The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap

August 13, 2012
In this beguiling, blog-based memoir, a former nonprofit administrator and storyteller chronicles how she and her Scottish, ex-academic husband found themselves in a central Appalachian town of 5,400 mostly known for Adriana Trigiani novels and a seasonal “folk opera” based on Tales of the Lonesome Pine. The couple daydreamed about opening a used bookstore, and when they found a suitable five-bedroom fixer-upper, they bought it, moved upstairs, and got to work. With scant experience, they opened their bookstore amid the deepening recession and traditional publishing’s general decline. Once the initial local curiosity was satisfied and grand opening thrills faded, in dire need of customers and revenue they reached out to a broader customer base through old-fashioned guerrilla marketing and community events on the way to a 38,000-volume inventory. The author chronicles how their customers taught her and her husband about the human element in small business, bookselling, and life itself. The whole narrative exudes enormous charm and the value of dreams and lives truly lived. Agent: Pamela and Louise Malpas, Harold Ober Associates.

May 1, 2012

The bookstore is dead. That's what Welch and her husband kept hearing six years ago when they decided to flee professional dissatisfaction and realize their dream by opening Tales of the Lonesome Pine Used Books in the ground-down Virginia coal-mining town of Big Stone Gap. Here's how they're thriving.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.