Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops

From the author of Confessions of a Bookseller, a cankerous and darkly funny field guide to bookstore customers.

It does take all kinds and through the misanthropic eyes of a very grumpy bookseller, we see them all. There’s the Expert (with subspecies from the Bore to the Helpful Person), the Young Family (ranging from the Exhausted to the Aspirational), Occultists (from Conspiracy Theorist to Craft Woman).

Then there’s the Loiterer (including the Erotica Browser and the Self-Published Author), the Bearded Pensioner (including the Lyrca Clad), the The Not-So-Silent Traveller (the Whistler, Sniffer, Hummer, Farter, and Tutter), and the Family Historian (generally Americans who come to Shaun’s shop in Wigtown, Scotland).Don’t forget the Person Who Doesn’t Know What They Want (But Thinks It Might Have a Blue Cover) and the harried Parents Secretly After Free Childcare. Two bonus sections include Staff and, finally, Perfect Customer—all add up to one of the funniest books about books you’ll ever find.

Shaun Bythell and his mordantly unique observational eye make this perfect for anyone who loves books and bookshops.

Praise for Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops

“Bythell continues his seriocomic take on his profession . . . he spares no one.” —Michael Dirda, The Washington Post

“Cheers to Shaun Blythell for this delightful taxonomy of bookstore customers and visitors.” —Pamela Pescosolido, bookseller, The Bookloft

“Bythell is having fun and it’s infectious.” —The Scotsman (UK)

“Virtuosic venting . . . pantomime misanthropy is tempered with bursts of sweetness in the secondhand bookseller’s latest dispatches from Wigtown [Scotland].” —The Guardian

“Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops (a parody of the sort of self-help titles Bythell absolutely loathes), is a series of Orwellian-incisive character sketches.” —The Critic (UK)

“Bythell distills the essence of his experience into a warm, witty and quirky taxonomy of the book-loving public.” —The Week (UK)