Orwell’s reluctance to commit to bookselling is understandable. Bythell stays, but understands Orwell.īythell begins the book with an epigraph from Orwell. Orwell enjoyed some parts of the job, but was glad on the whole to have left.
Indeed, Orwell may be the inspiration for much of this book. Bythell identifies with George Orwell, who wrote in his essay, “Bookshop Memories,” about the difficulties of working in a bookstore. We’d all love to own a bookstore, or so we think, but the business isn’t always easy. His diary entries are short, curmudgeonly, and witty, and I am absorbed by this insider’s view of bookselling.
Bythell owns Scotland’s largest second-hand bookstore, The Bookshop, in Wigtown, which is designated a National Book Town and the home of the Wigtown Book Festival.
I am so engrossed in Bythell’s diary that I have put off finishing a work project. This week my guilty pleasure has been reading Shaun Bythell’s The Diary of a Bookseller.
