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The Bookseller's Tale

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Member Reviews

A really interesting in depth look at the whole world of books and associated subjects.

I’m not much of a non fiction reader but this held my interest !

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Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

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My thanks to NetGalley andPenguin Press for a copy of “ The Bookseller’s Tale “ for an honest review
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I’ve recently read “Once Upon A Tome “ and Shaun Bythell’s collection of bookseller books , all of which I’ve really enjoyed . Perhaps that is why , for me , this book seemed a little dull in comparison. It is, as it states a cultural history of books , which is very informative but I must admit I’d hoped for more anecdotal content.
I will try and read this again at a later date to see if I change my opinion, as it has such good reviews from others.

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Such a different book to the ones I’ve been reading recently, I loved it.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

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I started bookselling *counts on fingers* (*runs out of fingers, adds toes - still not enough...*) 33 years ago. No wonder I'm tired. But Martin Latham, a legendary figure to old Waterstones hands, has been around even longer (and, unlike me had other jobs before he turned his hand to shelving, table-pyramidding and recommending for a living). This book is partly his reminiscences about his long career in retail and partly (a larger part) a history of bookselling itself and of our relationship with books and reading. We explore books through the ages - from the earliest days of handwritten and illustrated volumes, through the rise of 'chapbooks' (short, popular books which were often illustrated and started nearly 400 years before Penguin paperbacks) - as well as the ways that they were sold (book pedlars, stalls of the kind that still flourish along the Seine in Paris and, of course, bookshops themselves). There are some stories of interactions with authors and bookshop customers but many, many more about the real stars of the show - the books themselves.

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What a marvellous author this is! Recommended for all bibliophile like me, this book does exactly what it says on the tin! Exploring books, libraries, collectors and weird and wonderful facts on the written word, I thoroughly enjoyed the writing style of this book. I would actually love an audiobook of this- maybe Richard Armitage or Jot Davies! Funny and written with so much love. Many thanks to the publishers, Netgalley and especially the author for an advanced copy of this book. I will be reading this book again and again

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A cornucopia of rich pickings for anyone who loves books, for anyone who buys and sells books and for anyone really who has ever read a book!

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I love books obsessively. As a matter of fact, I enjoy reading books about books, as in stories about writers, fiction and non-fiction books, the history of reading practices, literary tourism, and all sorts of things. You say 'books', 'reading' or 'readers' and you already have my full attention. Martin Latham's The Bookseller's Tale is a lovely mixture of memoir and history and all sorts of things about books, following every part of a book's journey to a bookshop. Part memoir part history, it is a collection of interesting anecdotes and information about books from someone who seems to really know what he is talking about. In this sense, it is a bit unique in its approach and a bit more personal, something that might seem peculiar to some readers and a pure delight to others - I fall in the latter category. I loved the author's passion for books.

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What a marathon! I mean that in a good way though. This is one of the most interesting non fiction books I have read in a long time.
Martin Latham has produced a beautifully detailed history of books and all things book related.
At times I found the going got a little hard, there was just so much information to take in. But it was worth it in the end, it being written in such a way to keep you hooked and dotted with little gems that made me smile.
I would recommend this book to anyone that loves history and books. Martin Lathams knowledge of his subject is second to none.

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I think the title is enough to describe this book. A book lover's treat. Different anecdotes about books, booksellers, bookshops, passages, etc. A mixed bag of bookish treasure.
Thanks a lot to NG and the publisher for this copy.

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Interesting perspective on books, booksellers and readers throughout history. Fascinating read, even if some of it did feel slightly above my head. Some genuinely touching moments, particularly the autobiographical parts. A good read for book lovers.

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I loved dipping in and out of this collection of tales especially as I am familiar with Canterbury Waterstones. A treat for booklovers and bookstore fans!

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A fascinating, amusing, chatty and thoughtful book of anecdotes and stories from a bookseller in Canterbury. He discusses various aspects of books as well as the history of bookselling and libraries.
I was hooked when he wrote about comfort books that we recall reading when young. Having discounted The House of Pooh Corner as too juvenile, I plumped for The Silver Sword, a book I remember discovering in the primary school library. A few pages later he mentions the very same book!
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and from it have noted down several titles that I want to look out for. I would recommend The Bookseller's Tale to anyone who loves books.

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A really marvellous book, I enjoyed taking a walk down memory lane with this book about books and reading. It encouraged me to think about my comfort books. Well done, Mr. Latham!

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This book wasn't what I expected but I thoroughly enjoyed and it gave a lot of food for thought.
It mixes reflections on the relationships between reader and books with anecdotes.
It's interesting and engrossing even if it's a bit confused at times.
I recommend it.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

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An Ode To Books....
Beautifully written ode to books, a journey through a book lovers love affair with books. Not purely a cultural history of people and books but also a memoir and heartfelt ode of a bookseller. Compelling and engaging and laced with dry humour. Delightful.

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"Groggily, I once answered a customer query through the wall: I suspect they thought this was a preternatural event."

Reading this book was like listening to a guy giving a long, long lecture about bookselling, book printing, and bookshops. The guy is clearly someone who has Lived A Life, who is the right amount of quirky, and who knows a LOT of interesting people and a LOT of interesting things. It’s just that it reads like a guy talking rather than something that is meant to be read as a book.

Which means that occasionally I felt like I was half-paying attention to a confusing anecdote, sometimes I was absolutely riveted by something bizarre or fantastical, and other times it was like he was neatly pinning down why I love a book, or a bookshop. At all times it felt like I was drinking a cup of warm tea.

I made a lot of notes in this book that were essentially ‘very interesting!!’ and ‘INSPIRATION?”. I think it’d be a great read for anyone who wants to write a story that has any kind of focus on books, or who wants to think about the ways that books and reading could effect worldbuilding of a fantasy or speculative fiction.

I’m just going to list some coolass things I learned because of this book:

--“From about 1600-1870, book users cut out favourite passages and pasted them into commonplace books, which were interspersed with their own manuscript thoughts.”
Booksellers took advantage of the public gatherings that executions brought to flog their books.
--“Sometime we carry them [books] around like amulets: Alexander the Great carried his Homer on his wanderings – a book full of nostalgia, a word literally meaning longing for home.”
--Coal miners worked in hellish conditions but established many secret libraries, which did much to radicalise the miners. The books included fables and ‘penny dreadfuls’, with Robin Hood stories being much borrowed.
--“After his event he insisted on helping us answer the phone. I remember his answers: ‘Hello, Waterstones Canterbury, how can I help… I’m not sure… that depends… Who am I? Spike Milligan.’ At that point the caller hung up.”

ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

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I enjoyed The Bookseller’s Tale by Martin Latham but it wasn’t the book I expected! My wife drew my attention to it but I confess I was on auto-pilot and got the book without research. I assumed it would be a light-hearted series of anecdotes, akin to James Herriott’s tales of a vet’s life. Instead, it is a very thoughtful book, mostly musings upon the relationship between humans, reading and books with far fewer anecdotes than I expected. Latham doesn’t actually tell us his tale until we’ve read 90% of the book. He’s been selling books since the 1980s. For the last thirty years, he has run Waterstones in Canterbury.

Initially, I didn’t enjoy the book. Phrases such as “we are both infinite and serendipitous” had me scribbling “Eh?” but the next paragraph describes customers hugging or kissing books after buying them and giving little moans of pleasure. Yep, guilty of all three there!

There are chapters on comfort books (mine are a well-loved battered handful of second-hand Georgette Heyer romances) and the battle to read, experienced by poor workers and by women in less enlightened times with the poet Edmund Spenser “terrified by the effects of unrestricted printing on womanhood”. There’s a chapter on the power of cheap books such as chapbooks – the forerunners of penny dreadfuls – followed by a chapter on the pedlars who sold them, including a great section on Scottish pedlars and how they would trade gossip as well as selling books, ribbons, pins, etc..

The chapter on libraries has another sentence where I scribbled “Eh?”: “It seems that browsing mindlessly is somehow browsing mindfully.” However, this history of libraries has a wonderful quote from Andrew Pettegree about the library “…that new phenomenon of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the library as mausoleum, the silent repository of countless unread books.” Ouch! And I didn’t know that Ruskin used a saw to make all his books the same height.

The chapter on book collectors and bibliophiles mentions Charles Isham, who introduced the garden gnome to England. His daughter celebrated his death by using a rifle to destroy his gnomes. Latham states “The Ishams were never predictable”.

One HUGE advantage of ebooks was brought home to me by the chapters on marginalia and Signs of Use. I just cannot bring myself to write in physical books. It just feels disrespectful, despite Latham’s persuasive explanation that everyone did it until the invention of printing led to smaller margins. However, I gleefully highlight sentences and make notes using my kindle app because they’re a layer over the original text and I can easily remove them to leave the pristine etext.

I loved Latham’s anecdote about being so annoyed with a fairy tale he was reading to a toddler that he and said toddler agreed to throw the book out of the bedroom window. Now THAT is role-model behaviour that encourages children to question and challenge what they are told. Every so often, Latham makes splendid puns, such as his comment upon people wanting new books rather than ones that show their previous ownership – “a sort of War on Terroir”.

Although each of the preceding chapters takes a global rather than a UK-only view, there are some chapters on book-selling in France and New York. We then have Latham’s personal history and, finally, a bibliography. His personal tales of how he came to understand that a bookshop ought to be staffed by a diverse team who know various genres are lovely. The bibliography deserves reading as another chapter. Latham doesn’t just list the books to which he referred; he describes them too. Fairs, Markets and the Itinerant Book Trade, edited by Robin Myers, is “romantic and riveting”.

Having now read the whole book and understood Latham’s philosophy that drives it, two aspects disappoint me: I would have liked an index (a petty criticism I know, but it would be useful); and I think the first couple of chapters struck me as over-written. Another reviewer has used the description “pretentious”. I think that’s an over-statement but it’s not far off the mark. I wasn’t grabbed early on and many others might glance at the introduction and first chapter in a bookshop and then put the book down again. That would be a shame.

#TheBooksellersTale #NetGalley

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Martin Latham runs Waterstones in Canterbury and has been a bookseller for thirty-five years, making him the longest-serving Waterstones manager. The Bookseller’s Tale is an idiosyncratic memoir which draws upon Latham’s experiences amongst books, authors, book buyers and book lovers.

The blurb describes this book as “part cultural history, part literary love letter and part reluctant memoir”. It is, in fact, a work which is hard to pin down. It contains a lot of historical details on such bookish subjects as itinerant sellers and book pedlars, libraries through the ages, marginalia, female authors and readers and even booklice species. Yet, it does not feel like an academic book, and more like the author’s own whimsical romp through book history. While not exactly an autobiography (we learn much more about Latham the “bookseller” rather than Latham “the man”), the book is enriched with juicy personal anecdotes including the occasional gossipy name-dropping.

What shines throughout the book is a love for reading and – unsurprisingly for a “bookseller’s tale” – a love for physical books, as opposed to electronic books. I am not, personally, a purist in this regard, believing that it is ultimately the content of the book, rather than the medium, is more important. Not that you’d notice that, as I’m still an obsessive buyer of physical books and share the compulsion felt by some of the author’s customers to hug and smell a new book. I loved in particular Latham’s ode to comfort books. His observation that the most critically acclaimed “literary” books are not necessarily the ones that mean most to the general reader is an eye-opening one and a warning against adopting a patronising approach towards literary tastes.

The Bookseller's Tale feels like a night at the pub with your favourite book buddy and is just as enjoyable.

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Just go ahead and buy this book!
It's a wonderful, insightful and extremely well researched read, the author has the knack of writing as if he is sitting with you, having a conversation.
I delighted in every chapter, finding something that resonated, points that made me think about books I've read, am reading and want to read next.
From when I sat as a child clutching my pocket money on the floor of the independent bookshop in my town, trying to decide which of the books I had in front of me was the 'one'. Then holding it lovingly, because it would be mine forever. To now and my collection of vintage cookery books with their cracked and faded covers, marks of use, but to me marks of love from having such a purpose in someone's life, that I now have in my hand, not an owner but a custodian of this magnificent piece of history. Books are a very important part of my life and this has been passed to my children.
No one here thinks it's odd to like the smell of a book! I had the privilege of being able to read The Booksellers Tale as a review copy, but as I read it, I thought, how much better this would be if I could feel the paper and smell that smell of 'book'. Something that I know the author would totally agree with.
Comfort books, what a lovely phrase and exactly what so many books are, the description of this in the book is just perfect. I do return to my comfort books when life throws a bad hand. I've read Brideshead so many times I know what the next words will be, and I adore it every time. Comfort books - everyone should have one.
Martin Latham has had an amazing life around books, reading how he came to sell books and his personal story as a thread through this book about books was a joy. What an interesting chap he must be, and still at Waterstones in Canterbury, if I'm ever passing he's a must to go and see.
A Bookseller's Tale, go on, buy it, and if you're passing Canterbury, the author may even sell you a copy himself.

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