Henry Hitchings on the world in Bookshops
Henry Hitchings\xa0is an author, reviewer and critic, specializing in narrative non-fiction, with a particular emphasis on\xa0language\xa0and cultural history. His second book,\xa0The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English, won the 2008\xa0John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. He is the president of the Johnson Society of Lichfield.\xa0As of 2018, he is chair of the drama section of the UK's\xa0Critics' Circle.
He was a\xa0King's Scholar\xa0at\xa0Eton College\xa0before going to\xa0Christ Church, Oxford, and then to\xa0University College London\xa0to research his PhD on\xa0Samuel Johnson.
In 2016 Hitchings edited a collection of original essays about bookshops, entitled\xa0Browse: The World in Bookshops. Its contributors included\xa0Alaa Al Aswany,\xa0Stefano Benni,\xa0Michael Dirda,\xa0Daniel Kehlmann,\xa0Andrey Kurkov,\xa0Yiyun Li,\xa0Pankaj Mishra,\xa0Dorthe Nors,\xa0Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor,\xa0Ian Sansom,\xa0Elif Shafak,\xa0Iain Sinclair,\xa0Ali Smith,\xa0Sasa Stanisic\xa0and\xa0Juan Gabriel Vasquez.
We met in London to talk about Browse, and our experiences in bookstores around the world.\xa0