S1 Ep. 10: Martin Latham, Waterstones (Canterbury, UK) & Author of The Bookseller's Tale

On our 10th episode of Got Books?, we sit down with Martin Latham, bookseller extraordinaire and author of The Bookseller's Tale. Martin has been the longest standing manager for British book retailer Waterstones, having been at the Canterbury bookshop since 1990. He even ordered the excavation of the Roman Bath-House floor at his bookshop, paying for it with the biggest petty cash slip in Waterstones history. Martin knows books like no other and this transpires abundantly in The Bookseller's Tale, which was named the 2020 Book of the Year by British newspapers the Spectator and the Evening Standard. The book lays out the history of storytelling and of publishing, full of anecdotes and witticisms, and is a must-read for those who wonder lovingly about the history of books and bookselling. We chat with Martin today to get an insight into his encyclopaedic knowledge and passion for storytelling. Books recommended by Martin (or written by him): The Bookseller's Tale by Martin Latham Solaris by Stanislaw Lem The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood Short Stories by Anton Chekhov Figuring by Maria Popova First Love by Ivan Turgenev  My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki Orlando by Virginia Woolf  Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment by Robert Wright  The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson