My life as a bookseller

Last week I spent an hour in a house in Glasgow with an elderly woman who had decided to sell her husband’s books. It’s a two hour drive each way, so a considerable investment in time, particularly on a warm summer’s day. This is how I spend much of my time.

I bought in 2001. It’s in Wigtown, the small town in rural Scotland where I grew up. Well, strictly speaking I grew up about a mile away, on a 200-acre sheep farm. After I’d left university, I’d moved away and was living in Bristol. I had been visiting my parents at Christmas the year before when I went into the shop to