Where Books and
Travel, Collecting and
Conversation Collide
Meet Nigel Beale
My life is about travel, and books — searching for them, collecting them, reading them, writing about them, talking with people about them.
From former theatre/bookshops in Buenos Aires to lost libraries in Leipzig, canal-side flea-markets in Milan to the chateaus of essayists in Bordeaux, I stalk the people and paper you find in places where print culture lives.
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’ in the book world — authors, publishers, designers, sellers, critics, readers, and bat-eyed bibliophiles — I talk to them all.
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, who makes them, what they do, how they do it, and why it matters — 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 colours of their covers, the beauty of graphic design and the techniques of propaganda, the lives of printers, 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; of the books I’ve read; the worlds I’ve experienced.
WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE SAYING
Words about the Words
"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
EXPLORE THE SHOP
Vintage magazines
& ephemera
Why buy these magazines?
We collect and sell the vintage magazines we sell because, frankly, they’re gorgeous. That’s the main criteria. We look for innovative art direction, evocative illustration, and talented writers. We particularly love fashion and design magazines, because they often spearheaded changes in visual culture. Celebrities are interesting too. 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 prose, alluring, persuasive advertisements full of Wow! We’re after 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 first appearances of important writing, and are curious about design history — this collection is 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, providing the backstory to my Biblio File podcasts. They express, for example, the joys of scouring 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
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.