For those in dismay at the prospect of wet, dark evenings and social isolation this fall, a luxury desert island resort in the Maldives is looking for a live-in bookseller to start working next month.
The eco-resort of Soneva Fushi, on Kunfunadhoo Island in the Maldives, has played host to three “barefoot booksellers” since 2018: The most recent occupant, Chrissy Ryan, left in April as the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world.
TOURISM REOPENING
With the Maldives now reopening to international tourists, Soneva Fushi is in need of a bookseller to run a small shop on the private island, with the working contract set to run from the end of next month until April next year.
“The Maldives is pretty much COVID-free and the resort that we operate with has its own medical center, and strict and rigorous testing procedures, so it’s a very safe place to be,”said Philip Blackwell, the chief executive of Ultimate Library, which runs the bookshop and provides library collections for holiday destinations around the world.
“They’re expecting people to come, and we are minded to take the punt to reopen our bookshop and see what passing trade comes our way,” he added.
When the position of “barefoot bookseller” was previously advertised, Blackwell received thousands of applications from people desperate to escape the grind of daily life.
“Last time, we had everybody from the White House press corps to film directors, lawyers, IT managers, beach poets, retired librarians,” said Blackwell, who is a member of the British family of booksellers that sold their chain in 2006.
“What works best is somebody with bookselling experience. They’ve got to love people and selling books, and they’ve got to know about books,” Blackwell said.
ADVENTURER NEEDED
“They’ve also got to be adventurous because this is not for somebody to sit in a bookshop eight hours a day, this is for people to get out there, engage with the guests and help people on their reading journey, because reading for pleasure is a muscle that, like any other muscle in the body, is traditionally underused until people go on holiday,” Blackwell added.
The job application calls for “excellent written and verbal English skills; a lively tone of voice to write entertaining blogs and newsletters that capture the exhilarating life of a desert island bookseller; and the skills to host workshops and events.”
Job applicants would also need “a can-do attitude with a strong understanding of working independently,” the job description says.
TRAINING FIRST
Whoever is selected is to undergo job training remotely before flying to the Maldives.
“They’ll have sand between their toes rather than slush between their feet, and the chance to really test themselves,” Blackwell said.
Writing on the Barefoot Bookseller blog, Ryan said that her time in the Maldives had been “a whirlwind of adventure where I have developed new passions, discovered new skills and built new friendships.”
“I’ve moved 6,000 miles [9,656km] across the planet, left my friends and family behind me and found a whole new community on a small island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. I’ve tested my boundaries and rediscovered my sense of self,” Ryan wrote.
PARLIAMENT CHAOS: Police forcibly removed Brazilian Deputy Glauber Braga after he called the legislation part of a ‘coup offensive’ and occupied the speaker’s chair Brazil’s lower house of Congress early yesterday approved a bill that could slash former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence for plotting a coup, after efforts by a lawmaker to disrupt the proceedings sparked chaos in parliament. Bolsonaro has been serving a 27-year term since last month after his conviction for a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 election. Lawmakers had been discussing a bill that would significantly reduce sentences for several crimes, including attempting a coup d’etat — opening up the prospect that Bolsonaro, 70, could have his sentence cut to
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
A passerby could hear the cacophony from miles away in the Argentine capital, the unmistakable sound of 2,397 dogs barking — and breaking the unofficial world record for the largest-ever gathering of golden retrievers. Excitement pulsed through Bosques de Palermo, a sprawling park in Buenos Aires, as golden retriever-owners from all over Argentina transformed the park’s grassy expanse into a sea of bright yellow fur. Dog owners of all ages, their clothes covered in dog hair and stained with slobber, plopped down on picnic blankets with their beloved goldens to take in the surreal sight of so many other, exceptionally similar-looking ones.
‘UNWAVERING ALLIANCE’: The US Department of State said that China’s actions during military drills with Russia were not conducive to regional peace and stability The US on Tuesday criticized China over alleged radar deployments against Japanese military aircraft during a training exercise last week, while Tokyo and Seoul yesterday scrambled jets after Chinese and Russian military aircraft conducted joint patrols near the two countries. The incidents came after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi triggered a dispute with Beijing last month with her remarks on how Tokyo might react to a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan. “China’s actions are not conducive to regional peace and stability,” a US Department of State spokesperson said late on Tuesday, referring to the radar incident. “The US-Japan alliance is stronger and more
RSS