NL: Can you share a bio with us?
EOB: I am a former middle school classroom teacher for whom libraries were always a home away from home.
NL: What are you currently reading? Do you like it?
EOB: I am nearly finished with James McBride’s The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.
It took a few chapters to get my full attention, but then I didn’t want to stop reading about the goings on of the Chicken Hill community and the characters who lived in it.
NL: If you could have any author speak at Nyack Library, who would it be and why?
EOB: My favorite genre is historical fiction and Michael Crummey wrote two books set in Newfoundland, Sweetland and The Innocents that are filled with abandonment, isolation, and desolation. I would love to hear him speak about the people who inspired him and the resourceful and courageous way they lived.
NL: What books are on your night stand?
EOB: I have made a concerted effort to read banned books this year and two of them, Night and Maus are currently on my nightstand. Neither of them is probably good to read before bed, but nighttime is when I do most of my reading.
NL: Are there any books that you feel are overrated?
EOB: I know most people won’t agree with me, but I had to work to complete the Neapolitan series by Elena Ferrante. The relationships were too difficult to maintain and find happiness in, and I could not understand why they continued for three books. I could also not understand why I read all of them!
NL: Do you have a literary “guilty pleasure”?
EOB: My guilty pleasure would be the numbered books of Janet Evanovich. The sophomoric humor in those books got me laughing aloud during a difficult time and for that, I will always be grateful and I will read them all.
NL: Would you ever organize your books by color? Yea or Nay?
EOB: Oh, no!
NL: What do you plan to read next?
EOB: The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell.
NL: What’s the first book that you remember reading?
EOB: I remember reading The Secret Garden when I was about eight. It remained a favorite book for several years.
NL: What’s your least favorite book?
EOB: My least favorite book recently has been Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarsczuk.