Download or read book Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops written by Shaun Bythell and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2020-11-05 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: **From the Sunday Times Bestselling Author** In twenty years behind the till in The Bookshop, Wigtown, Shaun Bythell has met pretty much every kind of customer there is - from the charming, erudite and deep-pocketed to the eccentric, flatulent and possibly larcenous. In Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops he distils the essence of his experience into a warm, witty and quirky taxonomy of the book-loving public. So, step inside to meet the crafty Antiquarian, the shy and retiring Erotica Browser and gormless yet strangely likeable shop assistant Student Hugo - along with much loved bookseller favourites like the passionate Sci-Fi Fan, the voracious Railway Collector and the ever-elusive Perfect Customer.
Download or read book Confessions of a Bookseller written by Shaun Bythell and published by Godine+ORM. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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
Download or read book Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores written by Jennifer Campbell and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2012-09-13 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Booksellers share the quirky questions and odd requests from customers that leave them speechless . . . “I’ve forgotten my glasses, can you read me the first chapter?” “Did Beatrix Potter ever write a book about dinosaurs?” “Excuse me . . . is this book edible?” Filled with funny, quirky illustrations by the BAFTA Award-winning Brothers McLeod and featuring contributions from booksellers across the United States the UK, and Canada, Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores is a celebration of bookstores large and small, and of the brilliant booksellers who toil in those literary fields—and most of all, the myriad of colorful characters who walk through the doors every day. This irresistible collection is proof positive that booksellers everywhere are heroes. “So funny, so sad . . . Read it and sigh.” —Neil Gaiman
Download or read book The Diary of a Bookseller written by Shaun Bythell and published by Melville House. This book was released on 2018-09-04 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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, The New York Times "Warm, witty and laugh-out-loud funny..." —The 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 . . . In this wry and hilarious diary, he tells us 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. And perhaps none are quirkier than the charmingly cantankerous bookseller Bythell himself turns out to be. 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.
Download or read book Three Things You Need to Know About Rockets written by Jessica A. Fox and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-08-27 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this inspiring, delightful memoir, a young woman decides to escape the daily grind and turn her “what if” fantasy into a reality, only to find work—and a man—she loves in one fell swoop, all in a secondhand bookstore in a quaint Scottish town. Jessica Fox was living in Hollywood, an ambitious 26-year-old film-maker with a high-stress job at NASA. Working late one night, craving another life, she was seized by a moment of inspiration and tapped “second hand bookshop Scotland” into Google. She clicked the first link she saw. A month later, she arrived 2,000 miles across the Atlantic in Wigtown, on the west coast of Scotland, and knocked on the door of the bookshop she would be living in for the next month . . . The rollercoaster journey that ensued—taking in Scottish Hanukkah, yoga on Galloway’s west coast, and a waxing that she will never forget—would both break and mend her heart. It would also teach her that sometimes we must have the courage to travel the path less taken. Only then can we truly become the writers of our own stories.
Download or read book The Bookseller s Tale written by Martin Latham and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2020-09-03 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A SPECTATOR AND EVENING STANDARD BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020 'A joy. Each chapter instantly became my favourite' David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas 'Wonderful' Lucy Mangan 'The right book has a neverendingness, and so does the right bookshop.' This is the story of our love affair with books, whether we arrange them on our shelves, inhale their smell, scrawl in their margins or just curl up with them in bed. Taking us on a journey through comfort reads, street book stalls, mythical libraries, itinerant pedlars, radical pamphleteers, extraordinary bookshop customers and fanatical collectors, Canterbury bookseller Martin Latham uncovers the curious history of our book obsession - and his own. Part cultural history, part literary love letter and part reluctant memoir, this is the tale of one bookseller and many, many books. 'If ferreting through bookshops is your idea of heaven, you'll get the same pleasure from this treasure trove of a book' Jake Kerridge, Sunday Express
Download or read book Footnotes from the World s Greatest Bookstores written by Bob Eckstein and published by Clarkson Potter. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Bestseller From the beloved New Yorker cartoonist comes a collection of paintings and stories from some of the world’s most cherished bookstores. This collection of 75 evocative paintings and colorful anecdotes invites you into the heart and soul of every community: the local bookshop, each with its own quirks, charms, and legendary stories. The book features an incredible roster of great bookstores from across the globe and stories from writers, thinkers and artists of our time, including David Bowie, Tom Wolfe, Jonathan Lethem, Roz Chast, Deepak Chopra, Bob Odenkirk, Philip Glass, Jonathan Ames, Terry Gross, Mark Maron, Neil Gaiman, Ann Patchett, Chris Ware, Molly Crabapple, Amitav Ghosh, Alice Munro, Dave Eggers, and many more. Page by page, Eckstein perfectly captures our lifelong love affair with books, bookstores, and book-sellers that is at once heartfelt, bittersweet, and cheerfully confessional.
Download or read book The Year of the Witching written by Alexis Henderson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-07-21 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A young woman living in a rigid, puritanical society discovers dark powers within herself in this stunning, feminist fantasy debut. In the lands of Bethel, where the Prophet's word is law, Immanuelle Moore's very existence is blasphemy. Her mother’s union with an outsider of a different race cast her once-proud family into disgrace, so Immanuelle does her best to worship the Father, follow Holy Protocol, and lead a life of submission, devotion, and absolute conformity, like all the other women in the settlement. But a mishap lures her into the forbidden Darkwood surrounding Bethel, where the first prophet once chased and killed four powerful witches. Their spirits are still lurking there, and they bestow a gift on Immanuelle: the journal of her dead mother, who Immanuelle is shocked to learn once sought sanctuary in the wood. Fascinated by the secrets in the diary, Immanuelle finds herself struggling to understand how her mother could have consorted with the witches. But when she begins to learn grim truths about the Church and its history, she realizes the true threat to Bethel is its own darkness. And she starts to understand that if Bethel is to change, it must begin with her.
Download or read book On the Road Less Traveled written by Ed Hajim and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-03-02 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A powerful story touched with family trauma, deprivation, and adversity balanced by a life of hard work and philanthropy! On the Road Less Traveled is the inspirational story of Edmund A. Hajim, an American financier and philanthropist who rises from dire childhood circumstances to achieve professional success and personal fulfillment. At age three, Hajim is kidnapped by his father, driven from St. Louis to Los Angeles, and told that his mother is dead. His father soon abandons him in order to seek employment—mostly in vain—leaving his son behind in a string of foster homes and orphanages. This establishes a pattern of neglect and desertion that continues for Hajim’s entire childhood, forever leaving its mark. From one home to another, the lonely boy learns the value of self-reliance and perseverance despite his financial deprivation and the trauma of being an orphan. As time passes, Hajim displays a powerful instinct for survival and a burning drive to excel. A highly motivated student and athlete, he earns an NROTC college scholarship to the University of Rochester; serves in the United States Navy; works as an application research engineer; then attends Harvard Business School, where he finds that the financial industry is his true calling. So begins his rapid ascent in the corporate world, which includes senior executive positions at E. F. Hutton, Lehman Brothers, and fourteen years as CEO of Furman Selz, growing the company more than tenfold. He also creates a happy and abundant family life, though he never forgets what it means to struggle. At age sixty, he is reminded of his painful past when a family secret emerges that brings the story full circle.
Download or read book The Shadow King A Novel written by Maaza Mengiste and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A gripping novel set during Mussolini’s 1935 invasion of Ethiopia, The Shadow King takes us back to the first real conflict of World War II, casting light on the women soldiers who were left out of the historical record. With the threat of Mussolini’s army looming, recently orphaned Hirut struggles to adapt to her new life as a maid in Kidane and his wife Aster’s household. Kidane, an officer in Emperor Haile Selassie’s army, rushes to mobilize his strongest men before the Italians invade. His initial kindness to Hirut shifts into a flinty cruelty when she resists his advances, and Hirut finds herself tumbling into a new world of thefts and violations, of betrayals and overwhelming rage. Meanwhile, Mussolini’s technologically advanced army prepares for an easy victory. Hundreds of thousands of Italians—Jewish photographer Ettore among them—march on Ethiopia seeking adventure. As the war begins in earnest, Hirut, Aster, and the other women long to do more than care for the wounded and bury the dead. When Emperor Haile Selassie goes into exile and Ethiopia quickly loses hope, it is Hirut who offers a plan to maintain morale. She helps disguise a gentle peasant as the emperor and soon becomes his guard, inspiring other women to take up arms against the Italians. But how could she have predicted her own personal war as a prisoner of one of Italy’s most vicious officers, who will force her to pose before Ettore’s camera? What follows is a gorgeously crafted and unputdownable exploration of female power, with Hirut as the fierce, original, and brilliant voice at its heart. In incandescent, lyrical prose, Maaza Mengiste breathes life into complicated characters on both sides of the battle line, shaping a heartrending, indelible exploration of what it means to be a woman at war.
Download or read book Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops written by Shaun Bythell and published by Godine+ORM. This book was released on 2020-11-24 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of Confessions of a Bookseller, a cankerous and darkly funny field guide to bookstore customers. It does take all kinds and through the misanthropic eyes of a very grumpy bookseller, we see them all. 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).Don’t forget the Person Who Doesn’t Know What They Want (But Thinks It Might Have a Blue Cover) and the harried Parents Secretly After Free Childcare. Two bonus sections include Staff and, finally, Perfect Customer—all add up to one of the funniest books about books you’ll ever find. Shaun Bythell and his mordantly unique observational eye make this perfect for anyone who loves books and bookshops. Praise for Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops “Bythell continues his seriocomic take on his profession . . . he spares no one.” —Michael Dirda, The Washington Post “Cheers to Shaun Blythell for this delightful taxonomy of bookstore customers and visitors.” —Pamela Pescosolido, bookseller, The Bookloft “Bythell is having fun and it’s infectious.” —The Scotsman (UK) “Virtuosic venting . . . pantomime misanthropy is tempered with bursts of sweetness in the secondhand bookseller’s latest dispatches from Wigtown [Scotland].” —The Guardian “Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops (a parody of the sort of self-help titles Bythell absolutely loathes), is a series of Orwellian-incisive character sketches.” —The Critic (UK) “Bythell distills the essence of his experience into a warm, witty and quirky taxonomy of the book-loving public.” —The Week (UK)
Download or read book Beach Read written by Emily Henry and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-05-25 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER FROM THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF PEOPLE WE MEET ON VACATION! "Original, sparkling bright, and layered with feeling."--Sally Thorne, author of The Hating Game A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters. Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast. They're polar opposites. In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they're living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer's block. Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She'll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he'll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.
Download or read book written by Yee Chiang and published by Signal Books. This book was released on 2002 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chiang Yee's account of London, first published in 1938, is original in more ways than one. Not only one of the first widely available books written by a Chinese author in English, it also reverses the conventions of travel writing. For here the "exotic" subject matter is none other than London and its people, quizzically observed as an alien culture by a foreign writer.
Download or read book The Library Book written by and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2012-02-02 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Alan Bennett's Baffled at a Bookcase, to Lucy Mangan's Library Rules, famous writers tell us all about how libraries are used and why they're important. Tom Holland writes about libraries in the ancient world, while Seth Godin describes what a library will look like in the future. Lionel Shriver thinks books are the best investment, Hardeep Singh Kohli makes a confession and Julie Myerson remembers how her career began beside the shelves. Using memoir, history, polemic and some short stories too, The Library Book celebrates 'that place where they lend you books for free' and the people who work there. All royalties go to The Reading Agency, to help their work supporting libraries.
Download or read book I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf written by Grant Snider and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2020-04-14 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A look at the culture and fanaticism of book lovers, from the beloved New York Times illustrator and creator of Incidental Comics. It’s no secret, but we are judged by our bookshelves. We learn to read at an early age, and as we grow older we shed our beloved books for new ones. But some of us surround ourselves with books. We collect them, decorate with them, are inspired by them, and treat our books as sacred objects. In this lighthearted collection of one- and two-page comics, writer-artist Grant Snider explores bookishness in all its forms, and the love of writing and reading, building on the beloved literary comics featured on his website, Incidental Comics. I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf is the perfect gift for bookworms of all ages. “This playful, self-aware collection of strips and gags on the joys and frustrations of reading and writing is equal parts lighthearted and sincere . . . The panels range from gently clever to surprisingly profound to laugh-out-loud.” —Publishers Weekly “A prescient book for these times.” —Newsarama
Download or read book Good Intentions written by Kasim Ali and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2022-03-08 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Absorbing, compelling, and beautifully written. Its ending brought me close to tears." —Beth O'Leary, bestselling author of The Flatshare For fans of The Big Sick and Nick Hornby—a magnetic debut novel about a young man who has hidden a romance from his parents, unable to choose between familial obligation and the future he truly wants. If love really is a choice, how do you decide where your loyalties lie? It’s the countdown to the New Year, and Nur is steeling himself to tell his parents that he’s seeing someone. A young British Pakistani man, Nur has spent years omitting details about his personal life to maintain his image as the golden child. And it’s come at a cost. Once, Nur was a restless college student, struggling to fit in. At a party, he meets Yasmina, a beautiful and self-possessed aspiring journalist. They start a conversation—first awkward, then absorbing. And as their relationship develops, so too does Nur’s self-destruction. He falls deeper into traps of his own making, attempting to please both Yasmina and his family until he must finally reveal the truth: Yasmina is Black, and he loves her. Deftly transporting readers between that first night and the years beyond, Kasim Ali's Good Intentions exposes with unblinking authenticity the complexities of immigrant families and racial prejudice. It is a crackling, wryly clever depiction of standing on the precipice of adulthood, piecing together who it is you’re meant to be.
Download or read book Lit written by Tony Reinke and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2011-09-09 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I love to read. I hate to read. I don't have time to read. I only read Christian books. I'm not good at reading. There's too much to read. Chances are, you've thought or said one of these exact phrases before because reading is important and in many ways unavoidable. Learn how to better read, what to read, when to read, and why you should read with this helpful guide from accomplished reader Tony Reinke. Offered here is a theology for reading and practical suggestions for reading widely, reading well, and for making it all worthwhile.
