How long have you worked at Lemuria? I started working at Lemuria on June 1 of this year.
What do you do at Lemuria? My primary job right now is to be the Receiver, which is not a job title I usually employ because it makes me sound like I’m part of a Lois Lowry dystopia. I’m basically the air traffic controller of books—I make sure that we get shipped all the books we order, run the first level of quality control to make sure they’re not damaged, check them into the inventory, and help make sure they get to where they need to go.
Talk to us what you’re reading right now. I’m about eight chapters into Garth Risk Hallberg’s City on Fire, one of our October FEC picks. I am also about a chapter into John Irving’s Avenue of Mysteries, due out on November 3.
What’s currently on your bedside table (book purgatory)? Well, I don’t really want to make any promises on what books I’m going to read next, because my guiding principle in reading selection is “you just never know.” But I will say that I might have bought the following hardback books: Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff, Let Me Tell You by Shirley Jackson, Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson, and Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie.
Favorite authors? In alphabetical order: Howard Bahr, John Green, John Grisham, Lewis Grizzard, Greg Iles, John Irving, John D. MacDonald, Gabriel García Márquez, William Shakespeare, and Donna Tartt.
Any particular genre that you’re especially in love with? I’ll read almost anything that seems interesting to me, but I do seem to keep reading books about the South (especially Mississippi), character-driven series of mysteries (like Travis McGee, Tres Navarre, Penn Cage), books about football, and books that tend to end up in our culture section. Also, I love a good bildungsroman.
What did you do before you worked at Lemuria? I spent the last four years teaching high school English and history in Flora, MS, and Tensas Parish in Louisiana. I’ve also been employed as a cashier, a substitute teacher, a busboy, a writing tutor, a camp counselor, a babysitter, and a freelance sports reporter.
Why do you like working at Lemuria? The books, of course, which are their own brand of magic, but also the people who care about them. Also, it’s my best point of entry into Jackson, which I love, since I graduated from Belhaven some time ago.
If we could have any living author visit the store and do a reading, who would you want to come? Pretty much anybody on my favorites list (who are alive), but I think maybe John Irving most of all. Of all my favorite authors, he’s the one I’ve read most extensively.
If Lemuria could have ANY pet (mythical or real), what do you think it should be? This is the easiest question so far. Lemuria should have a phoenix, like Dumbledore’s pet Fawkes. And it should be green, because those are the best kind.
Comments are closed.