Category Archives: book reviews

Full-Circle Pleasantness

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The day before Thanksgiving, a woman called to ask if we’d be open on Black Friday.

Well, yes. “Oh good,” she said. “I’m from Memphis, and my husband and I will be in Kingsport for Thanksgiving with his parents. And I just read this book, The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap and loved it so I wanted to come up and see the shop. Will the owners be in?”

I laughed and told her that Jack and I would be spending the morning of Black Friday signing books and greeting customers outside Glen Moody’s charming shop “I Love Books” in Kingsport Mall.

“That’s a great store and my in-laws are familiar with it, but we want to come up and see Tales of the Lonesome Pine,” she said, hesitantly.

“You’ll be as welcome as Spring rain,” I replied.

We enjoyed our time at Glen and Deb’s shop in Kingsport–it’s always nice to talk trade with fellow bookslingers–then headed back to home, sweet bookstore. During our chat, Glen said something that stuck with me. “Time was that bookstores as close to each other as yours and mine are would be competitors. But not now. We’re allies.”

Yes, we are.

We’d not been back twenty minutes when the door opened and Debby came in with her mother-in-law. They were delighted to see the bookstore, and Jack was delighted to show them around. Debby had bought my book at Booksellers at Laurelwood, one of our favorite bookshops ever (Hi, Nicole!). There’s just something very full-circle-pleasant about a woman from Memphis making a casual purchase in her hometown bookstore–one that has fought hard to stay independent in its community, I might add–then visiting relatives near our store and driving up to us while we were down in her in-laws’ town, signing at a friend’s bookshop.

Jack and I have much to be thankful for this season, including a circle of new reader and bookslinger friends. Here’s to all the fun, interesting people who read Little Bookstore and searched us out on Facebook to leave nice comments, and to the new friends in the bookslinging world that this week has brought–particularly to Peregrine Books that just opened, and to ReBook out in Utah. We hope your Black Friday has been as fun and filled with full-circle pleasantness.

Wendy will be signing at Fountain Books in Richmond, VA this Monday from noon-2 pm.

A Spy in the House of Books

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by guest blogger Ali Fisher – read on to find out WHO she REALLY is….

The secret’s out. The jig is up. My alias has been compromised. It’s time for me to come clean: there’s a spy in the house of books and I AM THAT SPY. This is my story.

Full disclosure: I work in the Library Marketing Department of Wendy’s publisher. Even fuller disclosure-er: I’m shopsitter Andrew’s aforementioned special lady friend. Since this is a tell-all post I’ll give it to you straight; those connections gave me the in I needed to launch my top secret operation. My mission? To verify the bizarre and outlandish stories from Wendy’s memoir and to–ehem–test the claim that “Virginia is for lovers.”

Hereafter are the declassified findings of my undercover investigation…

Holy crap! Everyone is so welcoming here!

I don’t know how I managed to plan this trip for just the right weekend, but after a few relaxing days touring the countryside, breakfasting at the Mutual, browsing books, and warming my lap with pets of various temperaments, I wrangled an exclusive invite to a shopsitter-going-away/locals-double-birthday/cast-of-Wendy’s-memoir party at the very bookstore under my observation.

I was warned that the evening would be super casual, so I knew I needed to adjust my go-to spy entrance (normally I would parachute onto the roof, remove my gear mid-somersault, dive down the chimney, emerge in sequined evening wear and grab a glass of champagne off of a nearby platter). Therefore, I made a rare and oft-dangerous decision for me–to cook something. Fortunately I had an easy, no-bake ace up my sleeve: Smitten Kitchen’s salted brown butter crispy treats. I didn’t even have to lace them with truth serum to get people to tell me the REAL stories behind the stories.

Not to Be Combined With Salsa

My conclusion: Wendy told it like it is. The characters of Big Stone Gap are every bit as wonderful, welcoming, and slightly strange as she said. You should probably come see for yourself.

As for my field research on the claim that Virginia is for lovers… well now, that’s classified.

Editor’s note: No it isn’t; the earth moved while you were here. :]