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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Written By: Benedicte Page Publication Date: Wed, 20/07/2011 - 09:10 Brent council failed to comply with its legal obligations under the 1964 Public Libraries and Museums Act when planning the closure of six of its libraries, the High Court was told on the first day of the judicial review... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-07-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Lisa Campbell Publication Date: Thu, 07/07/2011 - 15:47 read more Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-07-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Benedicte Page Publication Date: Wed, 06/07/2011 - 08:02 A court hearing to decide whether permission will be given for a judicial review to proceed against Gloucestershire library cuts is to take place in Birmingham tomorrow (Thursday 7th July). If allowed to proceed, the judicial... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-07-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Lisa Campbell Publication Date: Wed, 06/07/2011 - 08:01 Waterstones childrens range buyer Claudia Mody is to join The Book People as a buyer for Red House it's children's consumer-facing book club. Mody will start on 1st August at The Book People. Seni Glaister, chief executive... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-07-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Benedicte Page Publication Date: Wed, 06/07/2011 - 16:25 The Legal Services Commission, which handles legal aid, has been accused of "cynically changing the rules" by ignoring the decision of its own appeals panel that library campaigners pursuing judicial review claims should not... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-07-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Katie Allen Publication Date: Tue, 05/07/2011 - 09:25 The London Magazine has launched a competition for readers to nominate their favourite bookshop, highlighting indies including Daunts. As part of the publication's The Great Little Shop Awards, this month the magazine is asking... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-07-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Lisa Campbell Publication Date: Mon, 04/07/2011 - 08:31 University lecturers posting course notes online are "harming" academic booksellers, and the posts can also deter students from reading around the subject, the chairman of the Booksellers Association's Academic, Professional... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-07-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The former newspaper baron, serving out a sentence for fraud and obstruction, will publish "A Matter of Principle" in the fall. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2011-06-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Graeme Neill and Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Thu, 23/06/2011 - 16:34 Retailers have criticised J K Rowling's decision to sell the Harry Potter ebooks directly through the Pottermore website, with Waterstone's saying physical bookshops are "effectively banned" from selling... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-06-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Wed, 22/06/2011 - 09:13 HarperPress has bought a book by the mayor of London about the people who made the United Kingdom's capital city what it is today. Publishing director Susan Watt bought British Commonwealth rights to Johnson's Life of London:... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-06-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Lisa Campbell Publication Date: Wed, 15/06/2011 - 14:25 The Sandwich Bookshop in Kent is closing after seven years, blaming a rise in internet bookselling, supermarket discounting and the popularity of e-readers. Owner Louise Vance will be shutting the doors to her shop in... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-06-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Publication Date: Fri, 10/06/2011 - 10:36 Octopus has acquired a vegetable cookery title by chef, eco-restauranteur and star of "The People's Supermarket" Arthur Potts Dawson. Publishing director Stephanie Jackson acquired world rights to Eat Your Veg from Sophie Laurimore of Factual... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-06-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Philip Jones Publication Date: Thu, 09/06/2011 - 10:05 Literary agent Peter Cox has offered to review "any" contract given to an author by an agent for free in order to ensure that the author has "impartial advice". The move is a response to agents setting up their own publishing... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-06-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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People is the most profitable U.S. magazine and had an excellent, +5.6% ad-page advertising 2010, so it was appropriate that the magazine did very well at min's seventh "Sales Executive of the Year" awards breakfast Thursday morning (June 2) at New York's Grand Hyatt. Continue reading at Folio Magazine
[ Folio Magazine | 2011-06-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Lisa Campbell Publication Date: Wed, 25/05/2011 - 14:13 Independent bookshop owners paid themselves an average wage of £22,200 in 2010, according to a new survey. Figures revealed that the average sales of those bookshops which took part in last years Bookseller Fitness Programme... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Wed, 18/05/2011 - 09:55 Publishers appear to have got a reprieve in the Hargreaves Review into intellectual property with it recommending against imposing an American style 'Fair Use' defence for copyright exceptions. The report also suggested the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Mon, 16/05/2011 - 09:56 The economics for booksellers "simply don't work" as they struggle with high costs and low margins, the president of the Booksellers Association has claimed. Jane Streeter was delivering the introduction at the BA Conference at... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Lisa Campbell Publication Date: Mon, 09/05/2011 - 15:41 The administrators of British Bookshops and Stationers has said it can only pay back eight-10p in every pound owed and expects the level of claims to increase. A recent document published on Companies House said the former... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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