Category Archives: Big Stone Gap

Bits and Pieces – –

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Jack makes his deadline in time for once – –

Just some random stuff about my week –

I finally woke up on Friday morning to no pain in my hip, then Saturday morning as well – so far it’s been six days with no pain. Yesterday I was at my chiropractor Dr Teri and told her the good news, adding “the Ibuprofen seems to have really helped”. “Yes” she said “maybe my adjustments did too”. Sometimes it’s just too easy to offend people unthinkingly – write one hundred times – I must think before – – –

A good few years ago I wanted a ‘parlor guitar’ so, when I flew anywhere I could put it in the overhead bin (having heard of and witnessed terrible things with checked instruments). I found a guy on-line who was in California and specialized in finding them in auctions and house clearances. A few weeks later I was the proud owner of a 1906 Lyon and Healy Lakeside. It was gorgeous, with a real punchy sound and is the only guitar I’ve ever seen with an oak back and sides. Sadly it deteriorated rather quickly until it became just a decoration in the bookstore. But it’s just been completely rebuilt by an expert luthier in Nashville and I’ll have it back next week!

I have a Martin D35 I hardly ever play so that will be sold to pay for the work on the Lakeside – – –

I’ve always had a strange attitude to jobs and tasks and will throw myself into some while pushing others to the back of the line. This week sees two of the pushed back ones finally struggling to the front. I got four grant applications for our Celtic festival written and sent off and tomorrow will see the start of our long overdue bookstore deep-clean. That will involve boxing up lots of books, then removing bookshelves from the walls and stacking them (and the boxes of books) out of the way. Then removing the quarter beads round the edge of the floor. Finally, the actual deep clean right into all the corners before replacing everything again!

Regular readers of this blog will know that Wendy is away from home for three months and at a goodly distance from here. This will be the longest time we’ve been apart in the almost twenty years we’ve been married and it’s a very strange experience for me. Some couples, I’m sure, have this kind of separation regularly and we’ve had shorter spells apart in the past, but this is different. We talk every day on the phone and message back and forwards on emails and messages, but it’s not the same as her actually being here. On the other hand, our terrier Bert and our bookstore cat Owen are in seventh heaven as they spread out over the bed every night – – –

Janelle Bailey’s Monday Book

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518IrDgn2hLAs an English teacher for 25 years, I assigned a lot of reading to a lot of kids! One of them from a few years back recently messaged me on Goodreads to start a conversation about her own reading and mine; she also made a recommendation to me of something she’d really enjoyed. I saw it as not only fair but wonderful, to have a former student “assign” me some reading.
The Marsh King’s Daughter by Karen Dionne was the book she recommended, and I am not disappointed to have taken her up on it, even though Lee Child’s cover blurb of “sensationally good psychological suspense” may have made me less likely, rather than more, to pick it up on my own.
The main character, Helena, is the product of an unusual–criminal, even–pairing. Her father kidnapped her mother at age 14 and literally “took” her for his wife; they lived together in seclusion in the northern woods of the UP (that’s the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, north of Wisconsin) and had then raised Helena there. His parenting practices are extremely questionable, yet Helena sure has little for comparison, given the circumstances. Her mother is not a lot better at it, given her young age, inexperience, and limitations placed on her by her “husband” and their lifestyle.
The novel begins, though, many years later, when Helena’s father escapes from prison. And oh, what tangled ways it moves from there, both in the current search as well as the revealing of the back story of Helena’s childhood and upbringing, chapter by chapter working through both time periods and also braiding in allusive excerpts to Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale by the same title.
While some elements are completely dark and violent, others are homey, even–such as how Helena makes her living (I’ll let you learn for yourself by reading the book), and it doesn’t dwell but moves; it’s got a good share of hope and forgiveness and light.
Whether you are one who’d grab the first thriller you saw or one who would not…possibly at all, I think you’ll find the good writing and great storytelling here to be well worth your reading time.