Where Books and
Travel, Collecting and
Conversation Converge
Meet Nigel Beale
My life is about books — searching for them, collecting them, reading them, writing about them, talking with people about them.
From former theatres now bookshops in Buenos Aires to lost libraries in Leipzig, canal-side flea-markets in Milan to the chateaus of essayists in Bordeaux, I seek out extraordinary people and places in the book world, and hunt for things found in print culture.
I’m a writer, interviewer, speaker and biblio-tourist best known for a podcast I host called The Biblio File. It features long-form conversations about books and print (words and visuals, content and containers) that examine the roles authors, poets, publishers, booksellers, editors, book collectors, printers, scholars, literary critics, graphic designers, publicists, literary agents, and others play along Robert Darnton’s ‘communications circuit’ — inside the book trade and out — from writer to reader.
THE BIBLIO FILE PODCAST
Conversation
Audio about print culture
The Biblio File is where I interview ‘best practitioners’ — bat-eyed bibliophiles from the book world.
Consisting of more than 650 long-form conversations, the Biblio File archive represents a comprehensive, panoramic overview of book and print culture at the turn of the 21st century: the art, the business, the obsession.
Think of this podcast as an ongoing discussion about what books are, how they’re made, and why they matter — why books and the people who make them will always matter
ARTICLES, ESSAYS, CRITICISM, REVIEWS
Where mind
meets matter
Writings on place, people, and print
These essays, reviews, features and profiles live where print culture and travel meet. They examine the contents of books and the beauty of their design the techniques of propaganda, the lives of printers, and the practice of collectors.
They’re personal critiques and travelogues born of the places I’ve visited and the people — authors, booksellers, book designers, critics — I’ve met. They’re a response to the books I’ve read; the people I’ve met, the worlds I’ve experienced.
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
Words about the Words
EXPLORE THE SHOP
We sell vintage magazines
& ephemera
Why buy?
We collect and sell vintage magazines. We buy what we think is gorgeous. That’s the main criteria. We look for innovative art direction, evocative illustration, and well-written, moving editorial. We particularly love fashion and design magazines because they often spearhead change in visual culture. Celebrities are interesting to us as well. In fact, we’re after pretty much anything that looks great, as you’ll see.
We look for excellence: striking covers, strong typography, excitingly choreographed, stylish page layouts; dramatic, eye-catching provocative photographs, skillful illustration, outstanding writing; alluring, persuasive advertisements full of Wow! As with love, we’re looking for the complete package.
Excellence and condition. Every issue we buy is, at minimum, in Very Good+ condition
If you od on the feel of smooth paper between your fingers, get turned on by exciting visuals and early appearances of important writing, and have an interest in design history — this collection’s for you.
“How many cities have revealed themselves to me in the marches I undertook in the pursuit of books!”
- Walter Benjamin, Illuminations: Essays and Reflections
Travel for the
learned soul
My little journeys through bookshops, libraries, and bookish lives.
Being a “literary tourist” means many things to many people: browsing used bookshops, participating in book festivals, visiting authors’ homes, admiring special collections libraries, attending plays…
For me, it’s all of this — plus the pleasure of meeting and interviewing exceptional people who write, make, sell and/or revere books.
These posts document my travels and encounters, and provide a backstory to my Biblio File podcasts. They express, for example, the joys of browsing the bookstore district in Tokyo, connecting with a genius printer in Vancouver, learning about the history of bookbinding in San Francisco.
They’re travelogues for book lovers — part memoir, part cultural anthropology, love letters to the world of print.
Curiosity Is Contagious
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