Medium – Book
About the Book – Shaun Bythell is the owner of The Bookshop in Wigtown, which is Scotland’s National Book Town. He is the author of several books about his joys and tribulations of running his bookshop, and all the interesting people he spends time with and employs in the shop. In this short book (less than 150 pages), he writes short ‘spotter’s guides’ to the people he finds in his bookshop – firstly in general categories, and then more in depth. He identifies seven genuses – The Expert, The Young Family, The Occultist, The Loiterer, The Bearded Pensioner, The Not-So-Silent Traveller, The Family Historian and The Staff, and within those, several sub-categories. He explores the American family historian, the person who is in for erotica and the parents who leave their children for ‘free babysitting’ among others.
My Rating – 4/5
My Thoughts – I have read Shaun’s books several times over the years, including listening to the audiobooks, and I think he’s great. Slightly grumpy, but also a complete book-lover who (as I think all of us would) gets annoyed at Amazon for undercutting him and uses blatant sarcasm on difficult customers. It is one of my greatest ambitions to go and visit Wigtown and his bookshop (I guess some would say I have rather small ambitions but a whole town dedicated to books sounds amazing!) This little book is perfect for someone who wants a short, funny read that they can put on their shelves and peruse for years to come.
It was also great fun to try and work out exactly which of the types of people me and my family members are. So far, I have decided:
- Me – rather big-headedly, I think I am ‘Perfect Customer – Normal Person’. Hear me out – I go into bookshops and generally leave with books. I have no particular love of a particular genre or theme – I will go for anything. I will never haggle.
- Hubby – ‘Loiterer’ or ‘Perfect Customer – Railway Collector’. My husband will go into bookshops and will generally look at lots of different ones, but is a lot less free with his money than I am. Within the ‘loiterer’ category is ‘bored spouse’. I think this may be him 50% of the time. He does love a good railway book though.
- Mother – ‘occultist – craft enthusiast’. My mother loves craft – she will get books on all sorts of things to craft – knitting, embroidery etc. The main difference to the people in the book is she is actually good at all she turns her hands to.
There are also other categories mentioned that I may have some people in mind for. Overall, a lovely little book, but I would definitely recommend his other two (starting with ‘The confessions of a bookseller’ to get a full background into the joy of his lovely bookshop.
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