Nigel Beale
A Life of Books,
Conversation,
and Travel
Writer. Interviewer. Biblio tourist. Collector.
I’ve spent most of my life chasing books. Hunting and acquiring them, reading and writing about them, talking about them. Whether it’s on the page, in front of a microphone, or in a bookshop, I’m usually after the same thing: something new: an idea or insight, a connection, a scarce volume, a beautiful magazine. Discovering new love, new knowledge, new interests, new objects of beauty, good conversation — add in a few laughs, some good meals...
From the Channel Islands to Canada and around the world.
Roots, Routes,
and Reading
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 William Morris was a friend.
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 work generating business for the Empire, and later served as British Commissioner-General to the 1939 World’s Fair in New York where 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.
What more do you need to know about me?
Okay, I had nothing to do with what these men achieved in their lifetimes. All my telling you about them does for me is bolster my shaky self-esteem.
***
That’s because 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, and was raised in England until we returned to Canada when I was twelve — it was a fitful 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, yes, I suppose there’s a good chance some of it came from the gentlemen above. 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 relatively successful media-communications representation business in Ottawa and wrote a monthly column during the 1990s called ‘On Media’ for Strategy magazine.
Then, in 2005, not entirely voluntarily, I decided to trade press releases for paperbacks and devote my life to books, conversation, 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 keep print culture alive.
Around the book world - from writer to reader.
Guests have included Margaret Atwood, Derek Walcott, David Mitchell, John Banville, Eimear McBride, and countless others. What connects the interviews is examination of the roles people connected with the book play. The language, the craft, culture. Who they are. What they do. How they do it. Why it matters.
Life should be an adventure story
Literary Tourist & Cultural Critic
As founder and editor of LiteraryTourist, I travel the world visiting bookstores and libraries, participating in literary festivals and writing workshops, meeting and talking with people who make books.
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 about print culture, travel, design, the intersection of art and commerce — books: who produces them, what makes them endure, what we lose when they don’t.
Whether in print , on-air, or in front of audiences, my work is animated by the desire to know more about books and print culture. How it all works, how ideas are communicated, where books live, who makes them, how they’re made and why; how they can change the world.