Shaun Bythell is the owner of The Bookshop in Wigtown, Scotland's National Book Town, and also one of the organisers of the Wigtown Festival. There are some beautiful lines on family, lost childhood, priorities, and empathy. Made me wonder, we only know parts of the exchanges, and still form a solid image of the characters, develop love and hatred for them, how opinionated and judging we are! That is exactly what I loved about the story too, a very good read, a very critical one too on the protagonist, that doesn't show an all positive or all negative person as the head.

Confessions of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell | Goodreads

The book is an epistolary novel and the title, really really made me want to read this. The entire book is written in form of letter. We all know, we love books that are related to bibliophile or Bookstores and we are all in. Oh this is such a mess of whining, rantings and ravings and hallucinations and paranoia that the new book store down the street is out to put her out of business.Thank you to Goodreads Giveaway and Lake Union Publishing for providing me with a copy of this novel. Secondly, Fawn as a character I just didn't like either, I found her quite stuffy, boring, hard to connect with and just unkind to everyone around her. Something of Bythell’s curmudgeonly charm may be glimpsed in the slogan he scribbles on his shop’s “Avoid social always carry a book.” — The Washington Post Anyway, it's a cute book although it does get dull in spots. I mean no one's life is that interesting 365 days a year but his life is pretty darn close. I mean visiting places and looking through their book collections to buy, working in an actual store and reading actual books seems ideal to me.

Confessions of a Bookseller: THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance. Inundated with requests from customers that range from the regular requests for a particular copy of a book, people wanting to take selfies with the kindle to the slightly strange and often the outright bizarre requests from customers who really are not engaging their brains before opening their mouths. He also has to battle with those that think nothing of selecting a number of books off the shelf, coming up to the counter and then offering a paltry sum for the books that they want. No one would think of doing that in any other shop, so why should he be different. A heart-warming love letter to books and bookshops, by an amenable fellow turned antisocial old misanthrope . . . brilliant . . .”

Bythell is the same sardonic self as he was in his last book, and I guess some people are put off by him, but I think if he was a Mr. Rogers (from Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood) the book would be borrrrring. Some of his observations, and some of the stuff that comes out his customer’s mouths, are quite interesting and /or funny. He typically gives us the weather for each day and I like that because I like rainy days to curl up with a book and there certainly were enough of those days where his bookshop was located. He made many a run to different homes to assess books the person at the home wanted to sell, and that was interesting enough. After a varied career, Avril worked for many years in management within the charitable sector, with WRVS, NHS (Macmillan Cancer Support) and with Crossroads Caring for Carers. She studied at Lampeter University. Diverted Traffic is her first novel alth …

Confessions of a Bookseller - GODINE Confessions of a Bookseller - GODINE

This is an absolute delight. Shaun Bythell brings to life the trials, tribulations and thoughts of a independent bookshop owner.I appreciated Shaun's further insights, as well as meeting a new character, Granny. As usual, I've forgotten the specific details of the previous book, but here I wasn't particularly fond of Anna. From what I gather she can be clingy (needy), which might explain his fear of commitment with her. We will all miss a high street containing proudly independent bookshops when they are forced to shut their doors