Nicholas Pashley doesn’t explicitly say what his intention was in writing Notes on a Beermat, but it becomes quickly apparent. This is an exercise in psychology: Pashley is getting in touch with his inner curmudgeon.

Pashley is a bookseller. He’s worked for many years at the University of Toronto Bookstore, where, among other duties, he edits the U of T Bookstore Review. Good booksellers are known to be traditionalists, suspicious of new ways of doing things. Booksellers have also been known to enjoy a pint or three at the local pub. Convenient, since pubs have existed just as long as books, if not longer. At the intersection of these two venerable traditions stands Pashley, grumpily casting his bookseller’s vigilant eye over the state of the modern pub.

Pashley doesn’t like what he sees, or hears, or tastes. Dimmed lights in pubs annoy him (he goes to read), as do pop songs (distracting), young people (they like dimmed lights and pop songs), and mass-produced beers. Pashley reminds one of the crotchety, but lovable, old-timer who can’t adapt to newfangled contrivances like telephones, automobiles, and electricity. His ideal pub, one feels, would resemble a weird sort of graveyard: lit by very bright torches, dead silent, and peopled exclusively by other crotchety old folks. What fun! At least they would serve good beer.

Pashley does have a point. What he’s railing against, in his somewhat corny way, is disregard for tradition. Guinness Brewery, apparently, ships crated prefab “traditional” Irish pubs worldwide. Pashley writes: “A great pub – like a great book store – should give the impression that all the important decisions are being made on the premises, not by someone in a suit miles away.” Such curmudgeonly wisdom prevails in Notes, showing that the beerhall and the bookstore have much in common.