Reading Profile

A friend once called me a “binge reader.” The combination of work, school, parenthood, and (if I’m being honest) obsessing over baseball makes for limited reading time. But when I do read…I read. And read. And read. When I start a book, I devour it. And then I usually go straight into another book. For example, last semester I didn’t read very much. It felt like there just wasn’t any time. But when the holidays came – when school was finished and the library slowed down and family visited (and distracted my daughters) – I read several books. Whole days would go by and I spent them entirely with my nose in a book. It was great!

I read a little bit of everything. My go-to genres are, more often than not, suspense and thriller. Easy reads. Escapist. I like a good mystery and an occasional sci-fi novel, too. I read a lot of literary fiction but those are a little harder to commit too. However, when I do commit I usually love them and wish I read more. I always have at least one non-fiction baseball book going as well. I like to joke that I have the largest personal baseball book collection in St. Joseph County, though it might not be a joke! I also read a ton of children’s fiction. I use my daughters as an excuse but the truth is that I just really like children’s fiction. We are always reading a book out loud as a family. (Right now we are reading The Girl Who Drank the Moon and it is phenomenal!) But it’s not uncommon for us to have three or four books going at the same time. Plus, we read a ton of picture books and first chapter books.

I serve on my library’s Reader’s Advisory Committee and I really love it. We develop programs for both staff to help with reader’s advisory services and we provide RA assistance for our patrons. It’s absolutely helped me sharpen my own RA skills plus I’ve found so many great books by trying to help other people find books to read. In fact, my “to read” list is absurdly long. I need to get reading!

Some lists for you:

Favorite all-time books (in no particular order):

Jurassic Park – Michael Crichton

The Alienist – Caleb Carr

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay – Michael Chabon

The Harry Potter series – JK Rowling

The Lord of the Rings series – JRR Tolkien

Favorite all-time baseball books (in no particular order):

The Soul of Baseball – Joe Posnanski

Sandy Koufax – Jane Leavy

Moneyball – Michael Lewis

The New Bill James Historical Abstract – Bill James

Summer of ’49 – David Halberstam