Shaun Bythell Books In Order

Publication Order of The Diary of a Bookseller Books

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

For the past two decades, Shaun Bythell has run the largest second-hand bookshop known simply as “The Bookshop” in Scotland. As a huge connoisseur of books, he also organizes the Wigtown Book Festival in Scotland’s National Booktown.
In 2017, he published “The Diary of a Bookseller” which would become an international bestselling title that has been translated into more than two dozen languages. The work is a mockingly humorous story of the eccentric customers and staff that have passed through the shop over the years.

The novel was the springboard for several other titles including “Confessions of a Bookseller” and “Remainders of the Day.” These works trace the tribulations and daily routines of a provincial dealer of books.

It shows how tough it has become watching the industry move toward globalized and digital means of bookselling. The debut has been particularly popular and was called the most amusing and irascible memoir by New York Times reviewer Dwight Garner.
He currently makes his home in the small town of Wigtown in Scotland. When Blythell is not working at “The Bookshop” he can usually be found uploading working of his favorite songs on Youtube, eavesdropping on customers, and destroying Amazon Kindles in the wild.

Upon graduating from university with his law degree, Shaun Bythell decided that he did not want to practice law. For about a decade, he was engaged in all manner of unfulfilling jobs with very few prospects to advance his lot in life.

During this time, he worked on building dry stone walls, was a temp at the head office of a supermarket chain, and worked as a laborer constructing gas pipelines. As such, when the opportunity to buy a bookshop was presented, it was something of a lightbulb moment.
He thought running a bookshop was something that would take him away from all the many mediocre jobs and he jumped at it. Shuaun Blythell had never been ambitious or career driven and hence he was particularly ensuite to being employed.
However, he strongly believed that he would be great at self-employment and has come to love running his own business selling books. Nonetheless, the fact that he seems to be very good at it is a fortuitous coincidence.

Still, he has said that had he known how good he would have been at selling books, he would have started doing it much earlier. He thanks God that he was able to stumble upon something that makes him get out of bed and be happy doing it.

Growing up, Shaun Bythell never had any ambitions to become an author. However, almost everyone that patronized the bookshop was stupefied at the happenings and urged him to write about it.

Eventually, he got around to it and the result was his blockbuster debut. In a sense, it came as an unintended consequence of running the bookshop just as purchasing the bookshop resulted from his disillusionment doing all manner of crappy jobs.

While he has achieved a lot of success with his memoirs, he continues to write even more as long as there is interest in the books. Despite unintentionally stumbling into bookselling and writing, he now enjoys writing as this has also made him a good reader too.

“The Diary of a Bookseller” is a work full of funny stories as it summarises the day in the life of a bookseller in Wigtown. He runs a second-hand bookshop that is one of the largest in Scotland and has become something of a book lovers’ little Mecca that all manner of people visit.

There are many buyers but also browsers who usually irritate the owner to no end. Shaun Blythell never holds back as he offers snide commentaries which make for a humorous read.
His clients are an odd assortment of people that compose a smattering of real serious collectors and book buyers, a few regulars, and many buyers and misers. His interactions with regular staff are very hilarious, particularly when he tells of intentionally incompetent people.

He wants to come across as a tolerant man but one suspects he sometimes enjoys their open contempt for him. Shaun also chronicles how he sources his books with many gotten from the estates of deceased people. Most managers of such estates do not realize that they have a treasure trove of old books until they are told so.

Written in diary format, the novel can be read systematically at a page a day. However, the fun and hilarious nature of the writing makes it hard to stop reading the stories.

Shaun Bythell’s “Confessions of a Bookseller” takes readers through the author’s life in 2015. He tells of the struggles he had including the precarious financial position of his business in Wigtown a small town in Scotland.
The only remaining employee by this time is Nicky a middle-aged woman who loves to have belly dancing classes in the bookshop.

The work delves into the book trade in all its vagaries and glories as Bythell tells himself and describes himself as a curmudgeonly fellow that can sometimes be cantankerous.

Written in diary format, each entry provides information on the number of orders found, the time at the till, the weather of the day, and even the number of customers who visit the bookshop.

It is in no doubt that the author loves books and he loves reading and handling books. He pens some vivid descriptions of his customers many of whom are oddballs who can’t differentiate between a library and a bookshop. He also chronicles many embarrassing but hilarious scenarios.

“Remainders of the Day” by Shaun Bythell is a work set in 2016 and similar to the ones that preceded it, it is written in diary format. The author chronicles the online orders he receives and filled and each daily entry usually includes the till takings for each day and the number of customers served.

Just like in the other works, he details notable encounters with customers, interactions with local friends and shop assistants, trps to go fishing, or buying book collections.

He also writes of the Wigtown book festival among other events and the occasional snafu such as his mother getting sent to the hospital after an ulcer burst or when his boiler broke down during one of the most frigid Novembers.
Slightly snarky and curmudgeonly, he is entertaining and knowledgeable making for chuckle-out-loud moments.