"Confessions of a Bookseller" by Shaun Bythell

The funniest line in Shaun Bythell’s latest installment of a year in the life of a Scottish bookseller is a dig at a competitor, the Amazon Kindle.  He makes a short video to post on the internet describing how to upgrade one’s Kindle to a Kindle Fire.  It involves, he tells us, “half a gallon of petrol and a box of matches.”

Confessions of a Bookseller (David R. Godine, Publisher, 2020) picks up where Bythell’s previous book, The Diary of a Bookseller (Profile Books, 2018) left off.  In a year of diary entries, Bythell takes us through the day-to-day business of running a bookshop in Wigtown, known as the official National Book Town of Scotland since 1998.  The Bookshop is the largest secondhand bookshop in the country.

His daily entries are full of quirky and eccentric characters who make up the staff, customers, and townspeople.  Bythell, himself, purchases stock, mans the front counter, answers the often inane questions from customers, and does the odd DIY projects to keep the store running.  He lives on the premises where he also offers space for meetings and seminars throughout the year.  He is generous and accommodating with a wry sense of humor that comes through in his writing.  His staff includes Nicky, his messy and difficult long-time employee.  There is the Italian student who volunteers to work in the shop one summer for room and board, and who earns the nickname Granny because of her various ailments, aches and pains.  Despite her condition, she has a voracious appetite that amazes Bythell.  There is the shop cat, an overweight feline named Captain.  Bythell relates their antics and lets the reader wonder how the shop survives the comedy of errors involving these strange characters.

The Bookshop lives and dies by sales, like any other business.  In every entry, Bythell records the number of online orders, the sales receipts for the day, and the number of customers who come into the store to shop.  Some of the funniest moments come in his recording of interactions with people.  He is confronted, quite often, with customers demanding a discount, or ones that think he is hiding books “in the back” and not putting them out.  Many come through and stay browsing for hours yet do not make a purchase.  One customer asks the staff to make copies of specific pages of a book on the shelf but refuses to buy it.  Customers also ask a lot of stupid questions.  One could draw the conclusion that shopping in a book shop is no indication of common sense or mental acuity.

Bythell incorporates the history of the region and the antiquarian book business.  He goes on several trips to stately homes and estate sales to restock his shelves.  Sometimes, he finds hidden gems; other times, the sellers, often relatives liquidating a family member’s books gathered over a lifetime, are deeply disappointed that the books will not fetch a huge sum.  Every person’s library is unique, and through Bythell’s account, we get a little of the departed collector’s interests and eccentricities.  Many times, Bythell drives hours to find nothing of saleable quality on the dusty shelves.  He tells us that there are titles he feels he must stock simply because that is what is expected of a bookshop.  However, he also points out that a secondhand bookshop has no control over stock; owners must take what is available unlike a new book store that can order more titles when stock gets low.

Bythell has an online presence utilizing Amazon, Abe Books, and eBay.  Amazon cuts the profit margin so thin as to be nonexistence, yet they are an important part of the secondhand book trade.  Bythell describes how the digital ordering system often goes down and the requests are delayed.  He is constantly working to keep the catalogue system up and running.  The important thing to note here is that he sells online, in the shop, and on bidding sites to stay afloat, and all are necessary just to keep money coming in.  The sale of antiquarian books is not a lucrative business.

Even though he is forced to make repairs to the shop to keep his business going, he maintains his balance throughout.  He is a patient man who confesses to moments of depression, especially in the fall when the annual Book Festival ends and the summer tourists go home.  He also alludes to his failed relationship with Anna, and thinks about how his life has turned out in comparison to his parents, family, and friends.  His writing is poetic, spare, and to the point throughout, especially when he describes the natural beauty around Wigtown.  His anecdotes are interesting, like his tale of how the now infamous “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster was rediscovered in an old box of books an owner of a bookshop purchased at auction.  He also includes a good explanation of what makes a book antiquarian and how books are bound.

In this quaint volume of character and life, Shaun Bythell gives us a world to inhabit.  “The smell, the atmosphere and the human interaction will remain the exclusive preserve of bricks-and-mortar bookshops,” he writes.  “Perhaps, like vinyl and 35mm film, there might be a small revival, enough to keep a few of us afloat for a bit longer.”  That is the joy of this book.  He reminds us not only of the importance of the written word, but of community, fellowship, grace, and commerce.  In the digital age, there are still wonders to find in a small town in Scotland, in old books and the people who live with them.