
The Biblio File hosted by Nigel Beale
THE BIBLIO FILE is a podcast about "the book," and an inquiry into the wider world of book culture. Hosted by Nigel Beale it features wide ranging, long-form conversations with authors, poets, book publishers, booksellers, book editors, book collectors, book makers, book scholars, book critics, book designers, book publicists, literary agents and many others inside the book trade and out - from writer to reader.
Latest episodes

Apr 14, 2022 • 53min
Kathryn Schulz on Death and Love, Memoirs and Essays, and
Kathryn Schulz joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in 2015. In 2016, she won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing and a National Magazine Award for “The Really Big One,” her story on seismic risk in the Pacific Northwest. Previously, she was the book critic for New York, the editor of the environmental magazine Grist, and a reporter and editor at the Santiago Times. She is the author of Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error. We talk about Lost and Found, her just published memoir, about making the planet less lonely, dark places, a sense of the beautiful, math formulas, love, death, loss, discovery, commonplace experiences, the history of words, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Frost, being proud of others, privacy, foggy grief, technicolour worlds, noticing details, surprises, essays and memoirs, bearing witness, and and.

Apr 10, 2022 • 1h 2min
Larry Grobel on how he writes his short stories
Larry Grobel is a journalist, author and teacher. He has written more than 25 books including Conversations with Capote (which received a PEN Special Achievement award) and The Art of the Interview (which has been used as a text in many journalism schools), most of his books however are short story collections. His latest is called The Narcissist. Over the years he's written for dozens of publications including the New York Times, Rolling Stone, and Entertainment Weekly, but he's best known for his Playboy magazine interviews. Larry created the M.F.A. in Professional Writing for Antioch University and taught in the English Department at UCLA for ten years. We met via Zoom to talk about how he conceives of, and writes, his short stories.

Apr 4, 2022 • 1h 4min
James Wood on his role as a book critic
James Wood is a literary critic, essayist and novelist. He was The Guardian's chief literary critic between 1992 and 1995, and a senior editor at The New Republic between 1995 and 2007. Since roughly that time he's taught the Practice of Literary Criticism at Harvard University and has been a staff writer and book critic at The New Yorker magazine. In 2009, he won the National Magazine Award for reviews and criticism. Books include How Fiction Works, the novel Upstate, and essay collections The Irresponsible Self, The Broken Estate and most recently Serious Noticing. We talk about James's role as a book critic - how and why he does it - about realism, the canon, 'lifeness', sameness, his intro to Serious Noticing, our shared love of the Russians, looking for great writing everywhere, Virginia Woolf, Joyce, Zadie Smith; Vasily Grossman's Stalingrad, what writers do when they walk into a room...plus, I quote Clifton Fadiman and Henry James at far too great a length.

Mar 29, 2022 • 37min
William Taylor on how to sell your books through an auction house
William Taylor Jr. is a cataloger with PBA Galleries, a San Francisco-based auction house for rare books and ephemera; he specializes in fine literature, counterculture and poetry. He's an avid reader, and a prolific writer. His first book of fiction is included in the curriculum at select universities across the United States. In 2013 he was the recipient of an Acker Award, a tribute named after groundbreaking writer Kathy Acker given to members of the avant-garde arts communities in both New York and San Francisco who have made outstanding contributions to their discipline. We talk here about PBA Galleries, about Bill's role as a cataloguer and auctioneer, about how to sell your rare books using PBA's services; about what those services are; about commissions, first editions of Huxley's Brave New World in very good plus dust jackets (actually the item in question was in NF/NF condition), printed catalogues, Bukowski, the Beats, reasons to sell via an auction house versus eBay, and much more

Mar 23, 2022 • 1h 9min
Booker Prize winner Damon Galgut on how he writes novels
Damon Galgut is a South African novelist and playwright. He was awarded the 2021 Booker Prize for his novel The Promise and shortlisted for the prize in 2003 and 2010 right about the time I first interviewed him at his apartment in Cape Town (listen here). Damon was head boy at Pretoria Boys High School, matriculating in 1981, and then studied drama at the University of Cape Town. He wrote his first novel, A Sinless Season (1982), when he was 17. We met via Zoom to talk about his life as a writer and how he writes novels. Among other things we discuss his Parker fountain pen, Chekhov's brilliant short story 'The Kiss' (hat tip to James Wood). We also riff together off John Gardner's classic On Becoming a Novelist. Good idea to read both if you want to get the most out of our conversation.

Mar 17, 2022 • 46min
Brendan Sherar on Biblio.com's Used Book Marketplace and first ever Virtual Book Fair
Biblio.com started as a price comparison engine for new and used books in 2000. Later, this price comparison engine became SearchBiblio.com famous for several years as the Internet's fastest "metasearch" site for books. In the summer of 2003 Biblio.com launched as a used books marketplace, working off a 'triple bottom line' using these goals: achieving profit, serving people, and preserving the environment. Biblio's founder, Brendan Sherar has a life-long passion and appreciation for books. A former bookstore owner, he has been involved in the transformation of the book industry from the earliest days of the Internet. He has a B.A. in economics from University of North Carolina at Asheville and is a graduate student at Georgia Institute of Technology. In his spare time, he enjoys running, soccer, hiking, playing piano, gardening, and traveling extensively. I met with Brendan via Zoom to talk about the differences between Biblio and its larger competitors, about Biblio's first ever live virtual Antiquarian Book Fair scheduled for March 24-26, 2022, about how booksellers can best increase their online sales, tips for book buyers wanting to shop online, advice on book collecting, how Biblio is working to match collectors with buyers and sellers, and much more.

Mar 12, 2022 • 1h 14min
Glenn Horowitz on being a "notorious" bookseller & archives dealer
Glenn Horowitz is an agent in the sale and placement of culturally significant archives to research institutions throughout the United States. Authors, artists, musicians, designers, and photographers represented include Bob Dylan, Norman Mailer, James Salter, Eve Babitz, Deborah Eisenberg, David Foster Wallace, Vladimir Nabokov, and many more. We spoke recently via Zoom about his practice: what he does and how he does it. Topics covered include polyps; making bookseller websites accessible to the disabled; looking for and selling value; Sting and estates; the disappearance of printed bookseller catalogues; the human touch; Hemingway; unique copies; avoiding book fairs and bookseller associations; nostalgia; unorthodox archives; the Kitchen Sisters; unused video games; the fact that every bookseller is now an archives dealer; Against The Tide Commentaries On A Collection Of African Americana 1711-1987; Johnny Cochran; and much more.

Mar 4, 2022 • 1h 10min
John Sargent on his career in book publishing
John Sargent is an American book publisher; until recently he was the CEO of Macmillan Publishers USA, and Executive Vice President of the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group where he oversaw global trade operations; he was also responsible for Macmillan Learning, the company’s US-based higher education business. We talk via Zoom about his career in publishing, not about libraries; about being sales reps, and doing cold calls; Columbia Business School, complex balance sheets and P & Ls; his grandfather Effendi (F.N. Doubleday); publishing great saleable books; supporting Joseph Conrad and Somerset Maugham; agents; movies selling books; advances; intuition and good taste; managing and motivating people and having fun; honesty; embracing and appreciating authors; sharing your enthusiasm for what you do; getting out of your silo; the unreplicable experience of reading, and producing movies in your own head; Frederick Forsyth; autobiography; self-publishing and gate keepers; hyperbole and blurbs, noise and signals; Bill O'Reilly, and more.

Feb 28, 2022 • 1h 8min
Jerry Kelly on book and bookseller catalogue design
Jerry Kelly is a book designer, calligrapher and type designer. Before starting his own design business in 1998 he was Vice President of The Stinehour Press. Prior to this he worked as a designer at A. Colish. Jerry's work has been honored frequently; for example, his book designs have been selected more than thirty times for the AIGA “Fifty Books of the Year” Award. In 2015 he was presented with the 28th Goudy Award from RIT. He has served as Chairman of the American Printing History Association and President of The Typophiles, and has worked on numerous committees at The Grolier Club. He has written several books on calligraphy and typography, including The Noblest Roman: The Centaur Types (co-authored with Misha Beletsky; winner of the 2016 Bibliographical Society of America Prize) andType Revivals. His best known book is probably A Century for the Century, a catalogue of the 100 most beautiful, finely printed books produced during the twentieth century, which we refer to in our conversation, along with referencing some of the most beautiful catalogue work Jerry has done for clients including booksellers Jonathan A. Hill and Glenn Horowitz, and The Grolier Club.

Feb 22, 2022 • 1h 6min
Andrew Wylie on being a Literary Agent
Andrew Wylie is an American literary agent. He grew up in Sudbury, Massachusetts and attended St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. He has a degree from Harvard University where he studied Romance Languages & Literatures. Wylie founded his eponymous literary agency in New York in 1980 and opened a second office in London in 1996. The firm now represents more than 1400 authors and literary estates. We met via Zoom to discuss what he does and how he does it. We talk about, among other things, his early experience building the business, authors getting ripped off, calculating and elucidating the true value of great literary works, bound daytime television, Danielle Steel, traveling the world, late mornings and the great British publishing tradition, Roger Straus and Fuck you very much, channeling Susan Sontag, the Zen of Andy Warhol, spider plants, hollow men, advances as guarantees of good service, discovering new literature, doing what you love until you die, and much more. Andrew also sings.
Remember Everything You Learn from Podcasts
Save insights instantly, chat with episodes, and build lasting knowledge - all powered by AI.