Category Archives: out of things to read

ARE THESE INTERESTING QUESTIONS?

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Finally, I have done as my wise (and patient) agent Pamela suggested, and written “Questions for book group discussions of The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap.” Since many minds make smooth sentences, if you have any suggestions, please send them along. I’d particularly like to add a couple on bookshop management, if any other store owners out there have ideas. I kinda hit a blank wall, writing stuff that was too esoteric. Thanks!

1. Have you ever tried to fit into a place you weren’t from or familiar with? What did you find were the joys, the barriers, the unexpected curve balls of doing so?

2. Is there a snake pit in your life? Do you agree with Wendy’s assessment that almost all of us face such job situations at some point?

3. Cats: what place do they have in the lives of bookstores? Have you seen the newest cats and fosters at Tales of the Lonesome Pine (online via Wendy’s blog)? What do you think about the overpopulation problem of companion animals in the United States? What responsibilities, if any, do humans have toward animals?

4. Of all the stories in Little Bookstore, the two that seem to resonate most with people are of Wee Willie, and the Kiwanis letter. People run the gamut, don’t they, from being unpleasant to one another, to being generous beyond imagination. Why do you think these two stories have been the most mentioned by readers? Do you have circumstances in your own life where you experienced something similar?

5. Fire victims replacing childhood books is a poignant expression of loss, love, and memory. What do you think this priority says about us as humans?

6. Reading Little Bookstore, do you see places where people misunderstood each other, misrepresented each other, yet overcame these miscommunications to understand each other? Do these moments have echoes in your life?

7. If you could suddenly change your life tomorrow, start a business, leave your residence or job, whatever…would you? If so, what would you do? If not, why not?

8. What’s the difference between luck and learning fast to adapt? Where did you see these differences in how Jack and Wendy survived their inept start at being bookstore owners?

9. Wendy talks a fair bit about happiness and contentment. She quotes several other authors and how they describe happiness. Does happiness disappear when you look it square in the face, or elude us when actively pursued? Is it true, as Garrison Keillor (an author not quoted in the book) says, that the realization of happiness comes moments after whatever has made us happy ends? Or can we recognize contentedness when we have it?

10. Discuss the role independent bookstores play in reading satisfaction. Is the process of acquiring the book part of the story it tells, or is cheap, fast, and easy what we want in our shopping experiences nowadays? Is it worth paying more to visit a real bookstore (and do you really pay more)?

The Monday Book: STORY HOUR by Sarah Henderson Hay

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pig“I told them a thousand times if I told them once:
Stop fooling around, I said, with straw and sticks;
They won’t hold up; you’re taking an awful chance.
Brick is the stuff to build with, solid bricks.
You want to be impractical, go ahead.
But just remember, I told them; wait and see.
You’re making a big mistake. Awright, I said,
But when the wolf comes, don’t come running to me.
The funny thing is, they didn’t. There they sat,
One in his crummy yellow shack, and one
Under his roof of twigs, and the wolf ate
Them, hair and hide. Well, what is done is done.
But I’d been willing to help them, all along,
If only they’d once admitted they were wrong.”

This is from Story Hour, published in 1963 by Sarah Henderson Hay, the most popular and enduring of her six poetry works.

I love fractured fairy tales as much as I hate poetry. (There, now I’ve admitted it. Likely this diminishes me in your eyes, but usually I just don’t get the stuff.) But as my friend Teri can testify from yesterday’s blog, I love fiction that analyzes dysfunction. Hay calls Hansel and Gretel juvenile delinquents; Rapunzel chooses safety over love; the Goose Girl  princess hates court life and longs for the little farm boy back home, “who knew better games to play than Ring around a Rosy.”

Yeah, they’re kinda raw. And beautiful. My all time favorite line about storytelling is from Hay’s interpretation of Jack and the Beanstalk: “Was no one sorry for the murdered giant? How requisite to every fairy tale, a round-eyed listener who asks no questions.”

Hay has a way of revealing troublesome undercurrents, turning the unexplored but-how-did-the-minor-characters-feel moments into startling new ways of seeing. Mother Hubbard, told from the dog’s point of view, is gut-twisting, counterbalanced by the stepmother’s cheery prattle regarding Cinderella.

It used to be hard to find this book, but with reprints appearing across the academic spectrum, this little gem should be fairly easy to lay hands to. I highly recommend doing so.

https://libwebspace.library.cmu.edu/specialcollections/shhay.html has information about Hay’s life and literary collection, if you’re interested.

And although Story Hour is my favorite of her works, she wrote a lot about Christianity, too.

I tracked Him to the mind’s far rim.

The valiant Intellect went forth

To east and west and south and north,

And found no trace of Him.

We walked the world from sun to sun,

Logic and I, with little Faith,

But never came to Nazareth,

Or found the Holy One.

I sought in vain. And finally,

Back to the heart’s small house I crept,

And fell upon my knees, and wept;

And lo! — He came to me!