Publishers Weekly
03/09/2020
Bythell follows up Diary of a Bookseller with an assortment of amusing and often cantankerous stories about a year in his life as the owner of a used bookstore in a Scottish village. The author painstakingly tracks sales, the number of customers who visit, and till totals for each day, punctuated by acerbic observations. There are the head-scratching requests (“I’m looking for a book but I can’t remember the title. It’s called The Red Balloon.”), unexpectedly hilarious purchases (an elderly man buying a guide to wild sex), and the clueless (“It’s a bookshop.... So does that mean that people can just borrow the books?”). Bythell’s scathing commentary about customers drives much of his narrative, including a description of a woman wearing an unpleasant fragrance (“which I can only assume was manufactured as a particularly unpleasant neurotoxin by a North Korean biochemist in a secret bunker. Kim Jong Ill, indeed”) as well as cheap customers asking for discounts or complaining about prices (“ ‘That’s outrageous! Who would want to buy that?’ Well, you for a start”). Bibliophiles will delight in, and occasionally wince at, these humorous anecdotes. (Apr.)
From the Publisher
Praise for Confessions of a Bookseller and Shaun Bythell
“Bythell’s wicked pen and keen eye for the absurd recall what comic Ricky Gervais might say if he ran a bookshop.”
—Wall Street Journal
“Something of Bythell’s curmudgeonly charm may be glimpsed in the slogan he scribbles on his shop’s blackboard: ‘Avoid social interaction: always carry a book.’ ”
—Washington Post
“Warm, witty and laugh-out-loud funny...”
—Daily Mail
“Bythell is a skillful writer . . . he creates a full, appealing world populated with colorful characters. The Scottish landscape—geese flying over the salt marsh, the meandering river where he likes to fish—is gorgeous . . . an endearing and thoughtful book.”
—Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Among the most irascible and amusing bookseller memoirs I've ever read.”
—Dwight Garner, New York Times
“…amusing and often cantankerous stories [that] bibliophiles will delight in, and occasionally wince at...”
—Publishers Weekly
“Bythell writes with biting humor . . . he is a man on a mission, and a year seen through his eyes convinces the reader that is a mission worthy of undertaking.”
—Chicago Tribune
“An enveloping account from the front lines of an industry in flux.”
—Foreword
“Bythell remains an unwavering correspondent whose daily rambles reminds us of the joy in real bookshops.”
—Fine Books & Collections Magazine
“A bookseller in Wigtown, Scotland, recounts a year in his life as a small-town dealer of secondhand books....Irascibly droll and sometimes elegiac, this is an engaging account of bookstore life from the vanishing front lines of the brick-and-mortar retail industry. Bighearted, sobering, and humane.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Bythell’s witty descriptions of cheap customers, the drudgery and comfort of his daily routines and the consistent weather manages to create a sense of place strong enough to capture my flittery mind for long enough to feel settled-in near his fire.”
—Portland Herald Press
JANUARY 2021 - AudioFile
Wigtown—Scotland's officially designated “Book Town”—comes to listeners through author and shopkeeper Shaun Bythell and narrator Peter Kenny. Interweaving his personal life, observations of Wigtown's residents and bookshop visitors, and daily sales figures, Bythell's diary forms an engaging composite of his and his community's life throughout 2015. Kenny communicates the social interactions, as well as Bythell's often ironic declarations, with judicious pacing, incorporating the few footnotes without distracting listeners. A few of the people Bythell observes—a shop clerk, potential customers, those he visits to buy book stock—are given unique voices. Anyone who has been to Wigtown will find this listen thoroughly accurate; anyone who likes books will find it a pleasing virtual visit. F.M.R.G. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2020-02-05
A bookseller in Wigtown, Scotland, recounts a year in his life as a small-town dealer of secondhand books.
“The pleasure derived from handling books that have introduced something of cultural or scientific significance to the world is undeniably the greatest luxury that this business affords,” writes Bythell. In a diary that records his wry observations from behind the counter of his store, the author entertains readers with eccentric character portraits and stories of his life in the book trade. The colorful cast of characters includes bookshop regulars like Eric, the local orange-robed Buddhist; Captain, Bythell’s “accursed cat”; “Sandy the tattooed pagan”; and “Mole-Man,” a patron with a penchant for in-store “literary excavations.” Bythell’s employees are equally quirky. Nicky, the author’s one paid worker, is an opinionated Jehovah’s Witness who “consistently ignores my instructions” and criticizes her boss as “an impediment to the success of the business.” His volunteer employee, an Italian college student named Emanuela (whom the author nicknamed Granny due to her endless complaints about bodily aches), came to Wigtown to move beyond the world of study and “expand [her] knowledge.” Woven into stories about haggling with clients over prices or dealing with daily rounds of vague online customer requests—e.g., a query about a book from “around about 1951. Part of the story line is about a cart of apples being upset, that’s all I know”)—are more personal dramas, like the end of his marriage and the difficult realities of owning a store when “50 per cent [sic] of retail purchases are made online.” For Bythell, managing technical glitches, contending with low profit margins on Amazon, and worrying about the future of his business are all part of a day’s work. Irascibly droll and sometimes elegiac, this is an engaging account of bookstore life from the vanishing front lines of the brick-and-mortar retail industry.
Bighearted, sobering, and humane.
