Reviews for The King's English: Adventures of an Independent Bookseller

The average rating for The King's English: Adventures of an Independent Bookseller based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-06-07 00:00:00 Ronald Phillips Jr Each chapter has a theme and each chapter ends with a list of recommended books from the independent bookshop, The King's English, based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Running throughout each chapter is the biography of the bookshop, the authors hosted, events planned, and all the things that go into owning and operating an independent bookshop. I absolutely love books about books. They seem so homey and cozy to me that normally I pull them out to read when the wind is howling and the snow is piling up outside. Today, even though the sun is shining and the temps are in the 90s, I needed a little cozy. This book fit the bill nicely. It also served to massively increase my TBR list. A must read for the bibliophile.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-06-09 00:00:00 Timo Linder This one is hard to rate. There were some things that I loved about this book -- I loved the author's personal story: how she struggled with her bookstore, the people she met, the lessons she learned, the people whose lives she affected. What I didn't love were the long side trips that would take me away from the story -- sometimes it was telling about a book or author or sometimes it was going off on a tangent about anything from environmental issues to religious fundamentalism. I wasn't annoyed that she included these, just how LONG she spent on some of these topics or describing in great detail the plot of this author or that author's book (again, I liked being introduced to authors, but I didn't need a 3 paragraphs book review of the author's latest book and the 2 books before that). I kept thinking....get me back to the story! I also would have loved for the narrative to move more chronological instead of by topic. A personal choice, but it bugged me when she was telling this anecdote or that, I often had no idea what decade we were in. Now another thing I did love about this book was being introduced to lots of new authors and books. I couldn't help but start a list of books that sounded interesting to me. I also enjoyed learning about the issues of independent booksellers -- something I have NEVER thought of before. We read this book for book club and are going on our annual Book Club Retreat next week to visit this bookstore (among other things). I am really excited to see the store and hopefully meet the author.