Dunedin Writers & Readers Festival
  • Home
  • DWRF 2021
    • Welcome
    • Programme 2021 >
      • Ngā Kete Mātauranga
      • Gala Showcase – What Does the Future Hold?
      • Workshop: Self Starters
      • Guiding Lights
      • Crossing Genres
      • Crossing Boundaries – Form & Content in Poetry & Storytelling
      • Escaping the Humdrum
      • Workshop: Lusting for Words – Writing Romance
      • Navigating the Stars – Māori Creation Myths
      • Women, Past & Present
      • At the Drop of a Hat
      • Schools Programme
      • Love in the Time of Covid – A Chronicle of a Pandemic
      • Workshop: Seeds of Poetry
      • Magical Rights
      • A New Plaque: Essie Summers
      • Things OK with You?
      • The Language of Flowers
      • Drawing the World
      • NZ Crime – What's Going On?
      • The Books that Made Me
      • Rivers, Riptides & Roads
      • Walking the Heartland
      • Writing Romance in the 21st Century
      • The Wilder Years: Selected Poems
      • Rocketing to Fame
      • Story Time Double Decker Bus
      • The Historical Novel: Germany
      • Mapping Dunedin's Stories
      • A Posse of Poets
      • Decolonisation – Activating Allies
      • Writing for Children
      • Politics of Poetry
      • Girl in the Mirror
      • Placing Fantasy Inside the Real World
    • Guest Bios >
      • Amanda Thomas
      • Angela Wanhalla
      • Annabel Wilson
      • Becky Manawatu
      • Bridget Schaumann
      • Bronwyn Wylie-Gibb
      • Bruce Ansley
      • Catherine Chidgey
      • David Ciccoricco
      • David Eggleton
      • David Elliot
      • Derek Morrison
      • Diane Brown
      • Dougal Rillstone
      • Elizabeth Knox
      • Emma Neale
      • Emma Wood
      • Fiona Farrell
      • Frank Gordon
      • Gareth Ward
      • HG Parry
      • Jacinta Ruru
      • Jared Savage
      • Jasmine OM Taylor
      • Jayne Castel
      • Jessica Thompson Carr
      • Jillian Sullivan
      • Kaitrin McMullan
      • Kathryn van Beek
      • Kirby-Jane Hallum
      • Kyle Mewburn
      • Laura Williamson
      • Liz Breslin
      • Lynn Freeman
      • Majella Cullinane
      • Marcelle Nader-Turner
      • Te Kai a te Rangatira
      • Melissa Boardman
      • Michelle Elvy
      • Nalini Singh
      • Nicola Cummins
      • Phillippa Duffy
      • Rebecca Kiddle
      • Rhian Gallagher
      • Rob Kidd
      • Robyn Belton
      • Roger Hickin
      • Rose Carlyle
      • Sally Peart
      • Shona Riddell
      • Steff Green
      • Steve Braunias
      • Susan Sims
      • Swapna Haddow
      • Vanda Symon
      • Victor Billot
      • Vincent O'Sullivan
      • Witi Ihimaera
    • Ticketing & Accessibility
    • Venues
  • Supporters
    • Funders and Sponsors
  • E-Newsletter
  • ABOUT
    • Festival Team
    • Jobs
    • Volunteer
    • Contact
  • MEDIA
    • Podcasts
  • GALLERY
    • Gallery 2019
    • Programme Launch 2019
    • Gallery 2017
    • Gallery 2015
  • VOUCHERS
  • Past festivals
    • Celtic Noir 2019
    • DWRF 2019 >
      • Welcome
      • Programme 2019
      • Venues
      • Meet our 2019 sponsors
    • DWRF 2017 >
      • Welcome
      • Programme 2017
      • Venues 2017
      • 2017 Funders and Sponsors
    • DWRF 2015 >
      • Festival Attendees 2015
    • DWRF 2014

Shaun Bythell

Shaun Bythell’s Diary of a Bookseller, described by one reviewer as “among the most irascible and amusing bookseller memoirs I’ve read”, is a wry account of life as the owner of Scotland’s largest second-hand bookshop. Situated in a remote Scottish corner called Wigtown, The Bookshop boasts over a mile of shelving and around 100,000 books. It’s a magnet for eccentrics, both the good and the excruciating, and Bythell writes about them “with wit and affection and occasional shafts of venom” (The Sydney Morning Herald). He also excoriates the forces that jeopardise small businesses like his. He once brutalized a Kindle in his backyard: blasted it with a shotgun (or, as he puts it, “reconfigured its display interface”) and mounted its remains, trophy-style, on the wall of his bookshop with the following inscription: “Amazon Kindle. Shot by Shaun Bythell. 22 August 2014. Near Newton Stewart.”
Picture
Picture
Image: Ben Please
Alice O’Keefe from the Observer said, “If you had any doubt about the evils of Amazon, this book will lay them to rest…Bythell is a true believer, who makes a passionate case for the importance of books – real, paper-and-board books, yellowed by time and handled, smudged and annotated by generations.” 
 
Come and hear Shaun Bythell talk about books, batty customers, and Kindle extermination, in conversation with Phillippa Duffy.

Sunday 2 Sept, 2.00pm, Hutton Theatre, Otago Museum. Tickets $20 from University Book Shop. (www.unibooks.co.nz)
Picture


Presented in association with WORD Christchurch     

Our thanks to our major funders

Picture
Picture
Picture