Diary of a Bookseller (Bythell) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1970
• Where—Wigtown, Scotland, UK
• Education—Trinity College, Dublin
• Currently—lives in Wigtown, Scotland


Shaun Bythell is a Scotish bookseller and the author of the memoir, The Diary of a Bookseller (2017). Bythell was raised in Wigtown (Galloway), Scotland, where his father was a farmer. He remembers the bookstore he now owns opening in the 1980s and thinking it wouldn't survive. He went away to Trinity College, eventually leaving Trinity without his intended law degree. From there, as he puts it, he bummed "about for a bit," doing some work laying pipelines, then as a researcher for TV documentaries — neither job he envisioned himself spending the rest of his life on.

Eventually, in 2001, Bythell returned to his hometown, wandered into the bookshop he watched open in the '80s, and learned it was for sale. Now, the very bookshop he thought wouldn't survive is his, and it's up to him to try to make sure it does. (Adapted from The Herald.)