About
I am a bookseller. I love my job. This is my blog.
A bookavore gobbles books. I am a bookavore. A book glutton. And I enable my addiction by being a bookseller. I used to work at the Moravian Book Shop in Bethlehem, PA as the Assistant Book Buyer. I now work as the manager at WORD, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. I am also the manager and referee to the WORD basketball league. In addition to this blog, I write the Namatechnology column for Shelf Awareness.
This blog is primarily about book news and my thoughts on it, goings-on in my store and other bookstores, and the books I read. I try to blog every book I read, and I’m completely and utterly behind on this endeavor because when it comes right down to it, at the end of the day I prefer to read books rather than write about them. There’s an on-going pile on my bureau called “blog about these,” and every few months I give up and shelve them so that I don’t accidentally tip them and die under the pile. This is why my full-time job is bookseller, not book reviewer.
Also, I tend not to talk about books I didn’t like on the Internet, which means about a third of what I read, I would never admit to in print, since I know all authors have Google alerts and I worry about inadvertently accruing bad karma. I don’t even know why I’m kidding myself that I’ll do it someday. (November 2009 ETA: This is truly never going to happen. I don’t even do a good job of it on my Twitter account anymore, even though that’s why I created that account in the first place. Somehow it all turned into cat pictures and ruminations on jam.)
I primarily read: teen fiction, adult non-fiction, comics (excuse me, graphic novels), some adult fiction when I’m in the mood, picture books, and whatever else looks great. So basically everything. But not really.
“Voracious reader with a certain verbal attitude” comes from a news article from March 2006 that has now disappeared from the internet. It was about a spelling bee between nuns and librarians. The librarians won, of course. And the team leader (whose name I do not know, except that the last name was Brown) described her team as voracious readers with a certain verbal attitude. Which may well be one of the most melodic phrases I have ever heard.
Bookavore 
Your review of Mudbound made me want a steak because it was so meaty. No wonder you never get anything done at work because you’re off reading all these darned books! You are a BookNerd!!
BookNerd I tell you! And furthermore…you misspelled the word “persay” unless you were punning and Sandy should be told you this. And lastly, you are a decorous young person of distinction, and I’m sure your home furnishings reflect this. love love love from that head buyer.
To my very talented niece: I love to read your reviews, and wish that there was someone like you to review kids books. Do you happen to know of anyone, or would you ever consider reviewing them under a separate section of your blog? Just a thought. Many hugs and kisses from all of us!
Hi!
One of my high school students recently forwarded me your blog, which included the wonderful review you did for my novel, The Patron Saint of Butterflies. I just wanted to say thank you for all the generous things you said about the book! It helps so much to have fantastic book people like you out there!!
Cheers!
CG
Yay for the Phantom Tollbooth; it is also one of my favorite novels. 🙂
I really like your blog; very fresh and creative. I look forward to reading more of it soon!
– The Wandering Reader
A friend told me about your blog, and I have to say that I’m hooked!
Your knowledge of and passion for books seeps from every word. It makes for a very enjoyable read.
Oh wow, I am so excited that I found this! I cannot wait to devour this blog of yours. Are you aware that The Phantom Tollbooth is also my very favorite book, and my first copy was read so much that I had to buy another? I got a lovely hardback copy when it was reprinted for its anniversary.
Anyway, I miss you so much, and am going to read this whenever you update! I will try to keep up with your readings, although it is difficult when you have a little one running around. Please come visit me soon, and I will try try try to get to Brooklyn!
Love, Jackie B
hey! you are eating one of my favorite books! I still have my copy from when I was akid and I gave it to my son 🙂 Great book!
Ha! I commented on your newest post randomly, in the midst of trying to find a blog about books. Then I see here that you run WORD, a book store I certainly love and have been to a few times. I live in Greenpoint. Small blogging world.
I love your blog for the little that I’ve read of it.
You should check out my online book club, The List Book Club, since you blog about every book you read. Even if you just summarized what you wrote here, I’d be cool to have more people on post what they’re reading.
Keep up the amazing blogging.