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| Jim Haynes | |
Jim Haynes, who founded the Paperback Bookshop in Edinburgh, Scotland, during the late 1950s and was "someone who made extraordinary things happen," died January 6, the Guardian reported. He was 87.
In addition to being Britain's first paperback bookstore, Haynes's shop became "a 'salon,' as he put it, where people could arrange to meet, have coffee, or just chat with the voluble, ever-welcoming proprietor. The Paperback Bookshop also produced plays, and in 1962 Haynes was instrumental in founding the Traverse Theatre. At the same time, in collaboration with the publisher John Calder, he organized the first Edinburgh international book festivals, with Henry Miller, Norman Mailer, Mary McCarthy and William Burroughs, among others."
Born in Haynesville, La., Haynes joined the U.S. Air Force after high school in 1956, and was eventually stationed in Scotland at an air base in Kirknewton, West Lothian, the Scotsman noted. By 1959, he had obtained an early release from the military and launched the Paperback Bookshop in George Square, filling the shelves "with mass-market titles as well as counter-culture imprints, such as American publisher Barney Rosset's Evergreen series--featuring such writers as Beckett, Ginsberg, Kerouac, Stoppard, Sontag and Malcolm X--a far cry from the other conservative Edinburgh bookshops. The eclectic shop was on a par with Ferlinghetti's City Lights Books in San Francisco and Godwin's Better Books in London; Scotland suddenly found itself hipped to a new beat."
As an author, his books include World Citizen at Home in Paris (2018), Hello, I Love You (1974) and Thanks for Coming! (1984). Under his Handshake Editions and other home-based imprints, he published several titles, including his own Everything Is! (1980) and Workers of the World, Unite and Stop Working! (1978).
Nick Barley, director of the Edinburgh international Book Festival, told the Edinburgh Reporter: "Jim was a true trailblazer of the literary, festival and arts worlds…. What we will miss most about Jim is his warm and endearing nature, and his enthusiasm and love for people, conversation and creativity in all its forms. Always a friend before he even knew your name. His was truly a life well lived."