Staff Shelf: Mary

Mary Andersson
Mary

I love it where I’m so immersed in a book I’m not conscious of the world around me. It happens all the time!

What did you like to read when you were young? 

As a child, I was reading Nancy Drewv at 7 years old and then I started with British authors (The Borrowers by Mary Norton, The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett, The Story of the Amulet by E. Nesbit) and the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Edward Eager, Lloyd Alexander, Madeleine L’Engle and many others. By 12, I was reading Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell and Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, along with authors Gwen Bristow, Ursula LeGuin, and Georgette Heyer. I’ve always been a sucker for happy endings; it can be any genre (except horror [shudder]), but it has to end happily! 

What’s the first book you remember? 

The first book I remember being read to me was, I think, The Big Snow. I can’t remember the author, but my family loathed this book because I insisted it be read every day, and because I had it memorized, I would shout at them if they deviated by so much as a word. The first book I remember reading on my own was The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton, in First Grade. I remember it vividly, because when I got to the last page, I threw up on it, and had to be taken home. 

Where is your favorite spot to read? 

EVERY spot is a favorite spot to read! Outside in the sun, on the sofa in the rain, in the car when not driving, on a plane, on a boat, or a train – just like green eggs and ham. Every place is a favorite spot for reading to me. 

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