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Tag: Wigtown

  • The Wigtown Trilogy (unofficial)

    The Wigtown Trilogy (unofficial)

    A while ago, I put a little posting up on here about Wigtown – Scotland’s national book town which is only a mere 30-odd miles or so from my home. I mentioned that it is a wonderful, bookish sort of place and that it has a rather fine book festival each year.

    Although I only touched upon the subject briefly in my previous ramblings, it should also be mentioned that Wigtown, as well as being the home of numerous book sellers and other bookish types, is also inhabited by some rather good authors. Two who are worthy of particular note are Shaun Bythell (proprietor of “The Book Shop”) and Jessica Fox. Between them, they have written a set of three books that, while not a trilogy as such, work rather well if you think of them like that and read them together. All three books are based upon real people and events in Wigtown, they cover some of the same period of time and they are all an easy and entertaining read.

    So, without further ado, I give you today’s recommendations from Adrian’s bookshelves:

    • The Diary of a Bookseller (Shaun Bythell). Written in the form of a diary (of course) covering a period of about a year, I suppose you might call this the first volume of Shaun’s memoirs. Or, at least, his memoirs as they pertain to running a bookshop in our current times. Funny, witty, sometimes a little sad, occasionally heartwarming (he may never forgive me for saying that) and, all in all, a fantastic read for anyone who has the least interest in books and the book trade.
    • Confessions of a Bookseller (Shaun Bythell). The second volume of the bookselling memoirs. Following on from the previous volume and covering another year (or thereabouts) this continues in the same vein, showing the funny, sometimes frustrating, but always delightful side of running a bookshop in a place like Wigtown. (Well, delightful for us readers anyway – some events might be less delightful if you actually had to live through them yourself.)
    • Three Things You Need to Know About Rockets (Jessica A Fox). Not a diary this time, but still autobiographical and covering some of the same time period (and involving some of the same characters) as you will encounter in Shaun’s books. If you’ve ever had the urge to give up on whatever you’re doing and follow a sudden, crazy urge to travel a few thousand miles around the world and do something totally different, you should read this book. Jessica did exactly that when she upped sticks from the west coast of the USA, stopped working for NASA and travelled to the west coast of Scotland to work in a bookshop. In fact, to work in The Book Shop (see above). The day-to-day adventures of adjusting to rural life in south-west Scotland, dealing with the lunatic schedule of the Wigtown Book Festival, learning to drive on the wrong side of the road in an exploding car and a little romance all followed. And other stuff that I won’t mention so that I don’t spoil the book for you, but it’s a thoroughly enjoyable read for anyone.

    Now, in the interests of full disclosure, I should say that – living here and frequenting Wigtown on occasions – I do know both Shaun and Jessica. So it is possible that my enjoyment of all three books was slightly enhanced by my familiarity with some of the people and places involved. However, I’m certain that I would still have enjoyed them even if I’d never seen or heard of Wigtown before in my life. They’re just good books that are well worth a read.

  • Let there be books…

    Let there be books…

    South-West Scotland has much to recommend it. First off, it’s part of Scotland which is, itself, no bad thing at all. Second, it has some beautiful countryside, both along the coast (of which there is quite a lot) and inland. Third? Well, there are countless other things I could probably list, but if you’re a bookish sort like me, one of the major highlights is Wigtown.

    Situated on the Machars peninsula, around 50 miles west of Dumfries, Wigtown is Scotland’s Book Town. Sort of a Scottish equivalent of Hay-on-Wye, if you will. It has numerous second-hand and antiquarian bookshops, some rather nice bits and bobs of architecture, a long and interesting history and, at this time of year, it becomes a thronging metropolis of authors, publishers, editors, critics and literary bods of every conceivable stripe. For ten days, the Wigtown Book Festival bursts into life and makes the whole town even more bookish than usual (if that is possible). There are talks, tours, workshops, literary pub quizzes, concerts and all manner of entertainments (usually related to books in some fashion, of course). As well as a packed programme of events for adults, there is also a thriving young-adult side to the festival and even stuff for the kiddies. All in all, it’s a wonderful feature of the local calendar and always has something interesting to offer.

    It usually falls over the last weekend of September and first week of October, so this year’s festival began last Friday (27th) and runs until this coming Sunday (6th). If you’re anything like me, you would find it very easy to lose a full ten days of your life to it, attending events all day, every day from breakfast until supper time. You’d also probably find that – even though the various talks and other sessions are very reasonably priced (and, in some cases, completely free) – you’d put quite a dent in your bank account by the end of it all. So, unless you happen to be blessed with a healthy supply of spare time and spare cash, it usually makes sense to do a bit of picking and choosing when it comes to what you want to attend.

    This year, I chose half a dozen sessions to attend and have enjoyed learning more about:

    All of them were interesting, all of them taught me some things I didn’t know and all of them were entertaining. I would recommend any of the above books which are available from all good booksellers (including the half-ton gorilla in the room, Amazon) but I’ve provided links to them on The Book People. This is largely out of respect for Shaun Bythell, proprietor of The Book Shop in Wigtown, now a best-selling author himself, an all round good egg (don’t tell him I said that!) and a man who, as an independent book seller, has a love-hate (well, mainly hate really) relationship with Amazon. (Although I do confess to using Amazon for all sorts of stuff – very useful when living somewhere a bit remote – I wouldn’t even dream of pointing anyone in the direction of Amazon in this particular post!)

    So if you’re a bookish type and are looking for your next literary festival fix, try a jaunt out into the wilds of south-west Scotland. You might be surprised what you find there! You’ve only got a couple of days before it wraps up again for this year, but it’ll be coming around again at the end of next September and I’m prepared to bet there’ll be more good, fun and fascinating stuff to see.