz you might fall in love with it like I did. Paramount Books in Manchester, a place I’ll always remember.

I have to give a major shout out to Paramount Books — a fantastic independent bookstore nestled in the sometimes overlooked and forgotten Shudehill area of town. Ok so there may be a million KFC ripoff takeaways and a few random shops that have seen better days around it but Paramount stands out as a well looked after 2^nd hand book store with loads of character!
I was pulled in on a wet and windy Monday by their comic book sale — in fact there’s a whole area in the back dedicated to rare comics and graphic novels (fantastic selection) — inside there’s a fantastic selection covering everything from music and film to politics, history and philosophy — really good to browse and possible pick up a tome to take home (wow that rhymes…)
The best part of this place is the owner who basically is exactly what you’d be looking for if casting this place in a Hollywood movie. With glasses dangling from his neck and a scholarly look as he sorts the shelves — the classical music in the background makes you really feel what a unique place this is in the world of chain stores and amazon.
Make sure you check out Paramount soon and enjoy a slip back into yesteryear!

When someone mentions a book shop to me my ears prick up, and if for many years I’ve walked by it, without a notice I begin to wonder why, then when someone suggests we go, a little woohoo goes off in my head and I’m happy. Then I find out it’s all second hand books, and sometimes this gives me the eeebies. I like prior warning, about second hand book shops, it’s always been this way, some of my friends revel in the previous ownership status, the dog eared corners, the bent spines, the coffee cup stains on the pages and two year old supper somewhere along page 82. My friend LOVES IT. No really, properly loves it. Everything that comes with a second hand book, all it’s history, it’s previously love, it’s biological evidence of it’s previous love, my friend loves it. If a book store comes with history and excellent music, that’s even better, if it comes with expert knowledge of most titles, or at the very least, all the titles in the store at any given time, great. And a bargain? Could this place get any better? A comfy place to take a load off and peruse prospective purchases? A whopping big yes! Alright, singular negatory point, book worms love coffee. Keep the people inside the store by installing a coffee machine, as they’ll only buy their fill of books and haul them over to the nearest Starbucks, Costa, Nero or similar anyway.

The reviews of Paramount really hit the nail on the head. The selection on offer here is excellent — unusually for a second-​hand bookshop I have been able to go in with a particular book in mind and actually leave with a copy (along with several others of course.) The owner is a genuine book lover and is happy to talk to you about your purchases. They have a fantastic selection of old Faber poetry editions. The smell of the place is wonderful too; the sweet rot of old books.
My favourite thing about Paramount though is not the range of books lining the shelves (or leant against the piano in the west wing of the shop) but the crates of magazines, comics and periodicals stacked on folding tables as you enter. There are girly mags from the fifties, sixties and seventies (like a fossil record of erotic tastes) and well-​thumbed compendiums of Sci-​Fi short stories (with trippy cover art featuring weeping robots and space dragons.) This is the stuff that makes the shop; the stuff that would have been consigned to a bin a few decades before. Reading through a copy of Action Comics that someone probably hid underneath their pillow as a kid is a rare and treasured thing.

Back in my youth, I was obsessed with Iain Banks. Weren’t we all, at some point? Because carrying The Wasp Factory around made us feel clever, and then we’d suggest it for Book Group, and then sigh and say «oh, you just don’t *get* it» when people were all like «so, it wasn’t a real willy in the jar? Eh? I’m confused. It’s just weird» Or was that just me?
Anyway, last year the boyf turned to me and said «I have never read The Wasp Factory» and I said «Iain Banks is great, let’s go buy you all of his books»
I knew there was only one place to go: Paramount. This bookshop, as Sarah-​Jane points out, does not sell bestsellers and holiday reads. It sells actual quality books, that people actually want to read, with an emphasis on cult and sci-​fi stuff. And so it was that the boyf snapped up 5 Iain Banks books for just over a tenner. Job well done, I abandoned him while he searched the sci-​fi section, and discovered a lovely edition of Siegfried Sassoon’s memoirs, for only £2!
If you like your second hand books clean and neat and tidy and whatnot, then buy them from the soulless Amazon Marketplace for 1p. If you want to poke around in a shop full of curious tomes and seriously cool cult lit, come to Paramount. Some of the books are battered, some have coffee stains; they’ve all been loved. The least you can do is buy them, read them, and love them again. That’s what shops like Paramount are all about.

Thank the lord for Paramount Book Exchange.
One of the few independent bookshops left in Manchester, it’s a strictly DIY affair run by a genuine book lover. The sign outside suggests it’s only open Fridays and Saturdays but it’s usually open Monday to Saturday unless the owner has popped out for something. The lively window displays give a great indicator of what’s in store with stacks of new, vintage and secondhand books everywhere.
Fans of cult fiction, sci-​fi, horror, crime noir, queer fiction, biographies and pop culture will find much to treasure here as the stock leans more towards William Burroughs, Poppy Z Brite and Neil Gaiman than Harry Potter. There’s also a small selection of 60s-​90s vinyl for crate diggers.
All they need is a coffee machine and I’d happily move in!

Paramounts Books is always blasting out amazing music. I don’t even know how the guy gets away with it. The guy that runs this shop is also so nice.
They have a really good selection of old school comic books — collector’s items in here. A great atmosphere, they even have a piano in the shop. It is as far away from Waterstones as you can get. And considering there’s no longer many bookshops in Manchester city centre anymore, other than Waterstones (remember Dillons?) we need to support places like this. Its only open on Fridays and Saturdays but it probably would open more with more custom.
Also, at Paramount there is a couch for reading which I love and good prices. What more do you want from a bookshop?

Sells old books, vintage comic books, cds, dvds, rare books and first editions. Also sells LPs for all of the record collectors out there, if you can live with the trademark musty smell of an old bookstore you are sure to find treasue in some shape or form!