Choose Books Over Booze

14/07/2026

Supporting Alcohol Awareness Week 2026 🧡🧡

Book Giveaway
Manchester Central Library

To support Alcohol Awareness Week we were able to give away 50 free QuitLit books in partnership with Manchester Central Library.

The response was phenomenal!! 📚📚📚

Thank-you to everyone who stopped to chat and share their views and their personal relationship with alcohol, in the library and outside under the tree for shade!

The books all found new homes in record time!!

We were asking people -

1. What role does alcohol play in your life?

2. Have you ever thought about taking a break from alcohol?

Everyone that stopped was offered a book that could start their Sober Summer Reading list & invited to sign up to and/or join the library 📚📚

☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️

Books donated by Ambassador 🩷

Thankyou to the recently graduated students from the who put their skills to good use and recorded the content and interviews on the day 👏👏👏

09/07/2026

Manchester Central Library launches Book Giveaway for Alcohol Awareness Week 📚📚📚📚

This Alcohol Awareness Week (6–12 July), Manchester Central Library is encouraging people to explore their relationship with alcohol through the power of reading with the launch of a free Book Giveaway.

Up to 50 books exploring alcohol, sobriety, recovery and mindful drinking will be given away free of charge on Friday 10 July, from 10am.

Whether you’re sober, sober curious, cutting back, supporting someone else, or simply interested in learning more, there is a book waiting to be discovered.

The giveaway supports this year’s Alcohol Awareness Week theme, ‘Alcohol and Me,’ encouraging people to pause, reflect and consider the role alcohol plays in their own lives.

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📚Alcohol Awareness Week is coordinated by Alcohol Change UK Alcohol Change UK
📚All books donated by Alcohol Change UK Ambassador Millie Gooch Founder of Sober Girl Society | The community for sober + curious women 🩷
📚The free Book Giveaway will take place at Manchester Central Library on Friday 10 July, while stocks last.

Sober summer reading starts here 📚📚📚📚

09/07/2026

It’s Alcohol Awareness Week 6-12th July 2026

This years theme is, ‘Alcohol and Me,’ encouraging people to pause, reflect and consider the role alcohol plays in their own lives.

Tony Wilson offers his own views by paraphrasing from one of the most famous anti-drunkenness passages in The Canterbury Tales, specifically The Pardoner’s Tale.

”Chaucer has this line that alcohol is the very sepulchre of man’s wit and his discretion… and I find alcohol the most ridiculous drug of them all.”
Tony Wilson


“For drunkenness is very sepulture of man’s wit and his discretion.”
— Geoffrey Chaucer, The Pardoner’s Tale, The Canterbury Tales (c. 1390)

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Alcohol Awareness Week is coordinated by Alcohol Change UK

08/07/2026

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It’s Alcohol Awareness Week 6-12th July Alcohol Change UK

We’re marking and supporting the week by celebrating the power of reading to spark conversations about alcohol, health and wellbeing.

On Friday 10th July at Manchester Central Library, will be giving away a selection of books, kindly donated by the phenomenal Millie Gooch🩷🩷🩷 SOBER GIRL SOCIETY

Whether you’re sober, sober curious, cutting back or simply interested in the health impacts of alcohol, discover a sober summer read that may support you on your journey 📚

More details to follow 📚🩷🧡

03/07/2026

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Central Library…Manchester’s Living Room 💛🐝

“I want this to be Manchester’s Living Room...
I want people to come and read here, see performances, meet up with people, enjoy it any way they can.”
Neil MacInnes Manchester Libraries

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Manchester Central Library 📚

19/06/2026

📚❤️📚❤️📚❤️📚❤️📚

‘Public libraries are so important and they should be cherished’

Andy Burnham, MP





❤️❤️❤️ Stanley Chow

Andy Burnham
Former Mayor of Greater Manchester from 2017 to 2026
Otherwise known as - ‘King of the North’

16/06/2026

BBC: "What was your screen time?"

👑Student: "Nine hours."

BBC: "You're gong to have a lot more time to fill.
What will you do?"

👑Student: "Stare at a wall."

Manchester Libraries : “Stare at our walls…they are filled with books” 😉

‘How to break up with your phone’ 📚📚📚

13/06/2026

13/06/2026

Manchester City of Literature’s Festival of Libraries, the county-wide celebration of Greater Manchester’s 133 libraries, returns between Wednesday 10th – Sunday 14th June 2026. The award-winning festival, which is supported by Arts Council England, features a...