In unexpected fancy-party and honour news, Mr B’s co-founder and owner Nic was inducted last week as an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (RSL). The RSL is a charity for the advancement of literature that has been going for over 200 years and supports authors (established and emerging) with awards and grants and manages an engagement programme to inspire the next generation of readers and writers.
RSL fellows are all writers of outstanding literary merit (to be clear, that’s not Nic!) and RSL honorary fellows are those who have “rendered special service to the advancement of literature” and include publishers, agents, producers and booksellers. The honour recognised Nic’s role of course co-founding and running Mr B’s and our Fox, Finch & Tepper publishing imprint, but also all of the work he has done over nearly 19 years with the Booksellers Association and other industry bodies helping advance the interests of high street bookselling, bookshops, readers and young writers.
Here’s how the kind folks at RSL described Nic’s busy working life in their Honorary Fellowship brochure – “Nic Bottomley is co-founder of Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights, the welcoming and irreverent independent bookshop in Bath which has twice been named Independent Bookshop of the Year and which is know for bookselling innovations such as the Reading Spa, one of the largest bespoke reading subscription programmes and being the birthplace of The Bookshop Band. Nic co-founded publisher Fox, Finch & Tepper to give new life to out of print books. A former council-member, Vice-President and President of the Bookseller’s Association, Nic is now its Executive Chair and also sits on the board of Batch and National Book Tokens”.
Juliette and Nic went along to an induction ceremony last week in London with Bernadine Evaristo (RSL president) leading the proceedings. Every fellow and honorary fellow has to sign the ancient roll book of the organisation with an illustrious author’s pen. Nic opted not to risk blotting the roll-book by attempting to dip and manoeuvre Lord Byron or George Eliot’s elaborate pens, but instead opted for T.S. Eliot’s stylish and marginally less daunting early twentieth-century number.
Nic will be doing his best to use the fellowship as an opportunity to forge closer links between high street bookshops and the RSL and to shine a light on all that all bookshops do to celebrate literature and authors at every stage of their career.