Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops

Shaun Bythell is the owner of The Bookshop in Wigtown, Scotland, one of many independent bookshops in the town which is known as Scotland's National Book Town. Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops is the third book in a series describing the customers and recounting the events and challenges encountered when trying to run a second hand bookshop. The challenges were even greater during 2020 with the arrival of COVID-19 and susequent restrictions.

In this short book, Shaun lists some of the characteristics of people who visit the shop or bring books that he might want to purchase, providing examples of incidents that may occur. Types of people mentioned include experts, loiterers, occultists, people with young children, travellers, craft enthusiasts, whistlers, hummers, sniffers ...

The book did answer a question that had puzzled me.On my Facebook page I receive posts from The Bookshop and one had described a visit to the shop by Phillip Serrell filming a segment for The Antiques Road Trip. No more information was provided. A few weeks ago I saw the episode where Phil had purchased an Arts and Crafts chair from the shop for £20 and it sold at auction for £200 (profits from the show go to charity). 

Question: why did Phil purchase a chair from a bookshop? The answer is revealed on pages 56-58 of the book.The chair had been donated to Shaun by a craft enthusiast so he stored it in a corner of the shop which was where Phil found it. Apparently the original owner of the chair was not concerned when she saw her chair on TV. She later told Shaun that she hoped it had found a good home.

 Other books by Shaun Bythell include The Diary of a Bookseller and Confessions of a Bookseller.