Brought to Book: A Tale of Lust, Cunning and Deceit in the Book Trade

When they reported her death the media speculated on who would inherit Blanche's wealth, a subject soon to engage their collective attention to the exclusion, for a day or two, of the under - cover activities of minor members of the royal family. When the legendary, fabulously rich and childless, bookshop proprietor, Blanche Ardbuckle, finally does die, her last request will cause a sensation. Five former lovers (staff recruitment could have a special emphasis at Ardbuckle's) are told that after a fixed period of managing the huge bookselling business, one victor will emerge to become the new proprietor and inherit a fortune. The stumbling block is the proviso that the "winner" will be chosen by a secret ballot of Ardbuckle's staff - an assortment of bookselling archetypes whose idiosyncratic and extraordinary behaviour will not come as a surprise to anyone who has ever visited a bookshop. The Five have their own reasons for wanting to win. A failing actor, a lady novelist not quite selling as much as she used to; a former, very much back-bench, MP; a entrepreneurial bookseller whose national chain is facing financial meltdown; and another, older retailer still trying to reconcile a post-modern lifestyle with an old-fashioned conscience. Their attempts - sometimes joint, sometimes devious - to win by the terms of Blanche's Will, hurtle them into contact with each other and the bizarre members of Ardbuckle's staff. Brought to Book is a delightful comedy of manners about modern attitudes, retail practices (and some others) and the games we so often play when ever money, sex, business and the media get together. Ian Norrie, himself a legendary bookseller who ran the High Hill Bookshop in Hampstead for over thirty years, has written/edited more than twenty books, which include three other novels and the revised version of Mumby's classic history of the British booktrade. He was a journalist before he became a bookseller and he has written articles and regular columns about the book trade for the Bookseller and Publishing News. He was Chairman of the Society of Bookmen, served on the executive of the National Book League (now Book Trust), was a director of the Book Trade Benevolent Society and is an advisor to the National Life Story Collection's Book Trade Lives Project, administered by the British Library. He is a widower, with two children and four grandchildren. He lives in Barnet, Hertfordshire.