The Biblio File hosted by Nigel Beale

Why listen to Alexandra Pringle ? Because Richard Charkin told me that she's the best editor in the English speaking world, that's why.   Alexandra was editor-in-chief at Bloomsbury Publishing for more than two decades. She was recently appointed Executive Publisher.    She began her publishing career at the British magazine  Art Monthly before joining the women's publisher Virago in 1978. She bec...

What's not to like here? Marius Kociejowski is charming, erudite and funny. Why should you listen to him? He's just written a memoir about the soul of the book trade. What happens in bookstores doesn't happen elsewhere ​ he says. The multifariousness of human nature is more on show ​  here ​ ​ t ​ han anywhere else, he says, and ​"​ I think it's because of books, what they are, what they release i...

I'm in Prague for the Summer. Going to be participating in one of the world's leading creative writing programs. I interviewed its founder Richard Katrovas.   Why listen to Richard? Having run the Prague Summer Program for Writers for more than two decades, he knows a lot about the process of teaching creative writing; plus he knows karate. We talk about listening and critiquing artfully, not fuck...

Why did I interview Mark Andrews? Because he's a fellow Canadian, he's an exceptional book collector who brings an engineer's mind to the task, and he's just published a beautiful book featuring selections from his book collection, entitled  The Science and Engineering of Water; An illustrated catalogue of books and manuscripts on Italian hydraulics, 1500 - 1800 ; it's exemplary. Exactly the kind...

Why am I interviewing Mark Samuels Lasner for a third time?  Because he's a recognized and respected book collector who knows how to speak intelligently and amusingly about books. And though we've already talked about his impressive collections that cover late 19th century British literary culture, and The Bodley Head, I wanted to learn about what happens "after the dopamine" hits. What he's done...

I came across Kat McKenna 's name in an article written by Alison Flood in The Guardian last year . I'd googled Tik Tok's "Book-Tok" because I'd heard it was moving a lot of YA books and wanted to learn more. Kat was quoted in Alison's piece. It was clear she knew what made BookTok tick. I contacted her and now she's on the show.   Kat has worked in UK publishing for almost 15 years specialising i...

Stephen Enniss is director of the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin. Previous posts include Head Librarian at the Folger Shakespeare Library and Director of Emory University's Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library where he made a series of impressive acquisitions including the archives of Seamus Heaney, Salman Rushdie and Ted Hughes. Since taking over at the Ransom Cen...

Sarah Miniaci is a freelance book publicist with fifteen years of experience in the New York and Toronto markets. Ken Whyte's Sutherland House is one of her clients. Ken interviewed Sarah for a recent issue of Shush , his excellent Substack newsletter on the publishing business. Together they surveyed today's new publishing landscape. With the help of  Michael Legat's An Author's Guide to Publishi...

Author/historian Stuart Kells has been chasing rare books and other bookish treasures since childhood. In the 1980s he went for classic sci-fi paperbacks from Ace and Dell, and authors such as Philip K. Dick and Robert Heinlein.   When he moved to Melbourne in the summer of 1989 he was amazed by the city's bookshops, especially secondhand shops - notably Alice's and Sainsbury's in Carlton. When  ...

Over the past half-century, bookselling, like many retail sectors, has evolved from an business dominated by independent bookstores to one in which chain stores have significant market share. This transformation has often been a less-than-smooth process, especially so in bookselling, argues Laura J. Miller, because more than most other consumer goods, books are the focus of passionate debate.   Wh...

Jonathan Kay is a Canadian journalist. He was editor-in-chief of The Walrus  magazine, and is a senior editor of  Quillette.  He was previously comment pages editor, columnist, and blogger for the Toronto-based Canadian daily newspaper National Post, and continues to contribute to the newspaper on a freelance basis.   He's also a ghostwriter, best known in this capacity as the author of Justin Tru...

Kathryn Schulz joined  The New Yorker  as a staff writer in 2015. In 2016, she won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing and a National Magazine Award for "The Really Big One," her story on seismic risk in the Pacific Northwest. Previously, she was the book critic for  New York , the editor of the environmental magazine  Grist , and a reporter and editor at the  Santiago Times . She is the author...

Larry Grobel is a journalist, author and teacher. He has written more than 25 books including Conversations with Capote ( which received a PEN Special Achievement award) and The Art of the Interview ( which has been used as a text in many journalism schools), most of his books however are short story collections. His latest is called The Narcissist . Over the years he's written for dozens of publi...

James Wood is a literary critic, essayist and novelist. He was The Guardian' s chief literary critic between 1992 and 1995, and a senior editor at The New Republic between 1995 and 2007. Since roughly that time he's taught the Practice of Literary Criticism at Harvard University and has been a staff writer and book critic at The New Yorker magazine. In 2009, he won the National Magazine Award for...

William Taylor Jr. is a cataloger with PBA Galleries, a San Francisco-based auction house for rare books and ephemera; he specializes in fine literature, counterculture and poetry. He's an avid reader, and a prolific writer. His first book of fiction is included in the curriculum at select universities across the United States. In 2013 he was the recipient of an Acker Award, a tribute named after...

Damon Galgut is a South African novelist and playwright. He was awarded the 2021 Booker Prize for his novel  The Promise and shortlisted for the prize in 2003 and 2010 right about the time I first interviewed him at his apartment in Cape Town ( listen here ). Damon was head boy at Pretoria Boys High School, matriculating in 1981, and then studied drama at the University of Cape Town. He wrote his...

Biblio.com started as a price comparison engine for new and used books in 2000. Later, this price comparison engine became SearchBiblio.com famous for several years as the Internet's fastest "metasearch" site for books. In the summer of 2003 Biblio.com launched as a used books marketplace, working off a 'triple bottom line' using these goals: achieving profit, serving people, and preserving the en...

Glenn Horowitz is an agent in the sale and placement of culturally significant archives to research institutions throughout the United States.  Authors, artists, musicians, designers, and photographers represented include Bob Dylan, Norman Mailer, James Salter, Eve Babitz, Deborah Eisenberg, David Foster Wallace, Vladimir Nabokov, and many more.   We spoke recently via Zoom about his practice: wha...

John  Sargent is an American book publisher; until recently he was the CEO of Macmillan Publishers USA, and Executive Vice President of the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group where he oversaw global trade operations; he was also responsible for Macmillan Learning, the company's US-based higher education business.   We talk via Zoom about his career in publishing, not about libraries; about bei...

Jerry Kelly  is a ​ ​ book designer, calligrapher ​ ​ and type designer. Before starting his own design business in 1998  ​he  was Vice President of The Stinehour Press ​. Prior to this he worked as a designer at A. Colish. ​Jerry's  work has been honored  ​frequently ; for example, h is book designs have been selected more than thirty times for the AIGA "Fifty Books of the Year" ​ Award.​  In 201...

Andrew Wylie is an American literary agent. He grew up in Sudbury, Massachusetts and attended St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. He has a degree from Harvard University where he studied Romance Languages & Literatures.    Wylie founded his eponymous literary agency in New York in 1980 and opened a second office in London in 1996. The firm now represents more than 1400 authors and literar...

Richard Charkin is a British publishing executive. He founded Mensch Publishing in 2018. Prior to this he was Executive Director of Bloomsbury (2007 to 2018). Over the years he has held executive positions at Pergamon Press, Oxford University Press, and Reed International/Reed Elsevier. He is the former Chief Executive of Macmillan Publishers Limited and Executive Director of Verlagsgruppe Georg v...

Warren Kinsella is a Canadian lawyer, author, musician, political consultant, commentator and sometime painter. He has written for most of Canada's major newspapers and is currently a columnist for the Toronto Sun. He is the founder of the Daisy Consulting Group, a Toronto-based firm that engages in paid political campaign strategy work, lobbying and communications crisis management. Prior to this...

Steven  Heller   is an eminent American graphic designer, art director, art critic and scholar.​ He ​has authored or​ co-authored ​more than 200 ​books which variously trace​ the history of typography, illustration and other subjects related to graphic design.​ I talk with Steve here about Alvin Lustig an American American book designer, graphic designer and typeface designer. Some of Lustig's mos...

Terry O'Reilly is a Canadian broadcast producer and personality best known for hosting the CBC radio/podcast programs O'Reilly on Advertising, The Age of Persuasion , and Under the Influence, which together have been downloaded more than 40 million times. His  programs examine the cultural and sociological impact of advertising and marketing on modern life. His books include The Age of Persuasion,...