Libraries, Bookstores and Cats

The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap: A Memoir of Friendship, Community, and the Uncommon Pleasure of a Good Book by Wendy Welch

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Prepare yourself to be charmed by "The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap". I was charmed to win this book from Goodreads (thank you GR!). 

If you love books, old houses, cats, and did I say books, you will enjoy this story about Wendy and her husband Jack. And, just a disclaimer here, there is a cat in the book, but it really won't be mentioned in this review.

Wendy and Jack had a dream of opening a bookstore . . . some day. Little did they know that some day would sneak up on them with the spur of the moment purchase of an Edwardian home in Big Stone Gap, Virginia. Wendy and Jack put their hearts and souls into turning their new home into, well a home, and a bookstore. You will laugh with them, and shake their head with them as they make their dream become a reality. In fact, you will shake your head quite a bit, because in a sense their dream became a reality in spite of themselves. It goes to show that heart and determination can lead to success, even without a business plan.

This is what I love about this story. Wendy and Jack's love and acceptance of each other, their adaptability to making their dream become reality, their love of books, their belief that a bookstore is not just a bookstore, but a community gathering place. They didn't realize the stories they would gather as they moved forward in their journey, and how the ripple effect of the bookstore would change not just them, but others as well.

More things I love - the fact that they name book titles throughout, so I (and you) can add books to your read list (mine just gets longer and longer). The lovely quotes at the beginning of each chapter. The description of the bookstore, which sounds a lot like home. I also love the little stories they tell about "book reunions", the moment a browser runs across that great book they read, or had read to them, in their childhood.

The following excerpt will give you an idea of Wendy's love for books:

"I remember as a very young child being warned that libraries and bookstores were quiet places where noise wasn't allowed. Here was yet another thing that adults had gotten wrong, for these book houses pulsed with sounds; they just weren't noisy. The books hummed. The collective noise they made was like riding on a large boat where the motor's steady hum and tickle vibrated below one's sneakers, ignoble until you listened, then omnipresent and relentless, the sound that carried you forward. Each book brimmed with noises it wanted to make inside your head the moment you opened it; only the shut covers prevented it from shouting ideas, impulses, proverbs and plots into that sterile silence. What an enigma (a word my young self wouldn't know for years) that such a false sense of quietude should be imposed on this obviously noisy place."

I especially like the idea of books shouting out ideas, a great description of the feeling I get when I walk inside a bookstore, or spy a book on a friend's table or desk. I just have to pick up those books and take a peek inside. Sometimes it's all I can do to prevent myself from walking off with it.

So, lovers of books, pick up this book for a journey through the celebrations and pitfalls of opening your very own bookstore. Enjoy!

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