Forget everything you've heard about Manchester - Madchester, Gunchester - and read what it was like to live there at the turn of the century from those that know it best. In the late 1990s, Manchester was a city in upheaval. The devastation of the IRA bomb saw council leaders push forward plans to propel the city into the future as gang wars threatened to drag it back into the violence of its past. The Haçienda had finally shut its doors, but the shadow of Oasis was beginning to loom oppressively over the city, threatening to flood its bars and clubs with identikit bands. Stereotypes were everywhere. The spirit of Manchester was silently suffocating. Mancunians: Where do we start, where do I begin? is the story of those who didn't fit the typecast: the musicians of colour, the football fans alienated by rampant commercialism, the northerners who didn't wear parkas, the frustrated police ­figures, the optimistic developers, the ambitious artists, the drinkers, dealers, street sweepers, and a young author trying to negotiate his way amongst the chaos. Through a mixture of memoir and interviews with well-known Mancunians such as Guy Garvey, Tunde Babayola, Sylvia Tella, Badly Drawn Boy and Stan Chow, combined with the unheard voices of the population, David Scott portrays the city in a way never seen before.

Mancunians: Where do we start, where do I begin? is the authentic account of Manchester on the brink of the Millennium.