The Bookseller's Tale cover art

The Bookseller's Tale

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for £0.00
£8.99/mo thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Offer ends 31 July 2025 at 23:59 GMT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

The Bookseller's Tale

By: Martin Latham
Narrated by: Roy McMillan
Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

The right book has a neverendingness, and so does the right bookshop.

This is the story of our love affair with books, whether we arrange them on our shelves, inhale their smell, scrawl in their margins or just curl up with them in bed. Taking us on a journey through comfort reads, street book stalls, mythical libraries, itinerant pedlars, radical pamphleteers, extraordinary bookshop customers and fanatical collectors, Canterbury Bookseller Martin Latham uncovers the curious history of our book obsession - and his own.

Part cultural history, part literary love letter and part reluctant memoir, this is the tale of one bookseller and many, many books.

©2020 Martin Latham (P)2020 Penguin Audio Literary History & Criticism

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Austin Osman Spare (Revised & Expanded Edition) cover art
Bibliomaniac cover art
Confessions of a Bookseller cover art
Bookworm cover art
The Gifts of Reading cover art
The Accidental Detectorist cover art
Reading Allowed cover art
Expletives Deleted cover art
The Cornish Coast Murder cover art
All the Wide Border cover art
What We Talk About When We Talk About Books cover art
Dear Reader cover art
A Cheesemonger's History of the British Isles cover art
Tales from the Tillerman cover art
Alphabetical cover art
The Life and Ideas of James Hillman, Volume I: The Making of a Psychologist cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
Had no idea that this would be such a brilliant and fascinating book. I rushed through it in my enthusiasm so will certainly go back and listen again to many chapters which will probably be the whole book . It’s a fabulous treasure trove of information and a great treat for any book lover. Thank you Mr Latham.

A gem.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This book is delicious and filled with literacy delights that make one want to curl up with a hot drink and good book and disappear from life. Beautifully written and told by a narrator that brings the book alive. You won’t be disappointed with this book, a definite one for me to revisit.

A delightful learning, full of wonder…

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Lots of very interesting info and beautifully read. I especially enjoyed the chapter on annotations.

Great listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A title of great charm and wit about the world of books, well read by the ever-reliable Roy McMillan (save for ill-advised forays into American accents, over which it is humane to draw a veil).

Outstanding

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I was genuinely sad when this boom came to an end. I’ve been sharing facts and stories about incredible things and people with friends ever since I started it.

It’s funny, riveting, sad and anger-inducing at different times and simply shares a lifetime’s knowledge and research of books, libraries, printing, readers and so forth.

The performance is excellent too - including accents and a very engaging tone throughout.

What a cornucopia of delights!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.