“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world”—J.R.R. Tolkien Cozy fantasy feels like the embodiment of this Tolkien quote. Books that warm and cheer us can be as valuable as ones that excite and terrify (not a surprising sentiment…
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To be totally transparent, I do not to CrossFit. I am not a very athletic person. I grew up watching sports more in the X-Game field. Since I have moved to Gillette and started lifting weights, I use that term loosely. I enjoy resistance training! I quickly became fascinated watching…
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Then: Growing up in rural Alabama in the 1970s I had a much different relationship with books and libraries than most people who pursue a career as a librarian. In my case the lack of a library and the love of reading led me to a career in libraries. My family didn’t live in…
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Then I love reading like I love breathing air. When you love something that much, you engage with it any way that you can. Reading has always been a concrete absolute in my life. I credit this to my Mom, who fostered my love of reading to connect with me…
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Raptors are awesome birds! From huge soaring eagles and agile hawks to the mysterious owls, birds of prey have always captivated people. Formerly misunderstood and hunted, raptors are now appreciated for their important roles as apex predators in their environment, as well as for their beauty and power. Watching and…
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Then: One of my first recollections of reading as a kid was in 2nd grade when I discovered The Bailey School Kids, Goosebumps, and the Chip Hilton sports series. I enjoyed all of these books so much that I won an AR reading contest at my elementary school and was…
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The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky This instant classic by the world renowned author of existential thought, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, is for anyone who enjoys philosophy, a dive into (at least, an attempt at) understanding the complex nature of the human psyche, and an all-time classic mystery novel. Set in a…
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The Night We Met is messy in the best possible way-the kind of messy that feels real, complicated and completely human. Abby Jimenez has a way of writing relationships that pull you in fast and don’t let go and this one had me hooked from the start. Chris had my…
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I grew up poor in a small, dusty town in New Mexico. My mother had always struggled with reading comprehension, and she made it a priority to develop a love of reading within me at a young age. She accidentally turned me into a voracious reader by letting me loose in a library a few too many times. With no cable television at home, I would browse an old set of encyclopedias and read about…
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A Knife Between Chapters is one of our staff readers, moving quietly through pages where motives matter, alibis unravel, and someone almost always ends up dead. Her reading life leans delightfully murdery, with psychological thrillers, mysteries, and crime at the core, softened now and then by a literary turn of…