Author Archives: wendywelch

Bless their Hearts

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Another guest blog from Jack while Wendy is ‘hors de combat’

 

I’ve been thinking about the books I read (yes, I know – I live in a bookstore) and why folk read the kind of books they do. For instance I tend not to read all that much fiction, preferring history and biography. There are exceptions, of course – Ian Rankin for one. He’s famous for a series based around his Inspector Rebus character. The reason I enjoy him is probably pretty obvious to anyone who knows me and the books; both Rankin and Rebus are from West Fife in Scotland, both moved to Edinburgh and the books capture the seedier side of Edinburgh (and West Fife) perfectly. All places I know very well. Throw in references to old friends of mine and he can hardly go wrong (the stories are great too). I knew that Rankin was popular and successful, but I hadn’t realized that he had US editions of his book until I moved over here while half way through the Rebus series.

 

Here’s where it gets weird!

 

You would think that an American edition of a British book would just have the price in dollars instead of pounds – end of story (Ha!). But you’d be wrong because – – – this isn’t a British book; oh no, this is a SCOTTISH book. It’s in a foreign language, so the US publishers paid someone to translate it into proper English! These American editions are completely hilarious. They translate things like ‘city bypass’ to ‘urban freeway’, yet blithely ignore much more problematical things like ‘wee bampot’. Of course no-one in Scotland would say ‘urban freeway’ and most Americans could make a reasonable guess at ‘city bypass’, so I’m left puzzled though amused.

 

All this must have a point, I here you ask –

 

The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap is being translated into a slew of foreign languages, none of which either of us speak (at the last count, Chinese, Korean, Polish and Portuguese). A friend suggested I should translate it into Scots and that suddenly made the connection to the sad saga of Inspector Rebus. How will we know if ‘urban freeway’ has become ‘city bypass’ or ‘insignificant idiot’ has become ‘wee bampot’?

 

Publishers – bless their hearts!

Events, Dear Boy, Events (Harold MacMillan)

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Jack is guest blogging today and tomorrow because Wendy is holed up in our cabin under strict instructions from her agent Pamela to produce another best-seller by Monday.

 

As regular readers will be aware we run lots of events here in the bookstore – writers’ group, yarn spinners, movie night, gourmet night among others. Last night was our monthly discussion group, known as ‘Let’s Talk’ – the brain-child of our good friend and Pastor Tony. He wanted to hold regular non-confrontational discussions of whatever topics folk wanted to suggest and on ‘neutral territory’.

This has become a highlight event and a runaway success and the topics have ranged from the nature of evil to nose-picking in public (this was suggested, with a completely straight face, by our erstwhile shop-sitter Andrew).

Last night our subject was ‘Education’, suggested by Wendy and, in her absence, led off by me. We addressed a range of issues, including ‘what do we mean by education?’, ‘who are the clients that educators are responsible to?’, and ‘what is the role of the state in education?’

So – what were the most significant conclusions we came to?

1)      Learning doesn’t just happen during formal classes and continues your whole life.

2)      Teachers should be of the highest caliber and paid accordingly (interestingly, the highest rated education system in the world is in Finland where all teachers must be educated to Masters level, are well paid and teach small classes. Despite this the cost per student is a third less than the US system.)

3)      The state does have an interest, since it uses tax money to pay for the system, however this often results in simplistic and frequent testing that usually disrupts learning. (Again – in Finland students are only tested once between ages 7 and 16).

Along the way, as usual, we wandered off down fascinating byways and our Moderator Tony had to use his lasso to get us back on the main road.

So – what does ‘Let’s Talk’ signify for me? Actually many things: the place of our bookstore in the community, the proof that learning is a lifelong activity, the ability of a disparate group of folk to discuss often contentious subjects without coming to blows and how, even in a small rural community, weighty subjects can be discussed knowledgeably.

Much thanks to Wes for pulling up the Finnish information on his tablet as the discussion progressed.