Where Books and
Travel, Collecting and
Conversation Converge

Meet Nigel Beale

My life is filled with travel, and books — hunting them, buying them, reading them, writing about them, talking with people about them.

From theatre 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 places and people in the book world, while searching for printed treasure.

I write about my adventures, and am best known for a podcast I host called The Biblio File.

Let's collaborate

THE BIBLIO FILE PODCAST

Conversations

The Biblio File  podcast features long-form discussions about books and magazines which examine the roles that authors, publishers, booksellers, editors, collectors, designers, printers, scholars, literary critics, publicists, literary agents, and others play on the ‘communications circuit’ — inside the book trade and out — from writer to reader.

Consisting of more than 650 interviews, the Biblio File archive provides a comprehensive, panoramic overview of book and print culture at the turn of the 21st century: the art, the business, the obsession.

Think of it as an ongoing discussion about what books are, how they’re made, and why they matter.

About print culture

Listen to the Podcast

ARTICLES, ESSAYS, CRITICISM, REVIEWS

Where mind
meets matter 

Writings on place, people, and print culture

These essays, reviews, features and profiles live at the crossroads of print culture and travel. They reflect on books and their beauty, places and their power, the techniques of propaganda, lives of printers, habits of collectors, and much more.

They’re personal critiques, and travelogues — a response to the books I’ve read, people I’ve interviewed, the stuff I’ve found, the places I’ve visited.

Read the Essays

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

  • "I very much enjoyed our conversation. Your knowledge of the story of publishing, the current questions facing publishers, and specifically the long and recent history of Faber & Faber, bears testament to your expertise, vocation and deep interest in the story of reading and writing seen particularly through an industry lens. If it's valuable now, which it is, in the future it will be an essential archive of our febrile times, and of publishing in the second half of the twentieth century. Keep doing it!"

    —  Stephen Page, Chair of Faber & Faber, one of world's leading independent publishers, after having been Chief Executive for 20 years.

  • "Nigel Beale is one of the sharpest readers and reviewers of our age. His profound knowledge of every aspect of the literary business is carried with grace and charm in podcasts that will delight all who read."

    — Author and political analyst David Frum

  • "I wanted to thank you for your many generous and intelligent words about my new book How Fiction Works (and other stuff)... I get great pleasure from reading your blog."

    — Critic,James Wood,The New Yorker

  • “You can find very bad writing and sloppy impressionism in literary blogs, but also incisive, fresh, thoughtful criticism from voices unencumbered by the politics of Grub St. I would put your blog in the latter category, which is why I’m responding here… Congratulations on a very fine blog."

    — Scholar, Dr. Ronan McDonald, author of The Death of the Critic

  • "The Biblio File is an extraordinary, eclectic audio archive of writers, publishers, booksellers, librarians, the whole international book trade. Nigel Beale has achieved this through doggedness, professionalism, decency and an ambition to capture the essence of the world’s literary community. It is a huge achievement and will only grow in significance and value as years pass. It completely overshadows all other such enterprises."

    — Richard Charkin, former Chief Executive of Macmillan Publishers Limited and Executive Director of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck. 2015-17 President of the International Publishers Association

background image of magazines and books open and scattered
magazine cover of SEE woman with off the shoulder black ruffle top and short black hair

EXPLORE THE SHOP

Vintage magazines
for Sale

Going for the best

We’ve collected vintage magazines for four or five years now. We buy what we like, which is excellence: striking covers, strong typography, exciting choreography, stylish page layouts; dramatic, eye-catching provocative photographs, skillful illustration, outstanding writing; alluring, persuasive, advertisements. We particularly love fashion and art magazines. They often spearhead change in visual culture. Celebrities are interesting too.

Ideally we want the complete package.

Excellence and condition. Every issue we buy is, at minimum, in Very Good+ condition

If you live for on the feel of smooth paper between your fingers, exciting visuals and good writing, it’s likely you’ll enjoy what we have on offer

Coming Soon - Subscribe

“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 the lives of booklovers

sign of Penobscot Books and Fine Arts with yellowish background

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 Nigel Beale, it’s all of this — plus the pleasure of meeting and interviewing exceptional people who write, make, sell or just love books.

These posts document his travels and encounters, and provide a backstory to The Biblio File podcasts. They express, for example, the joys of browsing the bookstore district in Tokyo, connecting with genius printers 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.

Read the Posts

Curiosity Is Contagious
Subscribe for fresh posts, conversations, and dispatches from The Biblio File.

Get on the list and I’ll send you updates about new podcast episodes, essays, and whatever else I think might catch your fancy as I travel the world in search of print and profundity.

Subscribe Now