Remainders of the Day: A Bookshop Diary

Bythell (The Diary of a Bookseller) returns with another rollicking account of running The Bookshop, Scotland’s second-largest used bookstore. Bythell records his interactions with his colorful Wigtown neighbors, presented in short anecdotal entries alongside a running tally of daily sales. There’s his free-spirited upstairs neighbor who teaches an unpopular belly dancing class, temporary employees who have “made a singularly ill-judged decision to become a bookseller, and an even worse choice to seek my counsel on the subject,” and a neighbor’s poodle who constantly relieves itself on Bythell’s azaleas. Then there are the customers, a motley assortment of the best and worst of humanity—some who quibble over a single pound and others who insist on tipping. Bythell’s biting wit combines with an obvious passion for the work, even as he struggles to maintain an online presence, a new necessity for secondhand shops: “I’ve now been suspended from Amazon, ABE and Facebook, all by algorithms.” The time frame is prior to the advent of Covid, yet it’s a reminder of how bookstores remain sacred spaces, as well as the very real labor that goes into maintaining them: “The sun still rises in the east, and sets in the west. The shop is still here.” Bythell’s narration is equal parts preposterous and profound, sure to prove irresistible to fellow bibliophiles. Agent: George Lucas, InkWell Management. (Dec.)