Every red blooded bibliophile will eventually admit that at one point they have dreamed of owning, or at least working, in a bookstore. The idea of getting to spend ones days bustling though the smell of the stacks, handling old books, and being able to recommend a book that makes the customer’s week are a fanciful notion. But is this actually how it happens, or is it just the romantic fantasy we bibliophiles hold on to about the professional bookseller.
If you ever wanted to know what it was like to work in a bookstore but aren’t ready to jump in head first here are a few reads that might help paint the picture for you.
Top 10 books about bookselling
1.Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry
Larry McMurtry’s novels are barely mentioned. They just don’t seem that important to him. Books: A Memoir is a book about being a bookman, being a book scout, being a used bookseller. Countless authors stress the importance of literacy and bang on about how books must never die, but how many open bookstores and get their hands dirty at the sharp end of this business – flogging used books?
2.The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee
In The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, a Book Sense selection, Lewis Buzbee celebrates the unique experience of the bookstoreé He shares his passion for books, which began with ordering through the Weekly Reader in grade school to a fascinating historical account of the bookseller trade—from the great Alexandria library to Sylvia Beach’s famous Paris bookstore, Shakespeare & Co. Rich with anecdotes, The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop is the perfect choice for those who relish the enduring pleasures of spending an afternoon finding just the right book.
3. The King's English by Betsy Burton
Burton opened her bookstore in Salt Lake City in 1977, and this book explains the trials and tribulations of running an independent bookstore. From competition from national chains, censorship under the Patriot Act, strange twists in reading tastes, and even stranger tastes in visiting authors whose lists of demands read like those of rabid rock stars.
4. The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley
Unlike the previous suggestions The Haunted Bookshop is a novel set in Brooklyn just after the end of World War I. The story juxtaposes a pair of middle-aged bookshop owners and two young lovers with a nest of German saboteurs, but more importantly for this list, the novel has a great insight into the bookseller’s trade.
5. Sixpence House by Paul Collins
This is Paul Collins account of his move, with his family, to the Hay-on-Wye book town (1500 residents and 40 bookstores) from San Francisco and the adventures he finds there.
6. Bookstore: The Life and Times of Jeannette Watson and Books & Co. by Lynne Tillman
The behind-the-scenes story of one of America's greatest bookstores, narrated by Lynne Tillman and the customers, employees, and famous writers who frequented it.
7. An Alphabetical Life: Living It Up in the World of Books by Wendy Werris
This book is another memoir in the life of books and bookselling. Werris got her start in 1970 selling books at Pickwick Bookstore in LA. She talks about her time with small presses and independent bookstores.
8. A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for… by Nicholas A. Basbanes
Not directly about Bookselling per say but any conversation where books about books are talked about Nicholas Basbanes will eventually come up. Basbanes has written no less than eight books about books, book collecting, bookstores, libraries and book culture and his works provide a great insight into the world in which booksellers live.
9. Shakespeare and Company by Sylvia Beach
In 1919 Sylvia Beach "opened an American bookshop in Paris called Shakespeare and Company. The shop became a publishing house for a majority of The Lost Generation. This book talks about how this little shop came to publish James Joyce`s opus Ulysses.
10. Left Bank waltz : the Australian bookshop in Paris by Elaine Lewis
Elaine Lewis left her home in Australia to open the first Australian
book shop in Paris. Elaine hosted events, book readings and encouraged
an exchange of ideas and a love of literature, as well as midnight
swims in the Seine! But when some bumbling and nasty French bureaucrats
threatened to close down the shop, Elaine and her many staunch
supporters were faced with a battle against the establishment that
quickly became stranger than fiction Left Bank Waltz is the spirited
story of an Australian woman's courageous decision to follow a dream
... I didn't include them on this list since they are not about bookselling per say but there is also a neat series of detective novels by author and bookseller John Dunning about a bookseller and ex-policeman named Cliff Janeway who solves crime. Start with Booked to Die and work your way though the series.
BookFinder.com searches the inventories of a wide variety of European book sites, including fnac, the large French book retailer. I was looking at the fnac site today, when I noticed that they were running a site-wide promotion featuring an upraised fist in their site header. It turned out be an ad for a 40th anniversary microsite featuring books and CDs associated with May 1968, a series of left-wing student protests that helped bring down the De Gaulle government.
And what a promotion. They’re pushing books, flogging CDs, running a blog, and organizing an “I Sing 1968” contest, where participants can win a trip Prague by submitting a YouTube video of themselves singing a song from 1968.
I know very little about France and its postwar history, and how May 1968 is remembered forty years on. What I do know that in the US, mass market retailers tend to shy away from politics, and that we have very conflicted views of 1960s/1970s political movements.
I just can’t contemplate Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.com doing a sitewide promo on the Kent State shootings and strike; the events seem to remain too divisive, too unresolved, for there to be a reasonable safe national consensus. Could a mainstream American ecommerce retailer safely do a site-wide promotion centered around the history of the Summer of Love? Yes. Roe v. Wade? No. Woodstock? Yes. Stonewall? No. The March on Washington? Yes (but no flippancy allowed).
So what’s going on here? Have the French come to a national consensus on May 1968? Is fnac being brave, or foolhardy? Is the promotion in good taste? This curious American wants your opinions.
[Now reading: Other Colors by Orhan Pamuk]
Posted by AnirvanChrislands, a service that offers white-label ecommerce websites for booksellers, has been acquired by Canadian book marketplace AbeBooks.
We’ve known Lance and Jim from Chrislands since their days running Bookopoly, an online marketplace they ran from 1999 to 2003. Congrats, guys.
The Chrislands team will remain at their current location near Washington, DC. They’ll be following the same model as us. BookFinder.com was acquired by AbeBooks two and a half years ago, but we remain an independently managed subsidiary. We’ve enjoyed being able to draw upon AbeBooks’ resources, treating them as a consulting firm we can call upon as needed (e.g. we brought in their designers to help us do a big visual redesign). I expect Chrislands will be able to do the same.
Posted by Anirvan
