Shaun Bythell is a Scottish bookseller. Even though he’s based in Wigtown he’s not a Scottish barrister. But he did used to offer free coffee in his shop, so he could have been a Scottish barista. As his surname suggests Shaun “buys and sells” secondhand books.

He’s also the author of “The Diary of a Bookseller” (published 2017,2018 but written in 2014) and “Confessions of a Bookseller” (published 2019, written in 2015). The picture is from the front cover of his second book.

Shaun is a fairly prolific writer of SB bigrams. Here’s a selection from the first few pages of his first book: Second-hand books, sandy beaches, small businesses, shifting bulk, second-hand bookseller, sludgy bits, some balding, six books. All these in the first 5 pages!

The second book starts with “spectacles before” in the first paragraph. Then there’s: several books, stuffed badger, single book.

He’s missed a few obvious SB’s though. In the footnote about “The Open Book” ( COAB page 7. ) he wrote “booked solid”. I would have preferred solidly booked.

In a couple of days time Susan and I are travelling to Carrick Shore, which is not at all far from Wigtown. I’d like to visit the bookshop, if only to photograph the spiralling bookstacks outside of the shop.