The daily pleasures and struggles of a bookseller in rural Scotland in the age of Amazon and the chains. Interleaved with Orwell's equally amusing and understatedly stylish "Bookshop Memories" for comparison of this generation with the last. Shaun Bythell's insane employee Nicky—somehow, miraculously—looks positively well adjusted next to the human flotsam of the Wigtown Book Shop's customer base. This is the lightest, funniest thing I've read in ages. Every entry brings a new inane demand on the author's patience, a bizarre title someone has ordered, a disgusting foodstuff dumpster-dived-for. The ideal breakfast/toilet book.