Download or read book Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops written by Shaun Bythell and published by . This book was released on 2024-09-26 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Confessions of a Bookseller written by Shaun Bythell and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2019-08-29 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
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 385 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 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, 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.
Download or read book Remainders of the Day written by Shaun Bythell and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2022-09-01 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Effortlessly charming ... it is soothing to sink once again into the rhythms of Bythell's year' TLS The Bookshop in Wigtown is a bookworm's idyll - with thousands of books across nearly a mile of shelves, a real log fire, and Captain, the bookshop cat. You'd think after twenty years, owner Shaun Bythell would be used to the customers by now. Don't get him wrong - there are some good ones among the antiquarian erotica-hunters, die-hard Arthurians, people who confuse bookshops for libraries and the toddlers just looking for a nice cosy corner in which to wee. He's sure there are. There must be some good ones, right? Filled with the pernickety warmth and humour that has touched readers around the world, stuffed with literary treasures, hidden gems and incunabula, Remainders of the Day is Shaun Bythell's latest entry in his bestselling diary series.
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 Browse written by Henry Hitchings and published by Pushkin Press. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A celebration of the greatest kind of shop in the world, by an award-winning cast of writers including Ali Smith, Michael Dirda, Elif Shafak and Daniel Kehlmann. A cabinet of curiosities, a time machine, a treasure trove - we love bookshops because they possess a unique kind of magic. In Browse, Henry Hitchings asks fifteen writers from around the world to reveal their favourite bookshops, each conjuring a specific time and place. These inquisitive, enchanting pieces are a collective celebration of bookshops - for anyone who has ever fallen under their spell. Contributors include Alaa Al Aswany, Stefano Benni, Michael Dirda, Daniel Kehlmann, Andrey Kurkov, Yiyun Li, Pankaj Mishra, Dorthe Nors, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, Elif Shafak, Ian Sansom, Iain Sinclair, Ali Smith, Saša Stanišic, and Juan Gabriel Vásquez. A dazzling collection of original essays about the bookshop by fifteen bestselling international authors.
Download or read book A Pound of Paper written by John Baxter and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2005-04 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published: London: Doubleday, 2002.
Download or read book Seveneves written by Neal Stephenson and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2015-05-19 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anathem, Reamde, and Cryptonomicon comes an exciting and thought-provoking science fiction epic—a grand story of annihilation and survival spanning five thousand years. What would happen if the world were ending? A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space. But the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen challenges and dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain . . . Five thousand years later, their progeny—seven distinct races now three billion strong—embark on yet another audacious journey into the unknown . . . to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth. A writer of dazzling genius and imaginative vision, Neal Stephenson combines science, philosophy, technology, psychology, and literature in a magnificent work of speculative fiction that offers a portrait of a future that is both extraordinary and eerily recognizable. As he did in Anathem, Cryptonomicon, the Baroque Cycle, and Reamde, Stephenson explores some of our biggest ideas and perplexing challenges in a breathtaking saga that is daring, engrossing, and altogether brilliant.
Download or read book The Year of the Witching written by Alexis Henderson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-06-15 with total page 369 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 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 Stationery Shop written by Marjan Kamali and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-06-18 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A poignant, heartfelt new novel by the award-nominated author of Together Tea—extolled by the Wall Street Journal as a “moving tale of lost love” and by Shelf Awareness as “a powerful, heartbreaking story”—explores loss, reconciliation, and the quirks of fate. Roya, a dreamy, idealistic teenager living amid the political upheaval of 1953 Tehran, finds a literary oasis in kindly Mr. Fakhri’s neighborhood stationery shop, stocked with books and pens and bottles of jewel-colored ink. Then Mr. Fakhri, with a keen instinct for a budding romance, introduces Roya to his other favorite customer—handsome Bahman, who has a burning passion for justice and a love for Rumi’s poetry—and she loses her heart at once. Their romance blossoms, and the little stationery shop remains their favorite place in all of Tehran. A few short months later, on the eve of their marriage, Roya agrees to meet Bahman at the town square when violence erupts—a result of the coup d’etat that forever changes their country’s future. In the chaos, Bahman never shows. For weeks, Roya tries desperately to contact him, but her efforts are fruitless. With a sorrowful heart, she moves on—to college in California, to another man, to a life in New England—until, more than sixty years later, an accident of fate leads her back to Bahman and offers her a chance to ask him the questions that have haunted her for more than half a century: Why did you leave? Where did you go? How is it that you were able to forget me?
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 192 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 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 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, and named a best book of the year by the New York Times, NPR, Elle, Time, and more, The Shadow King is an “unforgettable epic from an immensely talented author who’s unafraid to take risks” (Michael Schaub, NPR). 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. At its heart is orphaned maid Hirut, who finds herself tumbling into a new world of thefts and violations, of betrayals and overwhelming rage. What follows is a heartrending and unputdownable exploration of what it means to be a woman at war.
Download or read book The Bookshop Book written by Jen Campbell and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2014-10-02 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every bookshop has a story We're not talking about rooms that are just full of books. We're talking about bookshops in barns, disused factories, converted churches and underground car parks. Bookshops on boats, on buses, and in old run-down train stations. Fold-out bookshops, undercover bookshops, this-is-the-best-place-I've-ever-been-to-bookshops. Meet Sarah and her Book Barge sailing across the sea to France; meet Sebastien, in Mongolia, who sells books to herders of the Altai mountains; meet the bookshop in Canada that's invented the world's first antiquarian book vending machine. And that's just the beginning. From the oldest bookshop in the world, to the smallest you could imagine, The Bookshop Book examines the history of books, talks to authors about their favourite places, and looks at over three hundred weirdly wonderful bookshops across six continents (sadly, we've yet to build a bookshop down in the South Pole). The Bookshop Book is a love letter to bookshops all around the world. 'A good bookshop is not just about selling books from shelves, but reaching out into the world and making a difference' David Almond (The Bookshop Book includes interviews and quotes from David Almond, Ian Rankin, Tracy Chevalier, Audrey Niffenegger, Jacqueline Wilson, Jeanette Winterson and many, many others.)
Download or read book And the Land Lay Still written by James Robertson and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2011 with total page 823 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is the age of the bomb, the Cold War, Margaret Thatcher and North Sea Oil. As nationalism becomes a credible force in Scotland, a gay photographer, a feminist journalist, a war veteran and a guilt-ridden Conservative MP find their private lives entangled with the ideological conflicts of the times.
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)
