When I was a kid my mom would take me to story time at the library with my two older cousins while her and my Aunt would look at the books they were interested in. Every night while I was little I ALWAYS got a story before bed. Once I got older and I was able to read on my own, it was a weekly trip almost to the library to get arm fulls of books to read for the next week or two.
As time went on, my live of books became even more as I moved from children’s books to young adult to fiction, nonfiction and so on. I eventually found my “go to” books ranging from horror books from Stephen King to other authors from Nicholas Sparks, Mitch Album to even one of my all time favorite Young Adult authors Lurlene McDaniel.
In March of 2020 when everyone’s life got flipped upside down including mine, it allowed me to be home more and give time to read in order to sit down and read. My time to sit down on the couch and read was one of my favorite activities during lockdown that kept me occupied. At this same time period, one of my now “former” coworkers had just retired from being a reading teacher in the local school district. What this meant was I was always getting and still to this day get the suggestions on “the new read” that I had to go and purchase or borrow from her. Also during the time frame of lockdown, my “Former” coworkers who became friends at the end of the day would do “book drops” at each others houses, text saying there was book mail at their house and “social distance” while they grabbed it from the spot it was left.
When I got to college my interest in reading increased even more despite balancing work and school work. Once I reached my senior year of college at Millersville University, I knew I needed to figure out my senior project and what I wanted to do with it. I was sitting in my Spring 2022 10am Entrepreneurship lecture around the time of spring break when I had the “I know what my senior project will be, it will be to open a business” moment that I decided to scribe down in the margin of my lecture notes.
A short time later I presented the idea to my entrepreneurship advisor and we got the ball rolling with the last classes to work on my senior project. Keeping in mind my love of reading, I knew I wanted it to be book related. My own personal stash looked like my own bookstore in my room so it was a natural progression in order to open a business that kept my interest and hobbies at bay everyday. Still for my personal reading, I still am always on the hunt for the “next read” due to my “to be read cart” (yes it’s a cart) is getting low or my favorite authors releasing new books.