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 ]
He was the longest-tenured bookseller in the history of New York’s most storied bookstore, and he perpetuated its bohemian character. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-12-30 23:42:37 UTC ]
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An interesting dispatch from prize world: as The Bookseller reported, a new international survey conducted by Nielsen Book shows publishers, writers, booksellers and media consider the Booker Prize the “most important” literary prize. The Booker’s status isn’t completely out of left field, but... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-12-23 20:28:47 UTC ]
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Rob Moss has announced he will be stepping down from his role as m.d. at online bookseller Wordery. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-12-21 12:03:25 UTC ]
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The Bookseller is inviting independent bookshops across the UK and Ireland to complete its annual Christmas trading survey. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-12-20 17:57:32 UTC ]
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Four in 10 of this year’s list of the book trade’s big cheeses are either new entries or 2021 first-timers, reflecting how the pandemic has reshaped publishing leadership. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-12-17 00:28:55 UTC ]
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Alongside Richard Osman and JK Rowling, figures show huge successes for relative unknowns Ellery Adams and Brenda ChapmanThe UK’s library users are widely seen as a traditional bunch when it comes to choosing their next read, but while Richard Osman might have topped the list of the year’s... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-12-08 16:34:37 UTC ]
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Bookseller Nic Bottomley's publishing outfit Fox, Finch & Tepper has signed and published its first original book, an account of an impromptu biking adventure by award-winning travel-writer Julian Sayarer. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-12-08 08:31:26 UTC ]
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Continuing our series looking behind the headlines of 2021, we speak to the philosophy professor who resigned from Sussex University after protests over her views on gender and transgender rightsGaza bookseller Samir Mansour: ‘It was shocking to realise I was a target’When Kathleen Stock opens... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-12-05 10:00:51 UTC ]
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It might seem odd for a magazine called The Bookseller to have a dedicated issue for “booksellers”, but this week’s issue is a dedicated one for, well, booksellers, including our now-annual listing of the Bookshop Heroes, those purveyors of the written word who, when push came to shove in 2021,... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-12-03 15:21:51 UTC ]
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Last week The Bookseller held its first face-to-face event for 18 months: the FutureBook Conference took place on Friday 19th November, with about 250 delegates, speakers, sponsors, colleagues and volunteers at the event space at 155 Bishopsgate joining the more than 600 individuals who watched... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-11-26 13:12:27 UTC ]
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In the 1980s and 1990s The Bookseller produced a regular article called “Who Owns Whom”, which charted the ongoing agglomeration of British publishing. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-11-06 11:55:21 UTC ]
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Manchester United and England forward Marcus Rashford MBE, who published his first book and launched a book club with Macmillan Children’s Books this year, talks to The Bookseller after being named FutureBook Person of the Year. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-11-05 19:06:34 UTC ]
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The Bookseller has announced the shortlist for the 2021 Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book of Title of the Year, and for the first time, all six shortlisted titles come from university presses. This December, The Bookseller will announce which title has overtaken last year’s A Dog Pissing at the... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-11-05 17:53:02 UTC ]
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The New Futures Initiative - launched at the end of September and announced in The Bookseller - is a scheme to reach out to individuals from underrepresented groups and encourage them - through mentoring and tangible support - to open a bricks and mortar bookshop. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-10-07 16:15:45 UTC ]
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While exhibitor and visitor numbers are expected to be well down on pre-pandemic figures, a number of trade professionals have indicated to The Bookseller that they will return to the Frankfurt Book Fair. But what will the new hybrid fair look like? Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-10-01 09:11:26 UTC ]
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Pan Macmillan has hailed the success of its bookseller mentorship pilot scheme, which has now come to an end after 14 weeks. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-09-28 15:20:46 UTC ]
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Shah Muhammad Rais, who was made famous in The Bookseller of Kabul, has vowed to keep his bookshop open, despite having had only two customers since the Taliban retook the country in the middle of August. Founded in 1974 Rais’s store has seen regimes (along with foreign powers) come and go, and... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-09-28 15:00:23 UTC ]
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The New Atlantic and Southern Independent Booksellers Associations (NAIBA and SIBA) kicked off a combined virtual fall conference on September 27, marking the second year in a row that the two organizations have joined forces to offer educational programming, author readings, and editor buzz picks. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-09-28 04:00:00 UTC ]
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'Publishers tried, but it really didn't work,' says one Paris bookseller about the question of pandemic-related books this year. The post France’s Rentrée Littéraire: Books About COVID? Not Interested appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2021-09-27 11:31:21 UTC ]
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The Covid-19 lockdowns have drastically altered book trade events and made a number of them more accessible, but how can we ensure they remain so in the years to come? Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-09-26 16:12:25 UTC ]
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