Nigel Beale's Biblio File Podcast

Will Rueter is the proprietor of the Aliquando Press which was founded in 1962 "to enable its proprietor to learn the basics of printing and binding books by hand." To date the Press has produced 109 books. It is located in Dundas, Ontario. Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson was a renowned British bookbinder, and passionate private printer. He was proprietor of the Doves Press, one of the most influent...

Steven Temple is an antiquarian bookseller who, after operating shops on Queen Street in Toronto for forty years, moved to Welland, Ontario in 2014 where he now does business out of his home. He continues to specialize in literary books, especially Canadian literary books, general Canadiana, and select out-of-print and rare books in various fields.  We met at his home in Welland, where we discusse...

James King is the author of six novels and nine biographies, including books on David Milne, Margaret Laurence, Jack McClelland, and Lawren Harris. His biography of Herbert Read,  The Last Modern , was nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Award. A fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, James lives in Hamilton, Ontario. And that's where I met him to discuss his biography of Jack McClelland...

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Darrel J. McLeod is Cree from treaty eight territory in Northern Alberta. Before deciding to pursue writing in his retirement, he was a chief negotiator of land claims for the federal government and executive director of education and international affairs with the Assembly of First Nations. His memoir Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age won the 2018 Governor General's Literary Award for non-fiction....

Marvin Post is the owner of Attic Books in London, Ontario - one of the largest, most successful used/antiquarian bookstores in Canada.  I met with Marvin to discuss the reasons behind his success. Among other things we talk about buying lots of books, religious books, double downsizing, millennial debt-load, fresh stock, on-line versus in-store stock, buying buildings, skulls on shirts, shows, ar...

Sarah Henstra is a professor of English literature at Ryerson University in Toronto where she teaches courses in Gothic Horror, Fairy Tales & Fantasies, Psychoanalysis & Literature, and Creative Writing. She is the author of The Red Word , a novel that recently won the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction.  We met in Ottawa to talk about  The Red Word . Among other things we discuss The S...

HEATHER O’NEILL  is a novelist, short-story writer and essayist. Her work, which includes  Lullabies for Little Criminals ,  The Girl Who Was Saturday Night and Daydreams of Angels, has  been shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Scotiabank Giller Prize in two consecutive years, and has won CBC Canada Reads, the Paragraphe Hugh MacL...

Katharine Streip received her Ph. D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California at Berkeley. She has published essays on Marcel Proust, Jean Rhys, Philip Roth, and William S. Burroughs. Her research interests include comedy, the novel, 19th c. Paris and modernism. I'm sitting in on some of her classes at Concordia University's Liberal Arts College , which offers "a unique Great Bo...

Sophie Schneideman has been an international rare book and print dealer for over 28 years, serving a long apprenticeship at Maggs Bros, an eminent book firm in Mayfair, and dealing as Sophie Schneideman Rare Books since 2007. She specializes in several areas of book collecting, the main focus being the Art of the Book, i.e. book illustration, private presses, fine binding, fine printing and livres...

Henry Hitchings is an author, reviewer and critic, specializing in narrative non-fiction, with a particular emphasis on language and cultural history. His second book,  The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English , won the 2008  John Llewellyn Rhys Prize . He is the president of the Johnson Society of Lichfield. As of 2018, he is chair of the drama section of the UK's  Critics' Circle . H...

I met with members of the Canada Council's Supporting Artistic Practice Program team last month to discuss changes made in 2017 to the literary book publishing grant program. Among other things we talk about the fact that programs are designed to benefit all Canadians, about phases in the spectrum of activities in artistic creation, supporting writers versus book production, professional developme...

The Bookseller is a British magazine reporting news on the publishing industry. In 2010 it was acquired from Nielsen by its then Managing Director,  Nigel Roby , who is now Chief Executive, Owner and Publisher of the new, expanded entity.  I met with Nigel at The Bookseller 's offices across the Thames from the Houses of Parliament, in London. Among other things we talk about the history and purpo...

James Daunt is Managing Director of the Waterstones chain of bookstores in England. Has been since 2011. We met at the Piccadilly store in London to talk about, among other things, J.P. Morgan, New York, silver spoons and begging bowls, genuine passion, store energy, author event programs, bookshops as social places, a core of regular customers, identifying up-and-coming writers, booksellers who r...

Stephen Page is the Chief Executive Officer at Faber & Faber .  We met at his offices in Bloomsbury, London, and invited Geoffrey Faber into the room. The three of us talk, among other things, about publishers being a race apart, comets, the unevenness of publishing, the low barriers to entry, maintaining humility, Paul Hamlyn, colour books and technological breakthroughs, the elasticity of books,...

Will Atkinson is Managing Director of Atlantic Books, U.K. Prior to this he was, for many years, with Faber & Faber , serving as Director of Sales & Marketing from 2006 to 2014. During this time he spearheaded the Independent Alliance , a very successful sales organization that comprises some of the U.K.'s leading independent publishers, including Granta and Canongate.  I met with Will at his offi...

Richard Charkin is a British publishing executive who has worked in the publishing business since 1972. He has held executive positions at  Pergamon Press ,  Oxford University Press ,  Reed International / Reed Elsevier  and Current Science Group, and is the former Chief Executive of  Macmillan Publishers  Limited and Executive Director of Verlagsgruppe  Georg von Holtzbrinck . We met in Bloomsbur...

Throughout my twenties I harboured a strong desire to read the Great Books, but it wasn't until I'd finished university and come across Clifton Fadiman's Lifetime Reading Plan at the now defunct Book Den in Ottawa on MacLaren street, that I started to act seriously on the urge. It, and the 100 books recommended, had and continue to have a profound impact on my life. So, I was thrilled to learn tha...

David Frum is a staff writer at  The Atlantic  and the author of  Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic . In 2001 and 2002, he was a speechwriter for President George W. Bush.   We met in Ottawa and talked about, among other things, his father Murray, a Bernini bronze , African art, reference books, Linda Frum's biography of her (and David's), mother Barbara, the mistrust of optimis...

Stephen Greenblatt  is Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. He is the author of thirteen books, including  The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve;   The Swerve: How the World Became Modern; Shakespeare's Freedom; and Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare .  He is General Editor of  The Norton Anthology of English Literature  and of  The Norton Shakespeare,...

"Beowulf Sheehan studied photography at New York University and the International Center of Photography.  His childhood love of stories in books and music grew into an adulthood love of storytellers in the arts, entertainment, and humanities.  Beowulf makes portraits, communicates ideas, and shares the stories of  compelling artists and figures  who impact society and culture."  His book AUTHOR "c...

John Shoesmith is Outreach Librarian at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library in Toronto, and curator of the 2013 exhibition Death Greatly Exaggerated: Canada's Thriving Small and Fine Press which explored examples of the fine book-making craft in Canada since the year 2000 while nodding to Canada's small presses. We met at the Fisher and talked, among other things, about famed printer and book desi...

Lumiere Press is the private press of Michael Torosian. In the fine press tradition, the books are composed in lead, hand printed and hand bound. The press is devoted exclusively to photography, and each book aspires in its concept, graphic design, and bookmaking craftsmanship to be the manifestation of its artistic content. The shop's first printing press was acquired in 1981, and in 1986 the pub...

Michael Lista is an investigative journalist, essayist and poet in Toronto. He has worked as a book columnist for  The National Post,  and as the poetry editor of  The Walrus . He is the author of three books: the poetry volumes  Bloom  and  The Scarborough,  and  Strike Anywhere ,  a collection of his writing about literature, television and culture. His essays and investigative stories have appe...

Elaine Dewar  – author, journalist, television story editor—has been propelled since childhood by insatiable curiosity and the joy of storytelling. Her journalism has been honored by nine National Magazine awards, including the prestigious President’s Medal, and the White Award. Her first book, Cloak of Green , delved into the dark side of environmental politics and became an underground classic. ...