Nancy Pearl

I want to apologize for not having anything to post for awhile. I bought a Nook a couple of weeks ago and started doing something that is a big no-no for me (I started several books at once). In playing with the Nook, I ended up trying to read/listen to multiple stories. I am listening to The Onion Girl, reading Confessions of a Cleaning Lady and patiently trying not to start listening to Abarat (a different sort of listening files than The Onion Girl). Sadly none of them are short. I returned a pile of books to the library unread because I knew I wasn't going to make time for them right now. I love the new toy and it will difficult not to overwhelm myself and the device as I get into the grove. I downloaded The Onion Girl and Abarat just to see how to download audio books and what formats I can listen to (and how to load them onto the nook). Fortunately, I haven't upgraded my memory yet so I could only get one audio book on the Nook at a time(I worry about overloading my memory).
Because of this, I am behind in reading. I don't mind audio books but they read much slower than I normally read and I get impatient. This is a great way to get through a book I really want to read but can't seem to get into. The bad thing is I really want to get absorbed into The Onion Girl and find myself tuning everyone else out.
Anyway, so I thought I would share something reading related but not about a book. Last night, I had the privilege of hearing Nancy Pearl speak as part of International Library Week. For the last couple of weeks, I had been patiently waiting for her to come to Pullman. Every time I thought about her visit, I imagined those girls from the 60's screaming and fainting because the Beatles were in town. That's how I felt, I wanted her to sign my chest - I was so excited. Okay maybe that was an exaggeration but I was still quite excited. When I mentioned her, most people replied with "Who?" and a puzzled expression. I understand that I am a huge book nerd but how could they not know Nancy Pearl (do you know?). Nancy Pearl is the most famous librarian in history (so I hear). She's the only librarian to have her own action figure. She is, also, the author of Booklust.
For me, Nancy Pearl represents so much more. She shows the world how cool librarian's really can be. She starts dialogues about books.
What I didn't know was that she lives in my state (in the Seattle area) and she talks about books on NPR. How cool is that?
I would love to spend all my time talking about books. I love books and what Nancy Pearl does is what I want to do. More than that, Nancy is a cool person. She was friendly and great to listen to. She talked about some books she recommends. I can't say that she and I have the same taste in books but that doesn't mean she is any less cool. The great thing about someone having a different taste is you find things you never would have found otherwise.
She had great advice - give a book 50 pages (that is until you turn 51 and then subtract your age from 100 and that's the number of pages you should give) and if it still doesn't grab you then stop reading the book. She also said if all you care about is who the murder is or who married who - read the end of the book. Life is too short and the world of books is too large to waste time on a book you don't care about. I love that permission (just recently I was looking through some reviews I had written and I loved every book. I realized the reason I don't have any bad book reviews is that I don't waste my time on a book that doesn't appeal to me.)
I was impressed by the sheer number of people who came to hear her speak. It wasn't the intimate crowd I expected. There was maybe no more than 100 people in the room but it did mean I wasn't going to be getting her attention especially while my teen was certain the event was killing him slowly and my husband kept nodding off.
Nancy Pearl is a great woman and she just accepted my friend request on facebook - I look forward to sharing book stories with her and discovering some rare gems out there in the world of books.