He and his family have backpacked through Ethiopia, Romania, Cuba and many other countries, for days at a time, bedding down when they find a resident with extra space, which is often a sofa or a floor. On yearly trips to Jura, an island off the west coast of Scotland, they stay in a cave that usually shelters goats and deer. (“The aroma leaves something to be desired,” he said.) In worst-case scenarios, they sleep outdoors.
“If you don’t get out of the weather, then it’s really, really unpleasant,” he said with a grin. “Then you don’t sleep. You just huddle.”
It’s a style of holiday that prizes singular experiences above all else. In 1988, he dreamed up a bookstore that he hoped would be every bit as memorable — one that was organized by country. The section on Brazil, for instance, would offer not just guidebooks but Brazilian fiction, nonfiction and history.
The first Daunt Books, which opened in 1990, dazzled patrons the moment they walked in, though not because of its country-centric arrangement. It was the store itself, the long-shuttered home of an antiquarian bookseller, constructed in the Edwardian age, its oak shelves, galleries, balcony and skylight all gloriously intact.
“The Picture-Perfect Bookshop That’s Designed for Travelers,” reads a headline on the website Secret London.
While Mr. Daunt now speaks at conferences on the art of bookselling, he learned it on the fly, without taking a class or even reading up on the subject. “Trial and error,” he said.
By 2010, one of the biggest threats to Daunt Books was the imminent demise of Waterstones. The infrastructure of British bookselling depended on its survival. As much as Mr. Daunt loathed the uniformity and soullessness of chain bookstores, he thought he might have the only medicine that could save the company.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/08/books/watersones-barnes-and-noble-james-daunt.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
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