An Accidental Bookseller: A Personal Memoir of Foyles by Bill Samuel

Author:Bill Samuel [Samuel, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Puxley Productions Ltd
Published: 2020-02-27T22:00:00+00:00

I thought of you on Tuesday when we had the BTBS Walkies. For the 3rd year running we were one of the checkpoints, co-hosting with Colman Getty. As usual it was great fun. Our theme was ‘A shared passion for books’ which we interpreted as lots of scarlet silk draped around the place, a bright red cocktail of my devising, huge bowls of cherries which I bought in Covent Garden market, and, obscurely, lots of jam doughnuts. We didn’t win any prizes, we never will as our budget couldn’t match our ambition, but we had great fun.

The evening was, as usual, a varying tide of increasingly inebriated book people. [A lady well known in the trade whose name I won’t disclose] arrived with her PA, two dogs and a husband, in that order. She arranged water for the dogs before getting a drink for the husband, but I’m sure that means nothing. Finished at one of the big discos in Leicester Square, where there were three barmen trying manfully to serve 700 thirsty booksellers and publishers. They had run out of white wine by the time we got there – their knowledge of the book trade is obviously limited. Unusually for me I left early and wineless.

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In late 2002 I was invited to speak at the Society of Bookmen (a misnomer which was finally corrected to the Book Society a few years ago). The audience of thirty-two was an all-time low, possibly there wasn’t much interest in what a newcomer to the industry had to say about the rejuvenation of his family business, but as a speaker I was given free membership for a year, which I so enjoyed that I have renewed ever since. The membership includes publishers, booksellers, literary agents, authors and others with an involvement in the industry and the Society has ten meetings a year, usually with a good speaker, always with good conversation and often sold out. I know of no other industry-based social club where producers, suppliers, customers and facilitators meet and exchange ideas as openly. Vivienne, my wife, who was chair a few years ago, and I still attend most of them.

The book trade touches peripherally on everything. Most prominent people at some point write at least one book and books are written on every conceivable subject. Through Foyles and other book-trade organizations with which I have become involved I have of course met novelists and poets but I have also met politicians and sports people, heads of state and homeless, lawmakers and criminals – people for whom the only common denominator is that they have written books. Looking back, the book trade has given me great satisfaction and enjoyment in my work, challenges and stimulation, some good friends, many new acquaintances and a wife. No money of course, but that’s not the point, is it?

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