Some time ago, following a particularly difficult morning at work, I left the building at lunchtime and headed straight to the closest bookshop. Once I’d spent half an hour wandering amongst the shelves, around the various book displays, stroked some covers and sniffed some pages, I’d calmed right down and was much more ready for the afternoon that followed. It’s a technique I’ve used on many occasions, and while I do usually end up buying a book or two, it’s a darn sight cheaper than the potential alternatives (spas, massages, lunchtime drinking… although only one of these is likely to get you fired).

So it’s fair to say, I love a bookshop. In The Diary Of A Bookseller, we get to view bookshop life from behind the till, rather than those browsing the shelves. Shaun Bythell pulls no punches, commenting acerbically on customers, his staff, and the industry in a diary that spans most of 2014 and into early 2015.

Diary Of A Bookseller cover.jpg — The Diary Of A Bookseller

Profile Books, 2017

Shaun Bythell

The Bookshop in Wigtown is apparently Scotland’s largest second-hand bookshop, which Bythell bought as a going concern in 2001. Wigtown itself is self-designated as Scotland’s Book Town, and is the location for an annual Book Festival. It’s efforts like this that have put the town back on the map – a town that’s suffered from loss of businesses and the downturn in manufacturing. The resurgence in tourism due to the book trade in the town has been supplemented in 2015 by the re-opening, just along the road, of the Bladnoch distillery. So far, so my ideal location. There is even a bookshop that can be rented via AirBnB, which the tenant can run as they see fit during their stay. I’ll save you some time –you’re onto plums. It’s booked up months and months in advance.

“I am putting a mental jigsaw together of what a hobbit looks like, based on a composite of every customer I have ever sold a copy to”

The Diary Of A Bookseller opened my eyes to some hitherto unsuspected travails of bookselling as an occupation. It may be the optimistic daydream of many a book-lover – including myself – to own a bookshop and while away many happy hours in a cosy armchair reading through the stock and sipping on a nice drink. There would be blankets involved. This is not quite the picture that Bythell paints. Instead, there are trips to musty old houses to buy up granny’s old book collections, fights with employees who consistently mis-shelve books based on their own prejudices, and a lot of customers who want discounts on first-edition tomes “because it’s really old, isn’t it?”. Maybe my bookshop will have no staff. And no customers.

Nicky, the some-time book-selling assistant, is a tonic. She brings in items for Foodie Friday, salvaged from the Morrisons waste bin. She argues Bythell’s every direction, and she picks and chooses what work she will do and when. I love her, but only because I don’t have to work with her.

Bythell reserves the most direct of his criticisms for Amazon, whom he accuses of squeezing all other booksellers, small and large, to the verge of extinction. I feel so very conflicted about this; I use Amazon a huge amount for both paper and digital books. They do keep prices low, and surely anything that improves access to books and enhances literacy is to be encouraged? But Bythell expands at length on Amazon’s market stranglehold, and how the access comes at a huge cost – that of diversity and knowledge in the Real World (TM). I’ll be honest, I’ll probably still add the Amazon link for the book to this post. But I’d also encourage you to buy from a local bookshop where possible. This is a theme I will return to in later posts!

The famous Kindle that Bythell shot and has mounted in his shop

Image Credit: twitter.com/WigtownBookFest

It feels like the concept of the book shouldn’t work. Many days in the bookshop are very quiet, and there is a gentle repetitiveness to the days that could easily get monotonous. The book’s saved from such tedious fate by Bythell’s wit – it’s hilarious, and I was cheering the shop on to good things throughout. It’s made me want to visit the town, and spend time and money in the bookshop. I suspect, as far as Bythell is concerned, that is mission accomplished.

A second instalment of Bythell’s musings, Confessions Of A Bookseller, is out now in hardback.