Description:
<jats:p>For the first time in Russian literary criticism, the article explores the success phenomenon of Shaun Bythell’s debut book, “The Diary of a Bookseller”. The explanation of enchanting popularity is made through an appeal to the poetics of the work. The author’s original intention, which launched the creative process, is analyzed, attention is drawn to the connection between the Bookstore Diary and the national and European literary tradition – the genres of the physiological essay and production novel. The correspondence of the ideological provisions of the narrative to modern public attitudes is shown: the development of private initiative in entrepreneurship, the cultivation of the image of a free personality in a person. Special attention is paid to the author’s behavior in the text, his assessments and self-esteem, his hidden convergence with the reader’s figure. In addition, the transformation of the book into a modern “literary project” is revealed – a phenomenon associated with filling a certain niche in publishing.</jats:p>