Nigel Beale
Books,Collecting,
Conversation,
Travel.
Writer. Interviewer. Biblio tourist. Speaker. Collector.
I’ve spent most of my life chasing books — reading them, collecting them, writing about them, talking with the people who make them.
Whether it’s on the page, in front of a microphone, or in a bookshop, I’m after the same things — knowledge, ideas, humour, insight, beauty, connection.
For the curious, it’s heaven to be surrounded by books. Wonderful companions.
I hope this website proves to be good company for you.
From the Channel Islands to Canada, and around the world.
Roots and Routes taken
Let’s start before I was born, with two great uncles.
Sir Arthur Herbert Church KCVO FCS was appointed the first Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1879. Ten years earlier he’d discovered Turacin, a naturally occurring red pigment containing copper and several over mineral types. He was a leading authority in the chemistry of painting, a talented landscape painter, an expert on pottery and stones, and a renowned collector whose botanical drawings and paintings ended up in the Kew Gardens Library. His ceramics collection went to the British Museum. He was also crazy for faceted gemstones and Japanese sword guards (tsuba). And was friends with William Morris.
Sir Louis Bernhardt Beale K.C.M.G., C.B.E., H.M. came to Canada at the turn of the 20th century, worked for the British Columbia government, was appointed British Trade Commissioner for Western Canada (1919-25), went to China to work as commercial counsellor in Shanghai, was knighted for his outstanding efforts generating business for the Empire, and later served as British Commissioner-General to the 1939 World’s Fair in New York where he oversaw the escorting of the Magna Carta from the Queen Mary to the fairgrounds — first time a copy had ever been allowed out of England.
Of course I had nothing to do with what these men achieved in their lives, nor have I attained anywhere near their heights, but it’s hard not to speculate on their influence.
***
My parents came to Canada in the 1950s with nothing. I was born in Toronto, moved at age five to the tiny island of Sark in the Channel Islands, was raised in various parts of England and returned to Saskatchewan when I was twelve — quite an interesting childhood.
My grandfather was Sark’s doctor and a friend of naturalist Gerald Durrell — perhaps this is where my love of extraordinary characters comes from. As for books, and travel, collecting and grand schemes, I suppose there is a chance some of it came from the ancestors. Who knows?
I studied Public Relations at Mount Royal University and politics at the University of Saskatchewan, then completed a Master’s degree in Public Administration at Queen’s University, Kingston.
I spent years building a successful media-communications-representation business in Ottawa and wrote a monthly column during the 1990s called ‘On Media’ for Strategy magazine.
Then, in 2005, I decided to trade press releases for paperbacks and devote my life to books, conversations about them, and travel. To date I’ve visited forty or fifty countries and conducted more than 650 interviews with authors, editors, publishers, booksellers, book collectors, book history scholars, literary critics, book designers, publicists, literary agents and other ‘best practitioners,’ inside the book trade and out.
The Biblio
File Podcast
In 2006 I launched The Biblio File, a radio show turned podcast dedicated to exploring the many lives of the book. Since then, I’ve recorded more than 650 long-form interviews with authors, editors, publishers, collectors, critics, and designers from around the world — ‘best practitioners,’ who give life to print culture alive.
Around the book world - from writer to reader.
Guests have included Margaret Atwood, Derek Walcott, David Mitchell, John Banville, Alice Notley, and many other famous and/or talented people. What connects the interviews is a blaze of curiosity. An urge to understand book, how they work, who the key players are, and what their roles are. Who these people are. What they do. How they do it. Why it matters. These questions animate the whole project.
An adventure story
Literary Tourist & Cultural Critic
As founder and editor of LiteraryTourist , I travel the world. I visit bookstores, flea markets and thrift shops, attend literary festivals, and participate in writing workshops — hunting for new material to write about, or collect. I want to connect with and learn from people who love books and print, as I do.
My essays, reviews, profiles and features have appeared in publications including The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, Canadian Art, and LOGOS. I write mostly about print culture and travel, the content and design of books and magazines that interest me, and how art intersects with commerce.
Whether it’s thinking, writing, talking, or listening, the goal has always been to understand how ideas are best communicated. Books do this extraordinarily well, that’s why I love them so much — they change the world. That’s why they’re so important.