Tuesday 1 March 2011

Among Our Own Kind... Avid Readers Meeting Other Readers


*Engagement Picture at the West Biloxi Library by JJC* 

        Last night after Ed and I did our weekly grocery run, we had to stop by the neighborhood K-Mart in order for Ed to pick up fishing tackle.  As one can imagined, I was not too excited about fishing accessories so I made my way to the magazine/book display on the other end of the store.  While I took in the small section another reader walked by me.  She circled the shelves several times.  Normally, I keep my mouth shut and do not bother others in their reading choices.  Instead I began a conversation with a fellow reader.  I started by suggesting The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and proceeded to tell her about my favorite used bookstore just up the road.   The conversation was short and pleasant.  After she left me alone to read the back of the Rick Riordan novel The Red Pyramid I began thinking of all the fellow readers I have come in contact with over the years.  

        I was a bit of an anomaly in my family due to the fact that instead of playing sports, I joined clubs and read.  Okay so I read a lot.  My dad used to catch me late at night with a book light.  Anyways, I kept my reading under wraps until I moved schools in sixth grade.  There I found a reading teacher that had a whole library in the back of her tiny classroom.  Then I would check books out of her little library and read during our breaks.  From then on out I met other readers along the way throughout high school and my undergrad.  As a matter of fact, they are some of my best friends.  Then when I moved to Edinburgh I met several special people that read just as much and more than me.  We would spend weekends looking through used bookstores and charity shops.  

      Now my entire twenty-somethings have been promoting reading.  First as a coffee girl and sales associate at Books A Million, and then at circulation at the library.  There, I was looked at as an expert!   I had so many afternoons where people would come in after picking up a book series for the first time loving it, and now seeking an outlet for their newly acquired appetite for books.  (More often than not it was the Twilight series.)  In the past six months, I have shifted my gears from all books all the time to history and genealogy.  So my newest escapades into blogging have been fulfilling for me.  I hope that I am ultimately helping people the same way I did at the circulation desk.  

     So, who was the most special reader you have ever met?   

1 comment:

  1. You and my aunt. She always finds the best books and passes them along to me. She gave me the Tolkien trilogy + the Hobbit for christmas when I was in 7th grade. I have read the entire series 3 times at least (I have read the hobbit 5 times ha). My mom is another one. She started me on my reading journey. She started teaching me to read as soon as I was born and read to me every time she sat down, we read together every night in elementary school and she has given me some of my most favorite books: Little women, and Eat, Pray, Love

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