In Season 1 we talk to authors who's books have inspired songs on album, EMERGE, RETURN.

In this episode we talk to Shaun Bythell, author of the international bestselling The Diary Of A Bookseller. Shaun is the owner of The Bookshop, in Wigtown, which is Scotland's Book Town. We first arrived in Wigtown in 2013, after a gig cancellation elsewhere, and a Google search revealed a cluster of bookshops on the SW coats of Scotland. We played in Shaun's bookshop, spent a wonderful couple of days in his hospitality, and joked all the way to Newton Stewart that one day we should move here.

In 2017 we did.

Shaun wrote about the night we arrived in his diary, and our song is a response to that, as we felt his entry was a little short. The song is called The Night We Came To Wigtown (Scotland's Famous Book Town) and is on our new album, EMERGE, RETURN, produced by Pete Townshend.

Conversation meanders around topics including answers to questions such as... what makes a good second hand bookseller? What to look out for in old books. Are second hand bookshops curated? Does he get annoyed or excited by a rude customer? What was Wigtown like before it became the Book Town of Scotland? What are Shaun's favourite bookshops in the UK (and which really is the largest bookshop in Scotland?) What music does Shaun listen to? Vinyl verses digital, ebooks versus physical books - discuss, and other great books about bookshops.

You can find out about the album here:

www.emergereturn.com

You can see Shaun's book here:

https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-diary-of-a-bookseller-shaun-bythell/939003?ean=9781781258637

And you can find out more about the band here:

www.thebookshopband.co.uk