Description

A Waterstones ‘Best Books of 2022: Biography’

The Bookshop in Wigtown is a bookworm’s idyll – with thousands of books across nearly a mile of shelves, a real log fire, and Captain, the bookshop cat. You’d think after twenty years, owner Shaun Bythell would be used to the customers by now.

Don’t get him wrong – there are some good ones among the antiquarian erotica-hunters, die-hard Arthurians, people who confuse bookshops for libraries and the toddlers just looking for a nice cosy corner in which to wee. He’s sure there are. There must be some good ones, right?

Filled with the pernickety warmth and humour that has touched readers around the world, stuffed with literary treasures, hidden gems and incunabula, Remainders of the Day is Shaun Bythell’s latest entry in his bestselling diary series.

Publisher Review

Bythell returns with another rollicking account of running The Bookshop in Wigtown, Scotland ... equal parts preposterous and profound, sure to prove irresistible to fellow bibliophiles * Publishers Weekly * PRAISE FOR DIARY OF A BOOKSELLER * : * All the ingredients for a gentle human comedy are here, as soothing as a bag of boiled sweets and just as tempting to dip into * Literary Review * Written with caustic wit ... a diverting and congenial read * Bookmunch * PRAISE FOR CONFESSIONS OF A BOOKSELLER -- : Wonderfully entertaining. * Observer * Warm, witty and laugh-out-loud funny, this gently meandering tale of British eccentricity will stay long in the memory. * Daily Mail * PRAISE FOR SEVEN KINDS OF PEOPLE YOU FIND IN BOOKSHOPS -- : Crisp and often funny - and Bythell is canny enough to temper his pantomime misanthropy with bursts of sweetness * Guardian * Bythell is having fun and it's infectious ... actually amusing * Scotsman * Any reader finding this book in their stocking on Christmas morning should feel lucky ... contains plenty to amuse - an excellent diversion * Bookmunch * The second volume of memoirs by the Wigtown bookseller Shaun Bythell is as absorbing as the first * London Review of Books * The best parts are irreverently funny and only borderline legal ... he is certainly not self-serving in terms of writing about what he sees as his own failures and weaknesses ... has kept me giggling all week * Scotland on Sunday * MORE PRAISE FOR DIARY OF A BOOKSELLER -- : Funny and fascinating in equal measure - a must for all those of us who haunt the sepulchres where old books are laid to rest. * Anthony McGowan * The Diary Of A Bookseller is warm (unlike Bythell's freezing-cold shop) and funny, and deserves to become one of those bestsellers that irritate him so much. -- Jon Dennis * Mail on Sunday * Peopled with fascinating characters ... a sarcastic reminder of the struggles of small business ownership, the importance of community and the frustration of dealing with customers ... occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. * Herald * MORE PRAISE FOR CONFESSIONS OF A BOOKSELLER * : * Tempted to follow your dream and open a second-hand bookshop? Don't do anything before you read Shaun Bythell ... second-hand bookshops are alive because of people like him. * The National * Utterly compelling and Bythell has a Bennett-like eye for the amusing eccentricities of ordinary people ... I urge you to buy this book and please, even at the risk of being insulted or moaned at, buy it from a real live bookseller. -- Charlotte Heathcote * Sunday Express * I tore through the pages, but I was also rather sad when it finished - I could have read much, much more. Any bibliophiles should race to get a copy. * Shiny New Books * A book and bookshop lover's delight. * Red magazine * Laconic, droll, opinionated and unconvincingly misanthropic ... Wigtown's Pepys. -- Alan Taylor * Times Literary Supplement *