Reader Advisory - Thoughts on Reading

Betty Rosenberg is an idol of mine. She was not a First Lady or an inventor. She was a wickedly clever librarian employed by UCLA who had a shock of white hair and chain smoked cigarettes. Her written words always have a ring of reverent wisdom and truth and my favorite Rosenberg quote is: "Never apologize for your reading tastes".

I agree wholeheartedly with that quote and believed in its meaning before I heard about it from Betty. I grew up in a family that loved to read, but every single one of us had an entirely different taste. My Mother is a fervent reader and can always be found reading romance novels, anything about UFOs, and Soap Opera Digest. As if to prove how much my Father loves reading he built in magazine/book racks into the toilet paper dispensers at our house so he could keep his Science Fiction novels near. My Grandfather was more of a literary reader and taught me appreciation of Shakespeare, Steinbeck, and the beauty of poetry. The point being....each one of these people loved to read something different. When it comes to reading for enjoyment I believe that UFOs are just as important as Steinbeck. Read what you love and sometimes try reading what other people love.

With that in mind I would like to provide some reader advisory tools for some genres that don't get as much appreciation as they should. Every month I will try to provide some reader advisory tools for a specific genre. So look for that blog post titles with "Reader Advisory". Our first blog will come next week. If you have any suggestions please comment! Thank you!