About Us

Hello! We’re Ray and Nic and we run The Bookish Type, a queer indie bookshop in Leeds. We started out by running pop-up bookstalls in 2019, then we set up a website and finally we opened our bricks and mortar shop in September 2020 in the Merrion Centre.

We sell a range of queer literature: fiction, children’s books, YA, memoirs, poetry, short stories, zines, non-fiction, colouring books and graphic novels. We champion LGBTIQA+ authors and books with queer themes and characters because we know the importance of seeing yourself – and your community – represented. Also, there is so much amazing queer literature that we want to celebrate it all!

We’re a community bookshop so we aim to actively support and work with the local queer community. We have a Pay It Forward scheme, we run Queer History Tours around Leeds and we hold Secondhand Sundays to raise money for good causes. We offer discounts to local book groups and Joe, our Saturday Boy, runs a book group for older LGBTIQA+ people in collaboration with the Leeds LGBT+ Community Consortium.