Philip Joseph, who co-founded U.K. bookshop chain Books Etc. with his son, Richard Joseph, has died, the Bookseller reported. He was 94. In 1951, Joseph founded the Exclusive Books chain in South Africa, which now includes about 50 bookshops. After relocating to the U.K., he then founded Books Etc. with his son in 1981, opening more than 40 stores before selling the company to Borders in 1997.
"I'm not a literary person; I wish I was," he told the Bookseller in a 2000 interview. "But if a bookshop, or any shop, is not run on sound business principles, it is doomed to fail. I became knowledgeable about books and the whole process of publishing and bookselling because I had to. It's not that difficult to pick up. But just because someone comes to you with a profound knowledge of 19th-century literature, that doesn't make them a good bookseller."
