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Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 2 hrs
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Publisher's summary
A wickedly witty field guide to bookstore customers by the curmudgeonly shop owner and author of Confessions of a Bookseller. Shaun Bythell knows them all - from the “Person Who Doesn’t Know What They Want (But Thinks It Might Have a Blue Cover)” to the “Parents Secretly After Free Childcare”. The business of books has never been funnier.
In a tradition that runs from R. M. Williamson’s Bits from an Old Bookshop in 1904 to Jen Campbell’s Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops in 2012 (with George Orwell’s 1936 Bookshop Memories in between), here is the latest and perhaps most complete attempt to classify people who shop in bookstores. It does take all kinds.
Employing something like Linnaean taxonomic groups, there’s the Expert (divided into subspecies from the Bore to the Helpful Person), the Young Family (ranging from the Exhausted to the Aspirational), and Occultists (from Conspiracy Theorist to Craft Woman). Then there’s the Loiterer (including the Erotica Browser and the Self-Published Author), the Bearded Pensioner (including the Lyrca Clad), the The Not-So-Silent Traveller (the Whistler, Sniffer, Hummer, Farter, and Tutter), and the Family Historian (generally Canadians who come to Shaun’s shop in Wigtown, Scotland).
Two bonus sections include Staff and, finally, Perfect Customer - all add up to the funniest sell-and-tell in the house of books.
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Story
This remarkable memoir is the classic account of the transgender journey. It is all the more extraordinary because it is the life story of a figure who, it seemed, seamlessly and publicly charted a course through the English establishment - James Morris, outstanding journalist, historian and travel writer, famed for a peerless writing style. But all the while he was concealing a very different inner world: from the age of four he felt that, despite his body, he was really a girl.
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Beautiful memoir
- By Gabriel Smith on 07-25-22
By: Jan Morris
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David Mitchell: Back Story
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: David Mitchell
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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David Mitchell, who you may know for his inappropriate anger on every TV panel show except Never Mind the Buzzcocks, his look of permanent discomfort on C4 sex comedy Peep Show, his online commenter-baiting in The Observer or just for wearing a stick-on moustache in That Mitchell and Webb Look, has written a book about his life.
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One of the Funniest, Clever Brits around
- By Delia on 08-30-13
By: David Mitchell
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I Am a Cat
- By: Soseki Natsume, Aiko Ito - translator, Graeme Wilson - translator
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 21 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Soseki Natsume's comic masterpiece, I Am a Cat, satirizes the foolishness of upper-middle class Japanese society during the Meiji era. With acerbic wit and sardonic perspective, it follows the whimsical adventures of a world-weary stray kitten who comments on the follies and foibles of the people around him. A classic of Japanese literature, I Am a Cat is one of Soseki's best-known novels. Considered by many as the greatest writer in modern Japanese history, Soseki's I Am a Cat is a classic novel sure to be enjoyed for years to come.
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Great performance!
- By mz on 04-03-20
By: Soseki Natsume, and others
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How It All Began
- By: Penelope Lively
- Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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When Charlotte Rainsford, a retired schoolteacher, is accosted by a petty thief on a London street, the consequences ripple across the lives of acquaintances and strangers alike. A marriage unravels after an illicit love affair is revealed through an errant cell phone message; a posh yet financially strapped interior designer meets a business partner who might prove too good to be true.
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Wonderful and beautifully written
- By Molly-o on 02-15-12
By: Penelope Lively
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Simple Passion
- By: Annie Ernaux, Tanya Leslie
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 1 hr and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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In her spare, stark style, Annie Ernaux documents the desires and indignities of a human heart ensnared in an all-consuming passion. Blurring the line between fact and fiction, an unnamed narrator attempts to plot the emotional and physical course of her two-year relationship with a married foreigner where every word, event, and person either provides a connection with her beloved or is subject to her cold indifference. With courage and exactitude, she seeks the truth behind an existence lived entirely for someone else, and, in the pieces of its aftermath, she is able to find it.
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Pulitzer Prize Winner
- By Kimberly on 10-17-22
By: Annie Ernaux, and others
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Success Is for You
- Using Heart-Centered Power Principles for Lasting Abundance and Fulfillment
- By: David R. Hawkins M.D. Ph.D
- Narrated by: David R. Hawkins M.D. Ph.D
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Success Is for You draws upon many concepts that fans of Dr. Hawkins will recognize and applies them to the world of business and the psychology of success. Expanding upon the illuminating discussion of the attractor patterns of success from Power vs. Force, this remarkable never-before-published book pulls back the curtain on the inner workings of the successful mind. Success, according to Dr. Hawkins, is an attitude we inhabit rather than a goal we strive for.
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Actually some new stuff for me...
- By Amazon Customer on 03-28-17
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The Fran Lebowitz Reader
- By: Fran Lebowitz
- Narrated by: Fran Lebowitz
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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In "elegant, finely honed prose" (The Washington Post Book World), Lebowitz limns the vicissitudes of contemporary urban life—its fads, trends, crazes, morals, and fashions. By turns ironic, facetious, deadpan, sarcastic, wry, wisecracking, and waggish, Fran Lebowitz is always wickedly entertaining.
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Wonderful in her own voice.
- By Sue C on 11-07-12
By: Fran Lebowitz
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The Wizard of Ads
- Turning Words into Magic and Dreamers into Millionaires
- By: Roy H. Williams
- Length: 4 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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With the knowledge of a seasoned business consultant and the warmth and wit of a natural storyteller, the Wizard will help you to multiply the effectiveness of your advertising, understand the tug-of-war between intellect and emotion, and more.
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If you have a hard time hearing don't waste your time
- By Michelle J on 01-09-17
By: Roy H. Williams
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Parfit
- A Philosopher and His Mission to Save Morality
- By: David Edmonds
- Narrated by: Zeb Soanes
- Length: 13 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Derek Parfit (1942–2017) is the most famous philosopher most people have never heard of. Widely regarded as one of the greatest moral thinkers of the past hundred years, Parfit was anything but a public intellectual. Yet his ideas have shaped the way philosophers think about things that affect us all: equality, altruism, what we owe to future generations, and even what it means to be a person. In Parfit, David Edmonds presents the first biography of an intriguing, obsessive, and eccentric genius.
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Loved it
- By Anna Karenina on 07-05-23
By: David Edmonds
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Manhood for Amateurs
- The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son
- By: Michael Chabon
- Narrated by: Michael Chabon
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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As a devoted son, as a passionate husband, and above all as a father, Chabon's memories of childhood, of his parents' marriage and divorce, of moments of painful adolescent comedy and giddy encounters with the popular art and literature of his own youth, are like a theme played by the mad quartet of which he now finds himself co-conductor. At once dazzling, hilarious, and moving, Manhood for Amateurs is destined to become a classic.
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Terrible
- By Ken on 10-14-09
By: Michael Chabon
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Toast on Toast
- Cautionary tales and candid advice
- By: Steven Toast
- Narrated by: Matt Berry - as Steven Toast
- Length: 3 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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In Toast on Toast - part memoir, part "how to act" manual - Steven Toast draws on his vast and varied experiences, providing the reader with an invaluable insight into his journey from school plays to RADA and from "It's a Right Royal Knockout" to the Colony Club. Along the way he reveals the secrets of his success. He discloses how to brush up on and expand your technical and vocal skills, how to nail a professional voiceover, and how to deal with difficult work experience staff in a recording studio....
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Glorious performance from Matt Ber-Ray.
- By Stanley McHale on 11-18-16
By: Steven Toast
What listeners say about Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jennifer
- 01-11-21
Comedic Insight.
Enjoyed the narrator. Author shared experiences with humor and asks the reader to ponder customers. Something I've never done but am sure I will do now when I shop for books. I found this delightful.
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- Jessie Clayton
- 04-06-22
So enjoyable
So many truths! And very humorous. I want to visit his shop! I enjoyed the readers accent as well.
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- Jodee Lewis
- 06-12-21
Cute!
A couple PG 13 words caught me off guard, but an entertaining book overall. Worth the listen if you are looking for a couple giggles and some insight on the old book trade. Several observations I am sure many will relate to in their own experience in other retail establishments.
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- Triple C
- 10-10-21
Enjoyable quick read
Very enjoyable read for those who like to read people as well as books. I found myself saying, yep, I know someone just like that….
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- Amanda
- 10-12-22
Excellent read for any one who loves books & bookstores!
I worked at a Waterstone’s for two years in my early twenties, I have very “fond” memories of the customers! The experience was monumental, to this day I still tidy up the tables and stacks in any bookstore that I enter, it’s a habit I guess I will never be able to shake. I throughly enjoyed listening to this book!!!!
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- Lori
- 02-04-23
Enjoyable entertainment
Relaxing entertainment of author’s whimsical classifications of his experiences with shoppers at higher end bookstores
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- Bananas
- 01-05-21
Pretty good
Did I love it? No, but it's a good book to listen to. I didn't know that there's so many kinds of books that I can read or listen to. Anyways I'm going to be listening to some of the other ones he's written.
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- Stacie
- 03-30-22
a quick little listen
Humorous for bookstore goers, owners, and staff. Which type of customer are you? Read/listen on to know!
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- Lin
- 09-06-22
Boring
I struggled to get through this, it was boring to me. I am a bibliophile with varied interests. This book hardly held my attention.
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- Geneva P.
- 04-15-23
Hilarious!
So I'm reading a lot of reviews here that are determined to say that this is a mockery of the author's own customers, but this is I feel, more of a celebration. As an avid book lover, there were several categories of customer that I could have fallen into, and every single one of them made me laugh SO HARD just because it is incredibly accurate, even if they carried a negative connotation, which of course, the owner/author is entitled to. To be able to create such effervescent caricatures of the modern ecology of a second hand bookstore takes the loving attention of someone that deeply loves books and the trade of selling them to humans and understands that we are all human, we are all fallible. Instead of going poignant he takes it in a lighthearted direction, and why not, WHY MUST WE BE ALL SO SERIOUS?
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