Shaun Bythell

Shaun Bythell owns The Bookshop, Wigtown - Scotland's largest second-hand bookshop. It contains 100,000 books, spread over a mile of shelving, with twisting corridors and roaring fires, and all set in a beautiful, rural town by the edge of the sea. A book-lover's paradise? Well, almost ... In these wry and hilarious diaries, Shaun provides an inside look at the trials and tribulations of life in the book trade, from struggles with eccentric customers to wrangles with his own staff, who include the ski-suit-wearing, bin-foraging Nicky. He takes us with him on buying trips to old estates and auction houses, recommends books (both lost classics and new discoveries), introduces us to the thrill of the unexpected find, and evokes the rhythms and charms of small-town life, always with a sharp and sympathetic eye.

The Diary of a Bookseller

A wickedly witty field guide to bookstore customers from the Person Who Doesn't Know What They Want (But Thinks It Might Have a Blue Cover) to the harried Parents Secretly After Free Childcare. It does take all kinds. If you visit bookshops more often than the grocery store, you'll recognize the types. There's the Expert (with subspecies from the Bore to the Helpful Person), the Young Family (ranging from the Exhausted to the Aspirational), Occultists (from Conspiracy Theorist to Craft Woman). Then there's the Loiterer (including the Erotica Browser and the Self-Published Author), the Bearded Pensioner (including the Lyrca Clad), the The Not-So-Silent Traveller (the Whistler, Sniffer, Hummer, Farter, and Tutter), and the Family Historian (generally Americans who come to Shaun's shop in Wigtown, Scotland). Two bonus sections include Staff and, finally, Perfect Customer -- all from Shaun Bythell (author of Confessions of a Bookseller), the funniest sell-and-tell observer in the house of books. This is the perfect read for anyone who ever felt a bookstore was home. You've been spotted! Or have you?

Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops

A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'Irreverently funny ... kept me giggling all week.' Scotland on Sunday"Do you have a list of your books, or do I just have to stare at them?"Shaun Bythell is the owner of The Bookshop in Wigtown, Scotland. With more than a mile of shelving, real log fires in the shop and the sea lapping nearby, the shop should be an idyll for bookworms. Unfortunately, Shaun also has to contend with bizarre requests from people who don't understand what a shop is, home invasions during the Wigtown Book Festival and Granny, his neurotic Italian assistant who likes digging for river mud to make poultices.The Diary of a Bookseller (soon to be a major TV series) introduced us to the joys and frustrations of life lived in books. Sardonic and sympathetic in equal measure, Confessions of a Bookseller will reunite readers with the characters they've come to know and love.

Confessions of a Bookseller

The Bookshop in Wigtown, Scotland is a book lover’s paradise, with thousands of books across nearly a mile of shelves, a real log fire, and Captain, the portly bookshop cat. You’d think that after twenty years, owner Shaun Bythell would be used to his quirky customers by now. Don’t get him wrong, there are some good ones among the antiquarian porn-hunters, die-hard train book lovers, people who confuse bookshops for libraries, and the toddlers just looking for a nice cozy corner in which to wee. He’s sure there are some good ones. There must be . . .

Filled with the pernickety warmth and humor that has touched readers around the world, stuffed with literary treasures, hidden gems, and incunabula, Remainders of the Day is a warm and welcome memoir of a life in books. 

More Diaries from the Bookshop, Wigtown

Remainders of the Day

Tagebuch eines Buchhändlers -

Tipi da libreria. Piccola enciclopedia degli appassionati di libri

Una vita da libraio

يوميات بائع كتب

Misadventures in the Bookshop, Wigtown

Tripe Advisor

En bokhandlares dagbok

De eigenaar van een grote tweedehandsboekwinkel in Schotland beschrijft zijn ervaringen met boeken, personeel en klanten.

Dagboek van een boekverkoper

En 2001, Shaun Bythell rachète la librairie de Wigtown, une petite ville du sud-ouest de l'Ecosse dont il est originaire. Il n'a alors aucune expérience dans le commerce des livres. Grâce à des efforts continus, The Book Shop est désormais la plus importante librairie de livres d'occasion de toute l'Ecosse. Membre fondateur du Wigtown Book Festival qui attire désormais des milliers de visiteurs, il est à l'origine de nombreuses initiatives en faveur de la promotion de la lecture. II adore pêcher et faire du vélo. Surtout pour se rendre au pub. Libraire de Wigtown est son premier livre.

Le libraire de Wigtown

اعترافات بائع كتب

Wigtown, Schottland. Mit mehr als einer Meile Regale und dem Meer direkt um die Ecke ist Shaun Bythells The Book Shop der idyllischste Traum eines jeden Bücherwurms – eigentlich. Denn der Buchhändler muss sich tagtäglich mit bizarren Anfragen von Leuten auseinandersetzen, die nicht verstehen, wie eine Buchhandlung funktioniert. Und dann ist da noch seine exzentrische italienische Assistentin, die gern nach Flussschlamm gräbt, um daraus Umschläge zu machen …


Shaun Bythells »Neue Bekenntnisse eines Buchhändlers« erzählen charmant, komisch und schräg aus dem Leben eines Buchliebhabers: von der Freude über aufregende Entdeckungen, von Freundschaften, die durch gemeinsame Liebe zu guten Geschichten entstehen, und von der Traurigkeit, ein wirklich gutes Buch zu beenden.

Neue Bekenntnisse eines Buchhändlers

A funny memoir of a year in the life of a Scottish used bookseller as he stays afloat while managing staff, customers, and life in the village of Wigtown. Inside a Georgian townhouse on the Wigtown highroad, jammed with more than 100,000 books and a portly cat named Captain, Shaun Bythell manages the daily ups and downs of running Scotland’s largest used bookshop with a sharp eye and even sharper wit. His account of one year behind the counter is something no book lover should miss. Shaun drives to distant houses to buy private libraries, meditates on the nature of independent bookstores (“There really does seem to be a serendipity about bookshops, not just with finding books you never knew existed, or that you’ve been searching for, but with people too.”), and, of course, finds books for himself because he’s a reader, too. The next best thing to visiting your favorite bookstore (shop cat not included), Confessions of a Bookseller is a warm and welcome memoir of a life in books. It’s for any reader looking for the kind of friend you meet in a bookstore. Praise for Shaun Bythell and Confessions of a Bookseller “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.” —The Washington Post “Bythell’s wicked pen and keen eye for the absurd recall what comic Ricky Gervais might say if he ran a bookshop.” —The Wall Street Journal “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 “Amusing and often cantankerous stories [that] bibliophiles will delight in, and occasionally wince at.” —Publishers Weekly

Las divertidas memorias de un librero excéntrico y apasionado que lucha por sobrevivir en plena era amazónica. Shaun Bythell regenta The Bookshop, la librería de viejo más grande de Escocia. Contiene 100.000 volúmenes, dos kilómetros de estanterías, pasillos laberínticos y acogedoras chimeneas, todo ello en un hermoso pueblo situado a orillas del mar. ¿El paraíso de un bibliófilo, verdad? Bueno, no exactamente... "Cuando compré The Bookshop en 2001 tenía una vaga idea sobre el funcionamiento de una librería. Ninguna de mis expectativas se cumplió. A diario me sorprenden las preguntas que formulan los clientes y sus cábalas en torno a la gestión del negocio (extrañas conjeturas para explicar la procedencia de los libros o la manera como les ponemos precio). Por la tienda desfila el más amplio espectro de la especie humana: unos regatean, otros recomiendan libros; unos son espectacularmente groseros, otros te cuentan su vida o quieren conocer la tuya... En este diario se narran algunos de los encuentros más memorables." " Diario de un librero es una obra cálida y asombrosamente entretenida. Merece convertirse en uno de esos best-sellers que tanto irritan a su autor." Sunday Mail "Un libro maravillosamente divertido." The Observer "Te insto a comprar este libro y, por favor, aun a riesgo de ser increpado y vilipendiado, cómpraselo a un librero de carne y hueso." Sunday Express

Diario de un librero

"Młody Szkot pod wpływem impulsu przejmuje podupadły antykwariat i postanawia rozkręcić ów bez wątpienia niełatwy interes. Jak się okazuje, decyzja ta wywraca jego życie do góry nogami."--

Pamiętnik księgarza

Când Bythell, orgoliosul patron al celui mai mare magazin de cărți vechi din Scoția și ­a înființat, în 2010, pagina de Facebook, a hotărât, în mod premeditat, să se concentreze asupra comportamentului clienților. Acest jurnal, ținut timp de un an, nu face altceva, ba chiar mai aduce și alte personaje pitorești în colimatorul autorului. Deși este cutremurător de amuzantă, cartea aceasta conține și un miez mai mult decât serios: este o scrisoare furibundă din linia întâi a luptei dintre proprietarii micilor afaceri cu cărți și giganți precum Amazon. Meseria de librar cere o răbdare de fier. Bythell face și el ce poate, dar nu-i iese întotdeauna. The Independent Jurnalul unui librar este o carte amuzantă și plină de căldură (spre deosebire de magazinul autorului) și merită să devină unul dintre acele bestselleruri care-­l irită pe Bythell atât de mult. Mail on Sunday Trebuie neapărat să cumpărați cartea asta și, cu riscul de a fi bruscați sau insultați, luați­-o de la un librar adevărat! Sunday Express

Jurnalul unui librar

Shaun Bythell si otevřel knihkupectví, ale chodili mu tam lidé. Malebné městečko na pobřeží a desítky tisíc všemožných knih na skladě, co by si člověk mohl přát víc? Jsou tu bohužel ještě zákazníci, ten nejhorší mor na světě. Ať už vykřikují, jací jsou milovníci knih, a nikdy nic nekoupí, brouzdají mezi regály a pak si titul stejně pořídí levněji na Amazonu, nebo si ti ještě nestydatější klidně sundají boty a na hodiny se uvelebí s kupou knih u krbu, všichni jsou neuvěřitelně otravní. Vydávají navíc podivné zvuky, smějí se svým banálním vtipům, otravují svými rozumy, různě překážejí a tlačí se za pult nebo se obchod rozhodnou navštívit těsně před zavírací dobou. Případně drze smlouvají. Je toho hodně, co z obyčejného misantropa udělá misantropa žijícího v neustálém stavu frustrace. Bez zákazníků to ale bohužel nejde, takže majitel zatne zuby a uleví si alespoň na stránkách deníku. Autorovy lakonické postřehy plné suchého humoru přinášejí svérázný pohled na obyvatele městečka a lidstvo vůbec. Aneb jak usmířit dvě protikladné potřeby, nutnost ticha a klidu a finančního přísunu bez inter­akce s těmi prokletými lidmi?

Shaun Bythell

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