Non-Fiction
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Tripe Advisor: Misadventures in the Bookshop, Wigtown | 2014 | Buy |
| Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops | 2020 | Buy |
The Diary of a Bookseller Reading Order
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| The Diary of a Bookseller | 2017 | Buy |
| Щоденник книгаря | 2017 | N/A |
| Confessions of a Bookseller | 2019 | Buy |
| Сповідь книгаря | 2019 | N/A |
| Remainders of the Day | 2022 | Buy |
Shaun Bythell grew up in Wigtown, a small town in southwest Scotland that was designated Scotland’s National Book Town in 1998. He bought The Bookshop, the town’s largest secondhand bookshop, in 2001, and has run it ever since. The shop stocks around 100,000 books, and Bythell’s daily experience of managing the business, dealing with oddball customers, and haggling over book collections became the raw material for his writing career.
His first book, Tripe Advisor (2014), collected short, often absurd anecdotes from life in Wigtown and the bookshop. It was followed by Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops (2020), a wry field guide to the types of customers who wander into secondhand bookshops. His best-known works are the Diary of a Bookseller books, which present his life in a day-by-day journal format. The Diary of a Bookseller (2017) became a Sunday Times bestseller and was adapted for television. Confessions of a Bookseller (2019) and Remainders of the Day (2022) continued the series, covering topics from online bookselling frustrations to the slow rhythms of small-town Scottish life.