How long have you worked at Lemuria? I have been a Lemurian for a bit over three months.
What do you do at Lemuria? I am a certified book therapist. I’ve got all the recommendations you may be needing. My ambition is to be able to put a book in your hands that could turn sadness into serendipity; to give you a book that will turn serendipity into stark consciousness; or to give you that book to turn too much consciousness into surreal fantasy.
What are you reading now? Presently, I am reading a couple of books, but the I’m the most excited about my signed copy of Salman Rushdie’s Two Years Eight Months and Twenty Eight Nights. I pulled it straight off the UPS truck the other day, and since then, the novel has been attempting to pull my jaw straight from my face with Rushdie’s legendary myth-making ability.
What’s currently on your bedside table (book purgatory)? I don’t have a bedside table for my books, rather my to-read list is scattered in intimidating stacks about my bed. Often, my “bedside table books” become the very pillow I sleep on. Here’s my short list: The Gun by Fumi Nori Naka Muri, Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson, The Orenda by Joseph Boyden, and City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg.
Favorite authors? I like to keep an open mind about authors and books, so I keep an eye out for new authors, stories, and styles. But if I’m forced: Haruki Murakami, David Mitchell, Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Tom Robbins.
Any particular genre that you’re especially in love with? Just like my taste in music, it is important for me to diversify in my reading. I’m drawn towards the fantasy and sci-fi end of fiction, and I spent most of my teenage years in continuous daydream of Marquez’s magical realism. I studied Political Science and Philosophy at Millsaps, so I’m also an idealistic news junky and enjoy reading theory just as much as the New York Times.
What did you do before you worked at Lemuria? You mean besides laying the groundwork for my imminent world domination scheme? Well, I worked for “The Man” for several years. The Man being large Oil and Gas developers. I was a contract worker that went around the state and did archival and legal research concerning the development of Mississippi’s growing use of horizontal drilling operations.
If you could share lasagna with any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you ask them? Well, I’d say Tom Robbins, but I’m afraid lasagna might give him gas. Maybe J. K. Rowling, so I could tell my friends that I went on a date with her? Hrmm… maybe I’d invite Plato, Cornel West, and William Faulkner over for lasagna and pontificate the correlations between cheese, slavery, poetry and democracy.
Why do you like working at Lemuria? The books, of course. Just being in close proximity to the shelves, intelligent coworkers and the coolest customers in the tri-state area, makes Lemuria an unabashedly inspirational place to be and to work.
If you had the ability to teleport, where would you go first? Teleportation gives me awful nausea. So, I’d prefer to keep my feet solidly on the ground, and allow Lemuria’s shelves to transport me toward infinite surrealities.
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