Library: Reader's Fave

Recently, I interviewed former teacher Linda Wright of Wahkiakum County for our sixth installment of Reader’s Fave, a casual talk with someone who shares their favorite book. As we chatted, Linda shared that her favorite author, at least recently, is Louise Penny, and her favorite books are Penny’s “Inspector Gamache” series. This mystery novel series is now up to 19 books, and Linda has read them all. She remembers being given the first book, “The Still Life” as a Christmas gift when visiting her daughter in Alaska. Linda then went on and read over half of the book on her plane ride back. She was hooked.

“I like how the characters remain the same in each book,” said Linda. “While the mystery gets resolved, each book leaves a hint.” Linda noted these hints leave “some kind of further mystery for another story.”

Linda enjoyed reading as a child. When asked where she got her love for reading, she said, “Probably from my elementary teachers.” Linda enjoyed the books being read to her and how they would “create an image” in her mind, leaving her to want to find out more about it. The reading bug had clearly bitten her.

As a school teacher herself, Linda purposively read books to her students each year. “I liked sharing books with other people,” she said. Linda recalls reading the Boxcar series of books to her first-grade classes and, later, as a fifth-grade teacher, reading Hatchett, and adventure novel by Gary Paulsen. Linda specifically wanted to capture the interest of boys in her classes with the story of a 13-year-old boy trying to survive in the wild.

Linda also made sure to mention how she enjoyed many other series of books, such as “The Bee Keeper’s Apprentice” (Mary Russell series) by Laurie R. King and “The Cat Who” mystery series, by Lilian J. Braun. Linda also noted enjoying the Hannah Swensen mystery series by Joanne Fluke. As you can see Linda simply loves to read books, especially those with a twist of mystery in them. With that, may you Wahkiakum readers be inspired to read a good book and, maybe, one with a bit of mystery to it.