Confessions of a Bookseller: THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

Book Description

More from everyone's favourite misanthropic antiquarian bookseller.

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.

Review

Bythell has a good ear for the absurd and a mundane telemarketing call becomes comedy gold ... For all Bythell's self-flagellation, he comes across as a generous, largely genial figure. It is hard to go for more than a few pages without finding him cooking for staying guests or drinking with friends
until the small hours.

(Philip Boakes Times)

The best parts are irreverently funny and only borderline legal ... he is certainly not self-serving in terms of writing about what he sees as his own failures and weaknesses ... has kept me giggling all week. (Stuart Kelly Scotland on Sunday)

All the ingredients for a gentle human comedy are here, as soothing as a bag of boiled sweets and just as tempting to dip into. (Adam Douglas Literary Review)

Written with caustic wit...a diverting and congenial read. (Jackie Law Bookmunch)

Praise for The Diary of a Bookseller:

'Warm, witty and laugh-out-loud funny, this gently meandering tale of British eccentricity will stay long in the memory.

(Daily Mail)

The Diary Of A Bookseller is warm (unlike Bythell's freezing-cold shop) and funny, and deserves to become one of those bestsellers that irritate him so much. (Jon Dennis Mail on Sunday)

Peopled with fascinating characters ... a sarcastic reminder of the struggles of small business ownership, the importance of community and the frustration of dealing with customers ... occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. (Herald)

By the Same Author

Product details

• Paperback : 336 pages
• ISBN-10 : 1788162315
• ISBN-13 : 978-1788162319
• Product Dimensions : 12.9 x 2 x 19.8 cm
• Publisher : Profile Books; Main Edition (3 Sept. 2020)
• Language: : English
• 4.5 out of 5 stars     263 ratings

About the Author

Shaun Bythell is the owner of The Bookshop in Wigtown, and also one of the organisers of the Wigtown Festival. His internationally-bestselling first book, The Diary of a Bookseller has been translated into twenty languages, including Russian, Korean and French.