Shaun Bythell is the owner of The Bookshop in Wigtown, and also one of the organisers of the Wigtown Festival.
Warm, witty and laugh-out-loud funny, this gently meandering tale of British eccentricity will stay long in the memory. * Daily Mail * 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 * Wonderfully entertaining. * Observer * 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 *