The Diary of a Bookseller By Shaun Bythell

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Rating: 9.9 (7152 reviews)
Author: Shaun Bythell

Books,Literature & Fiction,History & Criticism The Diary of a Bookseller Shaun Bythell

4,3

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A WRY AND HILARIOUS ACCOUNT OF LIFE AT A BOOKSHOP IN A REMOTE SCOTTISH VILLAGE"Among the most irascible and amusing bookseller memoirs I've read." --Dwight Garner, New York Times "Warm, witty and laugh-out-loud funny..."—Daily Mail The Diary of a Bookseller is Shaun Bythell's funny and fascinating memoir of a year in the life at the helm of The Bookshop, in the small village of Wigtown, Scotland—and of the delightfully odd locals, unusual staff, eccentric customers, and surreal buying trips that make up his life there as he struggles to build his business . . . and be polite . . . When Bythell first thought of taking over the store, it seemed like a great idea: The Bookshop is Scotland's largest second-hand store, with over one hundred thousand books in a glorious old house with twisting corridors and roaring fireplaces, set in a tiny, beautiful town by the sea. It seemed like a book-lover's paradise . . . Until Bythell did indeed buy the store. In this wry and hilarious diary, he tells us what happened next—the trials and tribulations of being a small businessman; of learning that customers can be, um, eccentric; and of wrangling with his own staff of oddballs (such as ski-suit-wearing, dumpster-diving Nicky). And perhaps none are quirkier than the charmingly cantankerous bookseller Bythell himself turns out to be. But then too there are the buying trips to old estates and auctions, with the thrill of discovery, as well as the satisfaction of pressing upon people the books that you love . . . Slowly, with a mordant wit and keen eye, Bythell is seduced by the growing charm of small-town life, despite —or maybe because of—all the peculiar characters there.

At this time of writing, The Ebook The Diary of a Bookseller has garnered 8 customer reviews with rating of 5 out of 5 stars. Not a bad score at all as if you round it off, it’s actually a perfect TEN already. From the looks of that rating, we can say the Ebook is Good TO READ!

Audio Book The Diary of a Bookseller with FREE PDF EDITION!

I owned and operated a bookstore in a town of 1200 for five years. Much of what Bythell recounts in his diary, I can vouch for as true or as near true as one can come. I had the exact same experiences with customers and the general public which simultaneously warmed my heart and made me despair of the human race: the retired teacher who came in every day to use my free wifi, and never bought a book; the teenaged assistant who spent her time ordering books through Amazon from my computer; her father, who sat in the shop for hours telling me of great bookstores, and what I should do to improve mine (who was the recipient of those Amazon orders, and who never bought a book from me); the young assistant, who closed the shop and went off for lunch; the high-school students who used the store as a rendezvous point, and never bought anything anytime. There were folks who tried to sell me their old crummy paperbacks (even though I did not sell used books). But then, again, there were the women who volunteered to run the store, when my manager grew fatally sick. There were the dozens of Harry Potter fans who bought my Potter books at $25.95 (ten dollars off MSP), when they could have bought them at Walmarts for $19.95 (I made exactly $2 on every book sold). So, I can understand Bythell's grumpy and cranky style, as well as the occasional positive comments about his fellow Man. And that is also why I thoroughly enjoyed the daily grind of his diary, including adding the number of customers and the sales for the day. For me, it was all very interesting.Add to this daily drama the setting of Wigtown in southwestern Scotland, and, well, how much better can it get for an armchair (retired) bookstore-owner. A town that declares itself a "Booktown" with a successful festival in the center of some of the most isolated and lonesome landscape in the civilized world appeals directly to my Robinson-Crusoe dreams of literary quietude. Bythell avoids the potential cloying portrayal of small-town Scotland, and gives us a realistic picture of this wee place, warts and all. Don't look for rapturous description of life in the land of the Saltire; don't look for anything that rises above quotidian drama (I really enjoyed the tale of finding a plasterer at the bus-stop for a wall that needed repair around Christmas-time!), and you will be well-served by this book. I think one of these is enough, and I will not read the follow-up, but this one is worth taking a look at. Not a great book, but solidly enjoyable.I take away a star for Bythell's relentless rant against the modern book industry, especially Amazon. Yes, Amazon took much of my business as well, but I use it, and find many of the arguments against the business tedious. It sounds to me like the arguments against Starbucks. Yet, each offers a solid product and delivers consistently without too much exploitation (I hear many groans here, and shouts to the contrary, I admit). When I can, I ALWAYS buy at an independent bookstore - The Book Bank in Alexandria, New Dominion in Charlottesville, the Regulator in Durham, etc., and I ALWAYS buy coffee at an independent coffee-shop - Misha's in Alexandria, and Links in Danville, the Mud House in Charlottesville. But, it is good to have these two business here as defaults, when no other option is available. Europeans go crazy in their wrath against Amazon, and real estate prices are now absurdly unaffordable in the Alexandria area because Amazon has announced their intention to expand, but this stuff is a fact of our existence now. No one is forced to patronize these businesses. I try to avoid them, but can't complain. And, it does become obvious throughout the book, that Bythell does make some money off the organization; it could be much more, of course, but that is the curse of capitalism: exploitation of the meek by the mighty. Avoid it, fight it when you can, but, in the end, unless you live in Havana or Pyongyang, there's not much getting around it. Still, the Book Shop offers a little point of resistance to the general modern malaise in which we live, and I salute the author for his part in that long, twilight struggle.

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