The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap: A Memoir of Friendship, Community, and the Uncommon Pleasure of a Good Book (Platinum Nonfiction)

by Wendy Welch

Wendy Welch and her husband had always dreamed of owning a bookstore. When the opportunity to escape a toxic work environment and run to a struggling Virginia coal mining town presented itself, they took it. And took the plunge into starting their dream as well. They chose to ignore the "death of the book," the closing of bookstores across the nation, and the difficult economic environment, and six years later they have carved a bookstore - and a life - out of an Appalachian mountain community. A story of beating bad odds with grace, ingenuity, good books, and single malt, this memoir chronicles two bibliophiles discovering unlikely ways in which daily living and literature intertwine. Their customers - "Bob the Mad Irishman," "Wee Willie," and "The Lady Who Liked Romances," to name a few - come to the shop looking for the kind of interactive wisdom kindles don't spark, and they find friendship, community, and the uncommon pleasure of a good book in good company. "The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap" will make you want to run to the local bookstore, and curl up in an armchair with a treasure in bound pages.

• ISBN10: 1250010632
• ISBN13: 9781250010636
• Publish Date: 2 October 2012
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Out of Print: 19 January 2017
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: St Martin's Press
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 304
• Language: English

Reviews

[MurderByDeath]

So here's a deep, dark secret:  I would love to own a bookstore someday.   

I have this bookstore planned out in my mind almost to the last detail, although I sometimes fluctuate between whether to go all-inclusive or specialise in mystery fiction and also between all new books or a combination new/used.   

All of this to say that when Nothing Better than a Good Book mentioned this memoir of a couple starting a used bookstore in a small Virginia town, I had to go out and immediately order it.  This was a great opportunity to read about someone else's experience trying to do the same thing I daydream about doing myself someday.   

I found a lot of good stuff in here.  A lot of things I knew, being the child of a shop (flower) owner and the wife of a business owner, but a lot of stuff too that I never took into account, like the amount of emotional baggage that can often accompany a crateful of used books or just how much a bookshop can become a community center.   

There's also a fair amount of philosophising most of which was interesting and some of it a little bit defensive but all of it mostly spot-on.  Most of her defensiveness comes up when talking about ebooks and really, any bookseller would get defensive on this topic because people insist on viewing 'ebooks vs. paper' as a competition instead of what it is: a choice, an option.  I understand where she's coming from, but she protested just a bit too much.   

This is solidly a memoir about starting a bookshop and it's on the meatier side of the spectrum; it wasn't a slog at all but it wasn't a quick read either.  I had sort of expected her to veer off topic once in awhile but the focus remained tightly on starting the bookshop and the first five years of keeping it running.  I found it highly informative and interesting.  Now if I can just get my husband to read it....