Two dogs, two cats, two humans and 35,000 books live here!

My father taught me to read at age three, using a paint bucket and big bright plastic letters. He’d say, “Pull out W,” and clutching a smooth, shiny thing bigger than my hand, I hauled it into meaning. From a moment so early it’s barely remembered, I was hooked: letters formed words, words formed ideas, and ideas formed lives.

So it was only natural that I married another bibliophile, and that we talked about starting a bookstore “someday.” We didn’t know we meant it until “someday” became “today.” People talk about following their bliss, but if you’re stubborn, unobservant sods like Jack and me, your bliss pretty much has to beat you over the head until you see things in a new light.

My husband and I were itinerant artists and travelers who slipped weekend performances at folk festivals between our responsible day jobs–he the head of a college department, me running an arts non-profit.  There was a game Jack and I often played on those road trips, which went something like this:

“Someday we’ll give up this madness and settle down.”

“And run a nice bookstore.”

“A used bookstore, with a cafe.”

“It will have beautiful hardwood floors that squeak when you walk across them.”

Mile after road-weary mile, we talked back and forth about the used bookstore we would run “someday,” complete with castle-in-the-clouds daydreams of ideal locations. So when the 5,000-square-foot personification of this Sunday pastime appeared without warning, it didn’t so much enter as take over our lives.

That was six years ago, and we’re still here, not just standing, but smiling. And with the advent of a book contract to tell the tale of how we made it work, I launched this blog. In it you will find all things bookish, including  updates on how my current book’s publication is going, and reviews, repair advice and other bibliophilic bits and pieces.

You might want to have a look at the Bookstore and Book pages, just to get a little background. And if you have any questions, thoughts or ideas, it would be lovely to hear from you.

Wendy leading the Study Abroad trip to Scotland, last day at King Arthur's seat, and no dead students!