Pantomime misanthropy is tempered with bursts of sweetness in the secondhand bookseller’s latest dispatches from WigtownThere’s a moment in the first season of the short-lived but influential sitcom Black Books in which an elderly customer appears with a box of attractive old editions of classics to sell to Dylan Moran’s crosspatch bookseller Bernard. Barely looking at them, Bernard offers him £40. But they’re worth more than that, the man says. “I know, I know,” Bernard concedes. “But I don’t want them. I’ll have to price them, then, and put them up on the shelves, and store them, and people will come in and ask about them, and buy them, and read them, and come back and sell them and the whole hideous cycle will just go on and on and on ...” He gives the man £40 to take the books away.Shaun Bythell’s dispatches from the Wigtown Bookshop, which he has run for nearly 20 years, read like a knowing riff on the persona of Bernard Black. He started out grousing about his life, pillorying his eccentric staff and venting about his noisome customers on a Facebook page. Then he did the same in his hit Diary of a Bookseller, continued with Confessions of a Bookseller, and here he is – an actual franchise – with a slim little listicle-titled till-point follow-up for the Christmas market. His inner Bernard Black will be heaving a world-weary sigh. The more he parades his contemptus mundi, the more the world loves him.Much steam is enjoyably vented over customers who whistle... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2020-11-11 09:00:33 UTC ]
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All hail the ebook! Seriously, if it weren't for this marvelous literary development, try saying with a straight face that you wouldn't at least take pause before adding a new title to your collection. Numbers are in from The Publisher's Association -- a group of 120 companies across the trade... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2012-05-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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HarperCollins has bought world rights in The Real Lady Detective Agency, an account of a true-... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-05-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In 'My Life as a Sportswriter,' the Sports Illustrated writer reminisces on his time chronicling the offbeat and the mainstream in sports.A bio on NPR's website of its commentator Frank Deford notes that the magazine GQ christened him, quite simply, "the world's greatest sportswriter." (Is he?)... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-04-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Microsoft seems to have found an open window back into the ebook business, closing the door on an ongoing patent dispute with its new partner. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-04-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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William Heinemann has acquired an anthology of 21 stories originally published in literary... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-04-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The trade paperback format lost some ground to ebooks through the first nine months of 2011, according to Bowker Market Research, but it remained the most popular print category. Still, the question being asked is what consumer segment the trade paperback is serving in a time when ebooks often... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-04-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A journey across the Pacific Crest Trail turns into an exercise of triumph over grief for Cheryl Strayed in her memoir, 'Wild.'Toward the end of Cheryl Strayed's memoir, "Wild," the author, who is in the middle of hiking 1,100 miles alone across the West Coast's formidable Pacific Crest Trail,... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-04-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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With 'American Spy,' Steinhauer finishes what he started in 'The Tourist' and 'The Nearest Exit.' It's a thrilling, irresistible masterwork of love, guilt and revenge.On two separate occasions over the last nine years, Olen Steinhauer has brought a thriller series to a close. The first was the... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-04-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Google has told UK bookshops that it is shutting its reseller programme, and has invited the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-04-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Dutch investment company ProCures has bought all 16 branches of upmarket book chain Selexyz.... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-04-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Days after it told one publisher it had indefinitely suspended the programme to approve its Kindle newspaper edition submission, Amazon has suddenly relented. Last week, Scotland’s Herald & Times Group grumbled publicly that, after tw ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2012-04-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The author's exuberant use of words in private is as vivid as in public.The Selected Letters of Charles Dickens Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-04-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The author goes from one extreme to another in this wonderfully absurdist short-story collection.Suddenly, a Knock On the Door Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-04-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The necessity of self-improvement and social betterment is thoughtfully explored in Sam Harris' and Alain de Botton's books.Free Will Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-04-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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An interracial couple navigates modern life in South African in 'No Time Like the Present,' by Nadine Gordimer.No Time Like the Present Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-04-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Are you ready for a bombshell? Turns out people who read ebooks read more books than those don't. That tidbit comes from the number crunchers at Pew. According to a new report titled "The Rise of E-Reading," the ebook readers read an average of 24 books in the past year, versus the 15 books read... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2012-04-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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One in five American adults read an electronic book in the last year, as gift-giving sped the shift away from the printed page, a Pew Research Center survey showed on Wednesday. Continue reading at Baltimore Sun
[ Baltimore Sun | 2012-04-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Big Green Bookshop in Wood Green, London, is to have its own "writer in residence... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-04-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A mob wife fleeing her past — and a dirty U.S. marshal — gets a little help from a mysterious stranger in Epperson's modern noir tale of revenge and greed.If I were a damsel in distress fleeing a past and people who wanted me dead, like Gina Cicala in the modern noir thriller "Sailor" by Tom... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-04-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Anne Tyler's latest novel, 'The Beginner's Goodbye,' is a classic mix of the author's themes, most especially oddball characters and the turbulent nature of families and marriages.When you pick up a novel by Anne Tyler, you can expect certain things. It will be set in Baltimore. It will follow... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-04-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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