One cozy, funny year with a Scottish used bookseller as he stays afloat while managing staff, customers, and life in the village of Wigtown. This endearing world is the next best thing to visiting your favorite bookstore (shop cat not included).

Inside a Georgian townhouse on the Wigtown highroad, jammed with more than 100,000 books and a portly cat named Captain, Shaun Bythell manages the daily ups and downs of running Scotland’s largest used bookshop with a sharp eye and even sharper wit. His account of one year behind the counter is something no book lover should miss.

Shaun copes with eccentric staff, tallies up the day’s orders, drives to distant houses to buy private libraries, and meditates on the nature of life and independent bookstores ( There really does seem to be a serendipity about bookshops, not just with finding books you never knew existed, or that you’ve been searching for, but with people too. ).

Confessions of a Bookseller is a warm and welcome memoir of a life in books. It’s for any reader looking for the kind of friend you meet in a bookstore.