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We are paying tribute to the best of us this week. The booksellers. Keepers of the flame, beacons in the night, purveyors of meaning in a cold, dark universe … usually.
Alice Slater used to be a member of that celebrated guild, now she’s written about the light and dark side of the trade in her debut smash, Death of a Bookseller. It pulls back the curtain on an industry we all care deeply about, to reveal the obsession, madness and … murder(?) behind the chai lattes and instagram posts.
In this conversation we cover a lot of ground… from the problems inherent in True Crime, book-fetishization, and the weird empathy we feel for serial killers’ pets. Plus, I get to talk about my favourite things (see: everything mentioned so far) with someone who genuinely once worked in my local bookshop.
This was a blast.
Enjoy!
Death of a Bookseller was published on April 25th by Hodder and Scarlet
Other books mentioned in this episode include:
Savage Appetites: True Stories of Women, Crime and Obsession (2019), by Rachel Monroe
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper (2019), by Hallie Rubenhold
You (2014), by Caroline Kepnes
Gone Girl (2012), by Gillian Flynn
The Last House on Needless Street (2021), by Catriona Ward
The Sluts (2004), by Dennis Cooper
Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke (2021), by Eric LaRocca
Echo (2022), by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
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