Intra-curricular reading

After finishing up with The Count last week, I wolfed down a pair of books purchased at the same time (and that were looking pretty tempting by the time old Edmund had finished meting out the last of his many vile plots): Stet: An Editor's Life by Diana Athill and The King's English: Adventures of an Independent Bookseller by Betsy Burton. One is about a job I do and love, and the other about a job I think I'd like and hope to try sometime later in this lifetime.

Stet had been recommended by a fellow editor at a small publishing house and as soon as I started it I understood why he'd recommended it. It was uncanny how similar aspects of Athill's early working experience were to my own and probably to those of many other employees in the small publishing world. The first half is dedicated to her time with Andre Deutsch (British publishers of Jean Rhys, V. S. Naipaul, Mordecai Richler, Norman Mailer, and many famous others), the second half to her relationships with several of the authors she worked with over the years. Well worth reading if you've done any editing or if you've ever been curious about the process.

The King's English is a bookstore in Salt Lake City, Utah, established in the late seventies and still going fairly strong, I believe. Burton discusses the conversation that launched the shop, their first orders to publishers, and their more recent struggle to survive the big box and internet onslaught. The book also dovetails neatly with my Southwest fascination because of its location. The shop has hosted readings and signings by Terry Tempest Williams, Edward Abbey, Barry Lopez, Tony Hillerman, among others, and there is a great chapter devoted to the regional scene. Although I found Burton's voice a little punchy in places, on the whole the book was a heartening read for someone like me who will readily admit to possessing very little in the way of business sense but has always fantasized about owning a bookshop. (Then again, I suppose to someone less optimistic about the industry it might just as well read as a treatise on why such a venture should be avoided entirely.)