A heart-warming love letter to books and bookshops, by an amenable fellow turned antisocial old misanthrope“I was in here two years ago and you had a book by Roger Penrose. Do you know what happened to it?” Shaun Bythell – owner of the Book Shop in Wigtown, Galloway – has 100,000 books in stock, sells 20,000 a year, and has handled nearly 1m second-hand books since he bought the shop in 2001. Unsurprisingly, the Roger Penrose volume had not stuck in his mind.Before he entered the book trade at the tender age of 31, he was “amenable and friendly”. Now, after many years of fielding bizarre questions, constant haggling over prices (why is it “acceptable to try to screw the profit out of struggling small businesses” but not supermarkets?), and struggling to survive despite Amazon’s “icy grip” on bookselling, he has been forced to embrace the stereotype of the “impatient, intolerant, antisocial proprietor”. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2019-08-24 10:58:38 UTC ]
While some regional indie bookseller organizations have canceled spring forum meetings, others are creatively tweaking schedules to put on unique events, ranging from virtual gatherings to mini-forums. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-03-17 04:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
The impact of the coronavirus outbreak continues to be felt across the trade, with further cancellations of literary events and larger numbers in the book trade now working from home to fight the spread. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-03-15 14:06:36 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Publishers including Penguin Random House, Pearson, Bonnier Books UK and Macmillan Education have donated books they planned to use at the cancelled London Book Fair to the Book Trade Charity. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-03-11 20:10:12 UTC ]
More news stories like this
The book trade has expressed disappointment at the cancellation of the London Book Fair but accepted that it was the right call, as the UK works on containment of the coronavirus outbreak. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-03-04 04:39:23 UTC ]
More news stories like this
A bookseller fights the urge to require parents to check their cell phones at the door during story time. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-03-02 13:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Booker shortlisted author and former Blackwell's bookseller Daisy Johnson has joined the judging panel for the Vintage Independent Bookseller of the Year Award 2020. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-02-27 22:21:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
A court in eastern China has sentenced a Swedish seller of books that took a skeptical look at the ruling Communist Party to 10 years in prison for "illegally providing intelligence overseas," in a further sign of Beijing's hard line toward its... Continue reading at CBC
[ CBC | 2020-02-25 13:14:25 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Mr. Gui, a Chinese-born Swedish citizen, ran a publishing house that appeared to anger the Communist Party Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-02-25 10:07:44 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Gui Minhai, a Chinese-born Swedish citizen, ran a publishing house that appeared to anger the Communist Party Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-02-25 06:02:16 UTC ]
More news stories like this
The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund plans to create the Rory D. Root Comics Ambassador Grant, a program designed to support community building by retailers, named in honor of the late Rory Root, an influential Berkeley comics retailer noted for his pioneering embrace of book trade practices and... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-02-25 05:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Hong Kong bookseller Gui Minhai has been jailed for 10 years by a Chinese court for “illegally providing intelligence overseas”. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-02-24 22:55:21 UTC ]
More news stories like this
How can the book trade, and especially agents, be more welcoming of different personality types—many of whom could shake up their business? Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-02-21 04:49:38 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Publisher Eva Bonnier and author David Lagercrantz are among the signatories of an open letter calling for the release of Gui Minhai, a bookseller imprisoned in China. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-02-20 16:34:50 UTC ]
More news stories like this
A humorous behind-the-scenes look at bookseller prep for an author school visit. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-02-19 13:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
The bookseller planned to promote classic novels with covers featuring people of color for Black History Month. Critics accused it of “literary blackface.” Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-02-05 23:31:49 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Today, Jeanine Cummins appeared at Winter Institute in Baltimore, and as Michael Calder reports for PubishersLunch, commented on the ongoing controversy over her new novel, American Dirt. Bookseller Javier Ramirez, who introduced Cummins, brought up the topic at the end of the formal interview:... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-01-22 18:16:31 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Canadian independent publisher (and bookstore!) Biblioasis has printed up a limited run of indie bookseller trading cards, featuring heroic comic book portraits of prominent booksellers. Why? Well, for starters, this week is the annual independent booksellers conference in Baltimore, the ABA’s... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-01-21 13:40:31 UTC ]
More news stories like this
International publishers are calling for a presidential pardon to free imprisoned Egyptian publisher and bookseller Khaled Lotfy. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-01-14 06:05:25 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Hannah Harlow, executive director of marketing of general interest books at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, has bought the Book Shop of Beverly Farms in Beverly, Mass., together with her brother. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-01-14 05:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
An indie bookshop which was the official bookseller of the Barnes Children’s Literature Festival has been replaced by organisers in favour of Waterstones. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-01-14 03:02:58 UTC ]
More news stories like this