Bythell, Shaun "Seven Kinds of People you Find in Bookshops"

Bythell, Shaun "Seven Kinds of People you Find in Bookshops" - 2020

This is the third book I read by Shaun Bythell. In "The Diary of a Bookseller", he introduces us to his second-hand bookshop in Wigtown, Scotland and his quirky customers. In "Confessions of a Bookseller", he gives us an overview of a whole year and carries on in his sarcastic way to describe everyone he comes across.

I love the title. So, apparently, you can find seven kinds of people in bookshops. I kept wondering the whole time where I might fit in. Only to find out to wards the end, that I seem to belong to the "normal people". How boring. Mind you, I wouldn't have wanted to be considered a loiterer, my family is definitely not young anymore, I don't have a beard, I'm also not an expert on anything and hope I don't annoy people with telling them about the books I read or the subjects in them - well, I have a blog for that and can discuss those issues with other readers who are interested in the same stuff. But still … normal???

Well, to me, like to most of the other bloggers, I suppose, a bookshop is there to explore. Of course, sometimes I am looking for a certain book and will enquire accordingly. But most often, I just like to browse - and I will always find something. So, I am glad, booksellers appreciate customers like me.

Shaun Bythell is one of the most hilarious people I have come to know through my reading and I was happy to find out that he has married in the meantime and they started their young family.

As in my reviews of the first book, I am happy to lead you to his blog website The Bookshop and his blog. If you don't decide to buy his books after that, I can't help you.

The author is just as funny, witty and sarcastic as in his other books. Can't wait for his next one, "Remainders of the Day: More Diaries from The Bookshop, Wigtown" to come out in paperback.

From the back cover:

"Between its covers, a book can contain a whole world. And, at one time or another, the whole world comes to a bookshop - so step inside to find:

The Conspiracy Theorist
The Exhausted Parents
The Whistler
The Dark Artist
The Loiterer without Intent
The Craft Enthusiast
The Bore
And many more …

In twenty years behind the till in The Bookshop, Wigtown, Shaun Bythell has met pretty much every kind of customer there is - from the charming, erudite and deep-pocketed to the eccentric, flatulent and possibly larcenous.

In Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops he distils the essence of his experience into a warm, witty and quirky taxonomy of the book-loving public. So, step inside to meet the crafty Antiquarian, the shy and retiring Erotica Browser and gormless yet strangely likeable shop assistant Student Hugo - along with much loved bookseller favourites like the passionate Sci-Fi Fan, the voracious Railway Collector and the ever-elusive Perfect Customer."