The Biblio File hosted by Nigel Beale

What's not to like here? Marius Kociejowski is charming, erudite and funny. Why should you listen to him? He's just written a memoir about the soul of the book trade. What happens in bookstores doesn't happen elsewhere​ he says. The multifariousness of human nature is more on show​ here​ ​t​han anywhere else, he says, and ​"​I think it’s because of books, what they are, what they release in ourselves, and what they become when we make them magnets to our desires.”​   The ​memoir is called A Factotum in the Book Trade.  We talk about it and the lives of the booksellers​, collectors and characters ​Marius has​​ lived ​with for close to five decades​. He reveals secrets and describes feuds. He gives us a wonderful feel for the workings of the London Antiquarian book trade over the past fifty years. Bertram and Anthony Rota, Bernard and Martin Stone, Bill Hoffer, Peter Ellis, Raymond Danowski. They're all here. Have a listen.    (speaking of which, listening that is, thank you so much to all of you who have so loyally listened to my podcast over the years. Your attention, feedback, and friendship, has meant a great deal to me. No, I'm not quitting. Just want to express my gratitude).

I'm in Prague for the Summer. Going to be participating in one of the world's leading creative writing programs. I interviewed its founder Richard Katrovas.  Why listen to Richard? Having run the Prague Summer Program for Writers for more than two decades, he knows a lot about the process of teaching creative writing; plus he knows karate. We talk about listening and critiquing artfully, not fucking with style, the formalization of a sense of literary community; counter-culture, the literary conversation, literary communities in different epochs, communal writing, work-shopping, the genius of the English language incorporating other languages, publishing first books, validation, the importance of self-esteem and personal prestige, the desire for social relevance, Ernest Becker; 'who touches a book touches a man,' book fetishes, the weirdness of poetry and Prague, ripping off books, living in the Projects, and much more.  This is part one of the conversation. I'll conduct part two once I've gone through the wringer. 

Why did I interview Mark Andrews? Because he's a fellow Canadian, he's an exceptional book collector who brings an engineer's mind to the task, and he's just published a beautiful book featuring selections from his book collection, entitled The Science and Engineering of Water; An illustrated catalogue of books and manuscripts on Italian hydraulics, 1500 - 1800; it's exemplary. Exactly the kind of thing every book collector should think about doing - in some iteration - with his/her/their own collection.     ​Mark's catalogue ​explores the development of science and engineering through the early modern period​ by presenting 367 printed books, manuscripts and maps​ in chronological order​. They highlight the relationship between the evolution of ideas and the authors who documented th​e​se ideas. Drawing from Mark​'s larger collection of civil engineering​ titles, ​​it's filled with​ illustrations and diagrams​ (nearly 1000), ​from books that were used as​ working ​tools by Italian scientists, engineers, and builders​ from the early 1500s to the ​end of the 1700s.   ​Trust me. While books on Italian hydraulics may not sound exactly riveting, they are. At least, they are when Mark talks about them.

Why am I interviewing Mark Samuels Lasner for a third time?  Because he's a recognized and respected book collector who knows how to speak intelligently and amusingly about books. And though we've already talked about his impressive collections that cover late 19th century British literary culture, and The Bodley Head, I wanted to learn about what happens "after the dopamine" hits. What he's done with his collections - the cataloguing, the scholarship, the exhibitions, the research, the talks - how has he worked with his books to help share their collective lessons, to better understand the worlds and relationships they document? And how can you do the same with your collection? That's why I interviewed him a third time.   

I came across Kat McKenna's name in an article written by Alison Flood in The Guardian last year. I'd googled Tik Tok's "Book-Tok" because I'd heard it was moving a lot of YA books and wanted to learn more. Kat was quoted in Alison's piece. It was clear she knew what made BookTok tick. I contacted her and now she's on the show.   Kat has worked in UK publishing for almost 15 years specialising in children's and teen/YA marketing and brand strategy, and "delivers exciting and audience driven marketing campaigns to most of the major publishers as a freelancer, working on brands including World Book Day, Jacqueline Wilson, Supertato and more." She bills herself as an early innovator of digital and social media in publishing, and today she's still very much on top of what's going on.   She sent me a list of links to various examples of how young people are using Book Tok these days, here:   Books that made me cry: (@justmemyselfandi) Here   They Both Die At the End moodboard (@emmyslibrary): here   Convincing you to read We Were Liars (@alifeofliterature): here   If you like  this Harry Styles song, read this book (@sophiebooks): here   Want to work in books? (@hotkeybooks - publisher account!) here   Why do books smell like they do (@hotkeybooks)  here   Translations of my book by country (@Caseymcquiston - author) here   Aesthetic of The Inheritance  Games (@.bookobsessed)  here   A book Tiktok made me read that was not good (@emdobereading - based on a sound trend - we can talk more about those tomorrow!) here   Convincing you to read books based on  their first line (@jennajustreads) here   Heartstopper - page to screen love (@rafept)  here       So, lots to talk about.    Re: my question about who owns Tik Tok: results are pretty murky. Yes, the Chinese government has a stake in it. How much control it has over operations is open to question. Lots, is what its American competitors would like people to believe. Relatively little it seems if you're a Tik Tok spokesperson.  The Guardian again, here.

Stephen Enniss is director of the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin. Previous posts include Head Librarian at the Folger Shakespeare Library and Director of Emory University's Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library where he made a series of impressive acquisitions including the archives of Seamus Heaney, Salman Rushdie and Ted Hughes. Since taking over at the Ransom Center in 2013, Stephen has overseen the acquisition of the archives of Ian McEwan, J.M. Coetzee, Kazuo Ishiguro, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Michael Ondaatje, among others.  We met via Zoom to discuss his role as director of a special collections library; where Martin Amis is, and Christopher Hitchens, Clive James and other members of their group. About fighting oblivion; about the value and challenges of email archives and negotiating or not negotiating with Andrew Wylie; about Texan "nationalism," and the goals of attracting books and people, and developing a "civilization;" about diversity, and hiring practices and collection development policies; about cataloguing, bureaucracies, acquisitions, books bridging political divides, the Gotham Book Mart, sweet little exhibition catalogues, and much more.   

Sarah Miniaci is a freelance book publicist with fifteen years of experience in the New York and Toronto markets. Ken Whyte's Sutherland House is one of her clients. Ken interviewed Sarah for a recent issue of Shush, his excellent Substack newsletter on the publishing business. Together they surveyed today's new publishing landscape. With the help of  Michael Legat's An Author's Guide to Publishing, Sarah and I do the same here, only with our voices, tracing the evolution of book publicity from Legat's pre-2000 traditional publishing world, up to the present.    We talk about the advent of the Internet and blogs, about gatekeepers and democratization, about how easy and boring life used to be for a  publicist, about the shift to Social, about the importance of Goodreads, about producing trailers and Q & As for Youtube, about compiling lists, rocket science, passionate bloggers, influencers, the literary conversation, the continued relevance of the publishers' sales catalogue, ​geese, swans, "golden children," quality, and the imperative to make money, the Last Bookstore in L.A., and Toyota Corollas.

Author/historian Stuart Kells has been chasing rare books and other bookish treasures since childhood. In the 1980s he went for classic sci-fi paperbacks from Ace and Dell, and authors such as Philip K. Dick and Robert Heinlein.   When he moved to Melbourne in the summer of 1989 he was amazed by the city’s bookshops, especially secondhand shops - notably Alice’s and Sainsbury’s in Carlton. When ​he wasn’t looking for books​ here he was fossicking in the Co-op bookshop at Melbourne University, or hunting for ​them at markets and fetes. For the past 26 years​ he's been a regular at Camberwell Market where great books can be found, along with almost everything else. Vividly remembered finds include Iain Banks and Vikram Seth firsts; classic Australian crime pulps; rare maps; and advertising and ephemera of every kind.   I connected with Stuart recently via Zoom to talk about Penguin and the Lane Brothers, ​his revealing, myth-busting book about the intimate partnership of Allen, Richard and John Lane – and how it explains the success of Penguin Books, the twentieth century’s "greatest publishing house." We talk about the spirit of daring and creative opposition that drove the brothers to publish so many quality books on such a massive scale at such affordable prices – and how together they achieved a revolution in modern book publishing.

Over the past half-century, bookselling, like many retail sectors, has evolved from an business dominated by independent bookstores to one in which chain stores have significant market share. This transformation has often been a less-than-smooth process, especially so in bookselling, argues Laura J. Miller, because more than most other consumer goods, books are the focus of passionate debate.   What drives this debate? And why do so many people believe that bookselling should be immune to questions of profit? Laura and I discuss some of the answers to these questions which were first raised back in 2006 when her book Reluctant Capitalists Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption was published.    Laura is Professor and Chair of Sociology at Brandeis University where she arrived in 2002, having previously taught at the University of Western Ontario and Vassar College. She teaches courses in the sociology of culture, the mass media, food studies, and urban sociology. Her research is centered on understanding the interaction between cultural and economic processes.

Jonathan Kay is a Canadian journalist. He was editor-in-chief of The Walrus magazine, and is a senior editor of Quillette. He was previously comment pages editor, columnist, and blogger for the Toronto-based Canadian daily newspaper National Post, and continues to contribute to the newspaper on a freelance basis.   He's also a ghostwriter, best known in this capacity as the author of Justin Trudeau's memoir Common Ground.  During our conversation we talk about Jon's ghostwriting practice  - riffing off an article he wrote on the topic for Quillette entitled  'My Life as a Ghostwriter' ( https://quillette.com/2021/09/26/my-life-as-a-ghostwriter/ ) - about gaming influencing ghostwriting; storytelling, people hovering in the background, literary prostitution, humour checks, anonymity, Mitt Romney, eliciting details, the political messaging in Justin Trudeau's memoir, the best part about being a ghostwriter, lawyers wanting to know everything, well-rounded depictions, the truth, self-publishing; luck, alchemy and 50 Shades of Grey, The Making of the Bible by Konrad Schmid and Jens Schröter, blurred stages and immersion, Tarantino, and kitchen design, among other things.