Easley Library Bookworms discussion
Introductions and group business
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Introduce yourselves!
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As Werner has said, so far I think we all know each other in the real world and the virtual world but I’m hoping that many more will join us. I’ll introduce myself using Werner’s post as a template. I’m Crystal Kieloch and I’ve worked at Bluefield College since the year 2000. Currently, I work in academic support and with the Confident Communicator Writing Program and teach an occasional writing course online or face-to-face. As far as marital status, I am a recent widow and my husband Ron was quite a reader as well. I’ve been on Goodreads since March of 2008. Werner is a trendsetter! I still have my original library card from Princeton Public Library that dates back to my elementary school years. My father and I used to go to the library on a regular basis. He would check out books on the Civil War and I would check out Trixie Belden mysteries, (never got into Nancy Drew) and many other kinds of age appropriate books. In those early years, The Chronicles of Narnia was my favorite series of books and still is.My graduate degree is in Literature and Writing and my thesis was on the feminine spiritual memoir, but I enjoy reading in many, many genres. I love creative non-fiction which includes memoirs, essays, travel writing to name a few. I also love reading both modern and 20th century poetry. And I do enjoy fiction. I’m usually drawn to work that has some element of what I call magical realism. I love many of the YA titles out these days. I enjoyed the Hunger Games series and the Divergent series and plan to begin The Maze Runner series soon. This also helps me make conversation with our college students and my teenager nephew. And certainly love the classics – Jane Eyre is one of my all-time favorite books so the Brontes, Jane Austen and Elizabeth Gaskill are also very enjoyable to me. As you can tell, I could go on and on.
I do love the Book Challenge that Goodreads does every year. It motivates me to read more. Check it out if you want to read more. And I do try to write a review of every book I read – some maybe long (but not as thorough as our erudite Werner) and some may be very short. I love Goodreads far better than Facebook!
A warm welcome to Crystal, and to everyone else who's joined us but hasn't posted here yet. We hope you all will be the first of many!Thanks for the kind words, Crystal! And I'm with you re Facebook (I was on the latter for a couple of years, but I'm not any more). Goodreads is WAY better!
Hello, everyone! Following Werner and Crystal, my name is Paula Beasley. I am one of the librarians at Easley Library. I graduated from Bluefield College many years ago, and had the chance to return as part of the staff and faculty about two years ago. I am so glad I did. The people are so friendly and caring that it is a joy to go to work every day!My MLIS is from the University of South Florida. Over the last few days, while we have had so many inches of snow outside, I have had a number of people ask me why I left Florida. I left to be closer to family in Kentucky, but the truth is, I love the weather changes here in Bluefield. I love the colors in the fall. I love watching East River Mountain turn green in the spring. I love that, in the summer, we can say we live in "Nature's Air-Conditioned City" and be served lemonade by the town if the temperature rises above 90 degrees. And, when the snow covers the mountains (and my driveway) in the winter, the sun usually comes out in a day or two to help me shovel a clear path through the snow for my car. Whatever the weather, this place is beautiful.
I became a librarian because I love to read. I'll read anything that tempts me. I have always enjoyed outlandish science fiction and fantasy, young adult novels, and romances. I've been reading a lot of the YA dystopian novels, recently. Crystal mentioned the Hunger Games, Divergent, and Maze Runner books. I've read all those. I have to admit, I think I need a break from that type, for a little while. Authors are becoming so "realistic" within their post-Apocalyptic worlds that it's a little too depressing. I like to see at least generally happy protagonists at the end of my journey with them, even if the world they know has been destroyed and it's up to them to create their own futures after the devastation.
I hope to talk to more of you, soon. Thanks for joining us in our own new "adventure" on GoodReads.
I am Bre(anna) - pen name Rebecca Marie Lewis. I have just last month borrowed my first book from Easley Library, even though I've been reading its books since I was six. I am a fantasy novelist and have been writing since the age of eleven. I recently finished my second young adult novel in the series Servants of a Savior - a Christian fantasy adventure surrounding a group of kids known as the Warriors who have supernatural abilities. It's packed full of action, blood, humor, and plot twists, throwing a bit of the Arthurian legend into a mosh pit of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, Left Behind, Dragons in our Midst, Superheroes, The Hobbit, and pure twelve-year-old imagination. The third novel is underway and, Lord willing, these books will see the best seller list!
I love to read (at the moment I am thoroughly obsessed with Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan - who is a children's literary genius). I enjoy mythology, Greek and Egyptian to be precise, and random facts about random things like archeology, astronomy, geology, spiders, phobias, animation, socks, chocolate.
I enjoy drawing, eating, reading, eating, writing, eating, playing piano, eating, exploring, eating, sleeping, helping Miss Beasley put books on shelves (pretending I work in the library), talking, singing, swimming, acting, public speaking, making people laugh, and...did I mention eating?
I have four pets, three brothers and a dog. I plan to major in English when I reach college.
My favorite color is sapphire.
Spider-Man rocks.
Bre
Welcome to our group, Bre; we're glad to have you with us. (And I wish you well with your writing!)
Hi, Bre! I think you forgot "making cookies" in your list.
Hi! I am Barbara Gillespie and a little slow adding information about myself. I have been at Easley Library since September of 2013 and really like being a part of the library and the BC community. For many, many years before coming here, I worked in school libraries at all levels from kindergarten through high school. High school was my favorite because of helping with research and working with the high school students. I have been a reader all my life and have said that my love of reading came from my dad, who would read anything--ketchup bottles and cereal boxes :-) My mom is a reader as well, but growing up she was busy being a mom and didn't have much time to read--except to us. I do read a variety of things. I like biographies, fantasy, a little science fiction and period romances. Those are mostly fluff, but quick reads. I also like mystery as well and many of the classics.
Nora Roberts (also writing as J.D. Robb) and Fern Michaels are two of my most favorite contemporary authors. I enjoy having a book in my hands, but also have a Kindle and the kindle app on my tablet and phone. Easy to use when waiting for appointments, etc.
My husband and I enjoy fishing and boating and have a camper and boat on a lake in TN.
I grew up in northeast Ohio, but have been in Virginia for lots of years and this is home now.
Barbara
Glad to have you at BC, Barbara and a pleasure learning more about you.
Hi Everyone! My name is Dr. Donna Hardy Watson, and I'm the Dean of the School of Education, and I love, love, LOVE to read! When I was a little girl in the small little town of Squire, WV, we didn't have a library. But my mother would drive me to Tazewell, Viirgina, just over the state line to go to the library, and I would get 6-8 books at a time! I would make myself a blanket tent on the porch in the summer to hide away and read stories of mysteries and adventures. I still read for enjoyment whenever I get a chance, whether it is an actual book, my Kindle, my Kindle app on my Ipad, or listening to a book on my Ipod. Latest non-school books are: Killer Angels by Michael Sharra (about the battle of Gettysburg), Between, Georgia, by Joshilyn Jackson, and A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy.
Reading really helped keep my mind off the circumstances when my husband became ill with leukemia in 2000 and was in the hospital in Duke for a total of 119 days and died in 2001. I stayed with him all during that time, and they had a paperback library for patients and family members so we could pick out as many as we liked to read at once. During the long hours of waiting or just sitting by him as he slept, I read and read and read.
I like: History, Biography, Mystery, Humor, Cooking Mysteries (Diane Mott Davidson), Family Stories, Inspirational Fiction, Classics, Love Stories, Regional Authors (Jan Karon in North Carolina, Adriana Trigani from Big Stone Gap, Rebecca Ellswick from Grundy, to name a few).
Glad to be a part of a reading group online!
Hi, Donna! We are so glad to have you join us!
Welcome, Donna! If I'd known you were on Goodreads, I'd have invited you earlier; but it's great that you found us.
Cooking Mysteries? Is that a new genre? I can see it now... The Mystery of the Missing Mocha... The Mystery of the Stolen Spatula! The Mystery of the Purloined Tenderloin Steak!!! Ah! These sound so intense! ;) Unless you meant Cooking AND Mysteries, but Cooking Mysteries sound quite interesting.
Cooking Mysteries, Bre. :-)Diane Mott Davidson has such titles as:
Catering to Nobody
Dying for Chocolate
The Cereal Murders
The Last Suppers
And
Killer Pancake
Those sound like sooo much fun!
Cereal murderers...:0 who would murder cinnamon toast crunch! The tragedy! I will have to look those up. :)
Hi Donna!! Welcome to our group. It's great to have you.
Hello, Ben Swingle here. Having recently taken a course in Monsters Literature and Forbidden Knowledge, I thought I might enjoy interacting with some other readers as I seek to increase my book consumption this summer. I fondly remember taking a couple courses at BC before continuing my education at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. My interests lay in the intersection of Counseling Psychology and Theology academically. Practically I'll be pursuing Conflict Management Skills in service of the Church.
Ben, welcome to our group; we're delighted to have you here! (Especially since you're the first new person who's posted an introduction since 2014.) It's great that you've found us, and we hope you'll become an active member here. (On the whole, we tend to be a quiet group, but I'd love to see that change, as hopefully more and more members feel free to share their thoughts, news and reviews, etc.) We also welcome suggestions (see this thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... ).Are you any relation to Aaron Swingle, who's also one of our members? (I seem to remember that you two are brothers, but I'm not 100% sure!)
I'm Werner Lind, and I've been one of the librarians here at BC since 1992. I'm married with three (grown) daughters and four grandkids, and I've been on Goodreads since February 2008. Ever since I was six years old, I've been an avid reader and library user. Besides Library Science, my majors are History and Religion (concentration in Biblical Studies). So I've read a lot in those areas; but nowadays I read more fiction than nonfiction, and more speculative and genre fiction than "mainstream" or "literary" fiction. But I really like the classics!