The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell

The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell is the real-life diary of a book store owner in a small town in Scotland. Bythell and his ragtag bunch of employees and shop cat Caspian attempt to staunch the growing tidal waves of Kindles and Amazon purchases that will soon force all small bookstores out of business through the sheer force of their quirkiness and arrogance.

Oh, wait. I've given it away, haven't I?

I appreciate this memoir on two main fronts. One, yes, it's a reminder to me that I should occasionally buy an actual physical book from a small bookstore. Digital publishing is doing a number to publishing houses, actually writers, and bookstores themselves and while it may seem like spitting into the eye of a hurricane for me to make my purchases this way, I guess I'm all for meaningless acts of symbolism.  Two, sometimes the stories of the customers were incredibly charming. The man who found his father's Latin school textbook in the store? Coincidental and heartwarming. The small child who wanted to buy a book for his mom for Christmas?  Even my cold, non-childbearing ovaries squealed a tiny bit.

But Bythell himself is not someone I want to hang out with. I generally don't like memoirs because people who think they are interesting enough to write memoirs are usually over-confident, arrogant people and this book did not prove me wrong. Yeah, I want to sit around and read all day, too, but guess what? That's not how the world works. I'm sorry that you chose to own a small business and then you're upset when the small business requires more work than just reading.  Okay, so I didn't like Bythell. That doesn't always stop me from liking something.

The writing was also bad.

For example, at one point, he says "the customer was rude." That's all. No description of how the customer was rude or what the customer did, but just that the customer was rude. You know what?  I don't need this in my life.

I did finish the book, but I would not recommend this to anyone.