Category: Opinion

The Booktimist Guide to Independent Bookstore Shopping During the Holiday Rush

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By Mo Daviau

This past fall, the bookstore in Portland, Oregon, where I work didn’t hire any new staff. We usually hire new folks in the fall for the holiday rush, but this year, we didn’t. Maybe that has something to do with the economy, or maybe it’s because people like working at the bookstore and don’t want to leave. Last year, when we had three brand-new booksellers (who are still with us) to train, I put my dormant improvisational comedy skills to use by pretending to be a badly behaved customer, so that our new hires could learn how to handle less-than-optimal interactions:Read More »

Matthew Ferrence and the cover of his book "I Hate it Here, Please Vote For Me" (WVU Press, August 1, 2024).

“Never give up our goodness”: Matthew Ferrence on violence and American politics

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July 13’s assassination attempt in Butler, PA, claimed the life of an innocent bystander who died protecting his family and wounded two others in addition to former president Trump. This tragic and shocking event occurred just 110 miles from our offices here in north central West Virginia, and 70 miles from that of Matthew Ferrence, who teaches at nearby Allegheny College in Meadville, PA. In a spirit of reflection and dialog, and with the utmost respect for those whose lives will be forever changed by this tragedy, we offer chapter seven, “Violence,” from Matt’s forthcoming book, I Hate it Here, Please Vote For Me: Essays on Rural Political Decay (August 1, 2024).

I.

I am in high school. It is May, a blessed half day. My friends and I sit at a pizza joint for lunch. We are band kids and swimmers, good students. Seniors.

Another group sits behind us, underclassmen, football jocks. Among them is a class clown who deploys the pull-out–the-chair trick on a backup linebacker. The linebacker falls on his ass, which we don’t see. His drink spills on top of him, which we also don’t see.

But we hear the laughter, turn to view the linebacker haul himself from the ground. The class clown can’t hold back. This is all just so flat out hilarious. The air shifts. The linebacker coldcocks the class clown, who collapses in a heap.

The shock of silence. The aversions of gazes. My friend Andy standing beside me.

“That’s not right,” he says. And the linebacker threatens him.

And Andy again, “That’s not right.”

Things settle. No more punches are thrown. The class clown fetches the linebacker a new drink. Andy sits back down, mutters that none of us stood with him, which is true.Read More »

Portrait of Sol Gittleman with the cover of his book An Accidental Triumph

“Americans have become addicted to rankings.” An excerpt from Sol Gittleman’s new book

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Our distribution partner Vesto Books published their first book earlier this month: Sol Gittleman’s An Accidental Triumph: The Improbable History of American Higher Education. An Accidental Triumph tells the engaging story of how American higher education evolved from a patchwork of seminaries in the early nineteenth century into the world’s leader in research by the middle of the twentieth. Gittleman – professor emeritus at Tufts University who served as the provost from 1981-2002 – writes with authority, frankness, and unfailing wry good humor.

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Local control, global perspective: Moving beyond coal and creating new jobs

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Musicians from Appalachia and Wales at the BBC Radio Wales studio.

Tom Hansell’s book After Coal: Stories of Survival in Appalachia and Wales will be published by WVU Press on November 1. In this opinion piece drawn from his research for the book, Hansell reacts to President Trump’s plan to eliminate the Clean Power Plan, and argues that Appalachia can, drawing on lessons from other parts of the world, work toward a post-coal future.

Last week President Trump traveled to West Virginia to announce his intention to scrap the Clean Power Plan, sounding a death knell for federal regulations on carbon emissions. While it’s undeniable that environmental regulations have a negative impact on coal jobs, the President ignores the fact that in states like West Virginia, coal and natural resources comprise only 3 percent of the state economy, according to a recent West Virginia College of Business report.Read More »