Remainders of the Day

Shaun Bythell

Average Rating 6/10 (1 Review)

The Bookshop in Wigtown is a bookworm's idyll - with thousands of books across nearly a mile of shelves, a real log fire, and Captain, the bookshop cat. You''d think after twenty years, owner Shaun Bythell would be used to the customers by now. Don''t get him wrong - there are some good ones among the antiquarian porn-hunters, die-hard Arthurians, people who confuse bookshops for libraries and the toddlers just looking for a nice cosy corner in which to wee. He''s sure there are. There must be some good ones, right?

Filled with the pernickety warmth and humour that has touched readers around the world, stuffed with literary treasures, hidden gems and incunabula, Remainders of the Day is Shaun Bythell's latest entry in his bestselling diary series.

'Wry and witty.'

'Wonderfully entertaining.'

Review by Ben Macnair (200525) Rating (6/10)

Review by Ben Macnair
Book Source: Not Known
Rating 6/10
The bookshop in Wigtown is the setting. The customers, and many of Shaun Bythell’s friends, assistants and committee members are the cast over a year in the life of a second-hand bookshop always on the brink of financial disaster.

Bythell has lived in Wigtown for more than twenty years, and Remainders of the Day continues the story. Over the course of twelve months, we see life in Wigtown from the lives of the many customers, the book orders, the eccentricities of ABE Books and Amazon, and their ways of not answering customer queries.

Although nothing much happens in the book, or in the book shop, it is a very quick read full of comfort. There is never any sense of danger or of many things changing. The assistants are all characters with different behaviour types, even the bank manager seems to be a fount of knowledge and patience.

There are people who sell books expecting more, and book buyers expecting to be paying less. The local pubs changes hands, but even that proves to be another non-event.

The book is the third in the series, and although a sense of diminishing returns is beginning to settle in, sometimes a book shop where nothing much happens is all we need.
Ben Macnair (20th May 2025)