How long have you worked at Lemuria? Four weeks.
What do you do at Lemuria? I’m very much still getting to know the store and my place in it. I just took on the science/sports/nature section, and I am really excited about it. I studied environmental and nature writing in college, and I’m a huge tennis fan!
Talk to us what you’re reading right now. I just started Garth Risk Hallberg’s debut novel City on Fire, and I can tell I have my hands full with this one. Chapters are from the points of view of a substantial list of main characters living in New York City in the 70s. At 900+ pages, this one will take some time, but long books are my favorite!
What’s currently on your bedside table (book purgatory)? Tolstoy’s The Gospel in Brief. It’s literally a rewriting of the four gospels as Tolstoy sees fit (with some not-so-minor changes). Like the Bible, it’s best digested in small pieces over a long period of time.
How many books do you usually read at a time? Occasionally as many as three, but I have a pretty obsessive personality, so if I’m really liking a particular book, I won’t pick up anything else until I finish it.
I know it’s difficult, but give us your current top five books. I’m all about ranking favorites. 1) Blindness by Jose Saramago, 2) Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, 3) Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, 4) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling, and 5) A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin
Any particular genre that you’re especially in love with? I love classics. These books have stood the test of time and continue to appeal to future generations for a reason. I like to imagine myself in these past settings, even if I am just a casual passerby entering the narrator’s line of vision for a moment.
What did you do before you worked at Lemuria? Everything from making lattes in an Oxford coffee shop to working on a sustainable pig farm in Como, Mississippi. Most recently I painted houses in Nashville over the summer.
Why do you like working at Lemuria? It’s such a stimulating environment intellectually. Every day I am flipping through new books that we get in and listening to coworkers and customers talk about books that they’re reading. The only downside is that my reading list is starting to become overwhelmingly long.
If we could have any living author visit the store and do a reading, who would you want to come? Toni Morrison. I’ve watched her read and deliver speeches on YouTube. Her voice and her presence are absolutely enthralling, and her representation of what it means to be black in America could not be more important right now.
If Lemuria could have ANY pet (mythical or real), what do you think it should be? I’ve been saying that we need a cat since I first started. Cats seem to embody the lazy elegance of a bookstore like Lemuria, and if you’ve never read a book with a cat sleeping next to you, you don’t know what you’re missing.
If you had the ability to teleport, where would you go first? Teleportation: easily the most functional superpower. I’d go to Paris. I’ve only been once, and it was as alluring as I ever imagined. It’s no surprise why so many authors have called such a beautiful and historically rich city home.
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