Book of the Month

The Machine Stops

E. M. Forster

E M Forster’s novella (first published in 1928) describes a world in which humans live underground in separate cells, and have surrendered all liberties to the Machine in exchange for an easy life. In its infancy, the Machine was controlled by the Central Committee – a group
of humans – but over time it becomes clear that it has developed a sort of artificial intelligence devoid of human control.

Basically, it’s Bezos’s wet dream; ‘The Machine feeds us and clothes us and houses us; through it we speak to one another, through it we see one
another, in it we have our being.’ When Vashti (one of the few characters) complains that the music isn’t playing properly in her cell, she receives a reply from the Committee of the Mending Apparatus that her question was ‘unmechanical’ and no help was forthcoming.

Anyone who has ever sought assistance from the Amazon (‘Earth’s most customer-centric company’) Seller Central help page will know exactly how this feels. And it doesn’t end well.

The Diary of a Bookseller

A unique chance to join Shaun Bythell, the owner of The Bookshop, to see behind the scenes of the world that is bookselling. Through his honest and wryly hilarious diaries, we get a very different view of bookselling: one beset with malfunctioning heating, eccentric customers, bad-mannered, bin-foraging employees and a perennially empty till.

Shaun takes us with him on buying trips to old estates and auction houses, recommends books (both lost classics and new discoveries), introduces us to the thrill of the unexpected find, and evokes the charms and horrors of small town life.

International bestseller, The Diary of a Bookseller, has now been translated into twenty-eight languages.

Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops

In twenty years behind the till in The Bookshop, Wigtown, Shaun Bythell has met pretty much every kind of customer there is – from the charming, erudite and deep-pocketed to the eccentric, flatulent and possibly larcenous.

In Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops he distils the essence of his experience into a warm, witty and quirky taxonomy of the book-loving public. So, step inside to meet the crafty Antiquarian, the shy and retiring Erotica Browser and gormless yet strangely likeable shop assistant Student Hugo – along with much loved booksellers favourites like the passionate Sci-Fi Fan, the voracious Railway Collector and the ever-elusive Perfect Customer.