If you want to know more about me, I should probably take you back to where it all began with a few true confessions. First, one of my most vivid childhood memories is when my parents passed down a rule: I was not allowed to sing or read at the dinner table. Apparently, it was more important for me to interact with my family than it was to read just one more page. When they grounded me, it was from reading. This just in, my parents are no fools – they knew what would provide the best disincentive for my misbehaving. During these times of grounding, I would scrawl angry messages about how I had to give up my book when I was right at the good part and how my parental unit was ruining my life. When I wanted to get out of doing the dishes after a particularly trying day (because growing up is hard to do), I’d sneak away and read the book I had stashed between the towels under the bathroom sink. And while most creatures hibernate during the winter, my favorite summer vacation pastime was to hole up in my room, stomach-down on my bed and read book after book.
It’s clear that books and I go way back.
Long before the Harry Potter books taught me the best way to dispose of a bogart, The Monster at the End of the Book showed me that humor dispels the things we fear most.
As a middle-grader, my beloved American Girl books helped me experience the past in a way that stuck with me far more than any history class I’ve ever taken. Pippi Longstocking painted a whimsical picture of a life very different than my own…I may or may not have tested sleeping with my feet on my pillow before deciding that it wasn’t for me.
When I was in high school, Atonement Child made me think by brilliantly assigning a beloved character to a stereotypical political issue. And Little Women gave me an inside look at a family during World War II and made me feel life through the perspectives of each vastly different sister.
As an adult, I worked for over eight years as a marketer at an imprint of a big four publisher, so you can imagine how that expanded my sphere of reading influence. I couldn’t even begin to name all of the books that are currently shaping and sharpening me, but I will say that Daring Greatly and Rising Strong by Brene Brown top the list. And The Language of Flowers. And The Help. And…you get the picture.
My life has been, is being, and will continue to be marked by books. A Bookmarked Life is a way to share the journey with reading friends.
Happy reading,
Amy
A Bookmarked Life 