PositiveThe Times (UK)This second volume, Confessions of a Bookseller, is more of the same, but in between the comic tales of eccentric staff and maddening customers there is a more reflective, melancholy undertone to the book ... For all Bythell’s self-flagellation, he comes across as a generous, largely genial figure. It is hard to go for more than a few pages without finding him cooking for staying guests or drinking with friends until the small hours ... Reading Confessions of a Bookseller, it is natural to feel some sympathy for Bythell on those winter days when the town is buffeted by Atlantic storms and the day’s takings drop below £20. But then we find him sloping off to go salmon fishing with his father, hosting a packed author event or spending a long drunken evening reading out favourite poems with friends, and it is hard not to conclude that he has found his idyll after all.
