Armchair BEA

For those of us who can't afford trips to New York in this economic climate, how fun that some intrepid bloggers have organized an Armchair BEA. I didn't sign up early enough to be assigned a blogger to interview me, so I decided to take the initiative and interview myself!

Tell us a little about yourself...

I went live with my new blog, The Fourth Musketeer, less than two weeks ago. I'm a pretty-much life-long reader (I started before beginning school, according to my mother), and was one of those kids who lived at the library. Back in the '60's and 70's when I was growing up, we didn't have the huge array of kids books that kids have today, plus there was pretty much no such thing as young adult books (at least I had never heard of such a thing!). I was such a bookworm that I remember carting around Gone With the Wind in 4th grade--I had seen the movie and was determined to read the book! Currently I'm in library school, hoping to be a children's librarian. I will be through at the end of 2011--right now no one's hiring in California public libraries, but I'm hoping things will pick up by the time I finish. On the positive side it leaves me more time for reading and blogging (and fortunately my husband has a good job!)

What kind of books do you like to read?

My blog concentrates on historical fiction, but I read all sorts of things from picture books, middle-grade books, YA, and adult. I recently completed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy and really enjoyed that. I have been getting into some adult mysteries lately, a new genre for me. While I don't review these titles on my blog, I do post reviews on Amazon and goodreads.com. Although I'm new to blogging, I've been reviewing books for Amazon's Vine program for several years and also review books for an on-line toy journal.

Name a book character you'd love to meet.

My 15-year old daughter and I would like to spend time with Jacky Faber, from L.E. Meyer's Bloody Jack series. I think she is one of the most fabulous heroines out there, at least in YA fiction! She's smart, funny, brash, and knows what she wants in life! In the books she's been a street urchin, an officer in Her Majesty's Navy, a pirate, a river-boat captain down the Mississippi, a spy, met Napoleon Bonaparte, been a deep-sea diver, and in her latest book (which I have in an e-galley but haven't read yet), has adventures in Australia!

What do you like to do besides reading?

I'm a big movie fan, both in person and through Netflix. I enjoy all kinds of movies except horror movies! I'm also a big Disney fan and have been to Disneyland more times than I can count. I've also been on a Disney Cruise and to Disney World in Florida, twice. I got my first pet 6 years ago and have become a bit of a crazy dog lady--I always thought I couldn't have one because of allergies but I have done quite well with my miniature poodle, Buddy, although he seems to have more of a cat personality than a dog one. And I have two non-furry children, a 15-year old girl and a 14-year old boy.