Confessions of a Bookseller: THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

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At first we think that she thinks she’s the ‘big I AM’. A new book shop is opening down the street but she has no fears as her shop is far superior, has been there 25 years and she’s an excellent, confident and successful business owner. Or so we are told. Inside a Georgian townhouse on the Wigtown highroad, jammed with more than 100,000 books and a portly cat named Captain, Shaun Bythell manages the daily ups and downs of running Scotland’s largest used bookshop with a sharp eye and even sharper wit. His account of one year behind the counter is something no book lover should miss. Out of season, the book shop’s takings are paltry but they gradually increase as the weather warms up and the tourist footfall grows. When Shaun does takes time off from the shop, I can almost sense his relief as he sets off for a bit of fishing. His penmanship also seems to escape the diary’s limitations when he describes the beauty of Scotland’s scenery and is a temporarily more pleasant experience for the reader. Something I do appreciate about any book is if it continues to evolve after I have completed it. This one did. Did anyone else wonder about her poor old tenant? Did she really exist? Was she actually alive (creepy thought of Psycho in my head)? Notice that she never opened that box of old Valentine candy. Was George really traveling with her? No one saw him but Fawn. The eccentric customers, strange incidents, and Bythell’s sharp wit prove that running a bookstore is anything but boring.”

Confessions of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell | Goodreads

Oh this is such a mess of whining, rantings and ravings and hallucinations and paranoia that the new book store down the street is out to put her out of business. I appreciated Shaun's further insights, as well as meeting a new character, Granny. As usual, I've forgotten the specific details of the previous book, but here I wasn't particularly fond of Anna. From what I gather she can be clingy (needy), which might explain his fear of commitment with her.But these books, both the "Diary..." and the "Confessions" are amazing! Thoroughly recommend for a long week on quarantine. Fawn is not an altogether likeable character but I admit I got quite fond of her as I got to know her. I am generally intolerant of unsympathetic characters unless they are strong or interesting, and thankfully Fawn is both. In the words of Little Edie of Grey Gardens, Fawn is a "staunch character". When everything around her is collapsing and going to hell in a handbasket, she does not give up and keeps coming up with increasingly absurd ideas to save her business. In the process, she grows as a person and finally develops a sense of perspective in relation to her past, her childhood, and who she is as a person. Thank you to Goodreads Giveaway and Lake Union Publishing for providing me with a copy of this novel. It is endlessly entertaining and genuinely laugh out loud in places. Customers, those oh so wanted people, come in many shapes and sizes and we learn of their foibles, manners and interests. There are descriptions of regular customers, as well as many who drive the author to despair. A heartening and uproariously funny novel of high hopes, bad choices, book love, and one woman’s best—and worst—intentions.

Confessions of a Bookseller: THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Confessions of a Bookseller: THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

The good news, for those who liked his first book, myself included, is this one offers another whole year of his trials and tribulations. Others have identified the year as 2015, but my edition either doesn't impart that information, or (more likely) I missed it! He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions. The visits to people across the county to buy books is interesting in what people offer, think is of value, and why they are selling collections, as is the insight into what actually sells well, what doesn't and what did but does no longer; allied to this is the constant reduction of process and as such margin. So many reviewers here seem to have expected a soppy love story, with rival bookshop owners falling in love (ring any bells?) They gave up because Fawn wasn’t Mary Poppins or Meg Ryan.

But as she wages her war, Fawn is forced to reflect on a few unavoidable truths: the tribulations of online dating, a strained relationship with her family, and a devoted if not always law-abiding intern—not to mention what to do about a pen pal with whom she hasn’t been entirely honest and the litany of repairs her aging store requires. amusing and often cantankerous stories [that] bibliophiles will delight in, and occasionally wince at…” The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power. Of course she was an unreliable narrator, but that is soon made clear by her ranting and lies. I admit it was not hilarious but certainly amusing.

Book review: Confessions Of A Bookseller, by Shaun Bythell Book review: Confessions Of A Bookseller, by Shaun Bythell

Third, the plot was kind of boring, nothing different from all other books with a similar concept. Didn't have any stand out moments. There are some beautiful lines on family, lost childhood, priorities, and empathy. Made me wonder, we only know parts of the exchanges, and still form a solid image of the characters, develop love and hatred for them, how opinionated and judging we are! That is exactly what I loved about the story too, a very good read, a very critical one too on the protagonist, that doesn't show an all positive or all negative person as the head. Our main protagonist is Fawn Birchill, who is the owner of the a local bookstore. She is struggling to keep her father's legacy of this bookstore running smoothly.

For those people who think owning a second-hand bookshop in which one wants to have their head above water (i.e., be solvent, make more money than lose money) is easy, find some other business to start. I would have to guess that so many different businesses have been adversely affected by the Covid pandemic and I would think second-hand bookshops are one cluster of businesses that have been harmed. But I don’t know that for a fact…certainly there has been more time being at home, and so maybe book sales have been positively affected as this is a leisure time activity. Bythell remains an unwavering correspondent whose daily rambles reminds us of the joy in real bookshops.” Anyway, it's a cute book although it does get dull in spots. I mean no one's life is that interesting 365 days a year but his life is pretty darn close. I mean visiting places and looking through their book collections to buy, working in an actual store and reading actual books seems ideal to me.

Confessions of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell | Goodreads Confessions of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell | Goodreads

As noted above - similar content to the previous book, but as a diary - a few year of happenings! Just don't go in expecting there to be many new revelations! If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire. The shop's place in Wigtown is well described, as we see the various life of the town interact with the people - and tourists - and see how Shaun plays his part in festivals and other's initiatives and events.

We will all miss a high street containing proudly independent bookshops when they are forced to shut their doors For me, in the end, there was just something missing. That said, this might simply be my being the wrong reader for this novel.