Shaun Bythell

Several book lovers of my acquaintance directed me towards Shaun Bythell's books: he's written several successful ones, all I believe in a similar idiom. This was i the library yesterday, so reader, I borrowed it. And I didn't enjoy it all that much. It's quite clever. All his readers are classified, in the way of natural history specimens, by their Latin names. The types that can annoy him annoy me too - the compulsive sniffer, for instance. But too many categories seemed to embrace too large a section of the population and thereby attributed negative characteristics to blameless people, and the general effect was that he appears patronising and often borderline offensive. He raised a few smiles. But not many.… (mere)

The second collection of Shaun Bythell's diaries about the day-to-day running of his secondhand bookshop in Scotland. It's very much the same stuff as in Diary of a Bookseller: lots of mundane details about what books he's bought or sold interspersed with relatable complaints about customers, descriptions of quirky employees, and glimpses of life in small bookish town. I didn't find it quite as inexplicably absorbing as the first volume; possibly there's a limit to just how many times I'm happy to read an account of how many books he bought from who for how much, or a note that the online ordering system has crashed again, or whatever. But it's still somehow a much more pleasant read than it seems like it should be, and strangely restful on the brain (even none of it may have been particularly restful to Mr. Bythell).… (mere)