The independant bookstore that could

There's an independant bookstore in a little town in Ohio that you really should know about: Loganberry Books. Check out their website here, as there are many wonderful things to explore. But the feature that Loganberry Books offers that just kills me is this: Stump the Bookseller.

Did you read a certain book as a child that you've thought about ever since? Perhaps the cover illustration, or a certain turn of phrase, or the killer plot line. But, being a kid, you didn't take note of the title or author. You didn't yet know how much this book would grow to mean to you. You didn't yet know that a scene from this book would be one of the images that comes to you in those few minutes before you fall to sleep at night. But you have no idea what book it was.

Enter Harriet Logan. As the proprieter of her bookstore, over the years she was on the receiving end of many of these kinds of quieries: "um, I don't know the author, title, or when it was published, but it was a wonderful book and I could describe the cover to you...." Anyway, she could often solve these mysteries, but sometimes could not, and she decided to give over the unsolved mysteries to the internet. Stump the Bookseller was born. You go to the website, type in your description of your mystery book for a nominal fee of 2 bucks, and tons of other devoted Stumpers will attempt to solve it for you. Lots and lots and lots of mysteries have been solved in this manner, which makes for good and touching reading--go see for yourself.

A side note: my own mystery book has now been archived, as no one was able to solve it for me. But please don't let this dissuade you. In fact, dear readers, here's mine--perhaps one of you knows the answer!

"Old couple spruces up house for sale. Children’s book, early 70’s at the latest, possibly much earlier. An old man and woman live in an old, tumble-down shack. They want to sell it and move somewhere nicer, but no one wants to buy it. They decide to paint it, then plant flowers, then do another and another improvement….at the end of the book they like their spruced up house so much that they want to live there after all."