In the three months since I last featured a fellow book blogger I’ve discovered a lot of amazing new blogs, but the one I’m going to feature today is an oldie I’ve been following since the early days of The Parchment Girl. So, without further ado, I’d like to introduce you to Karen Zemek, co-purveyor of Grab a Book From Our Stack with her husband, Gerard. Karen and Gerard publish a high volume of short, concise reviews. I am constantly amazed at how much these two read! Karen was gracious enough to answer a few questions about her blogging activity…
First of all, tell us a little bit about yourself.
I am 57 but feel like 27, married to a wonderful husband of 13 years, and live with two great cats and one very happy dog. I spend a lot of time at the computer blogging but also enjoy walking, tennis, visiting the zoo, being a puppeteer, teaching Sunday School, and reading books. I am a secretary at a big law firm but would really like to be a pet photographer or work at an animal shelter. I trusted Jesus as my Savior at an early age and have enjoyed being active in a church all my life. I wrote a book, My Funny Dad, Harry in memory of my dad shortly after he died.
When and why did you start your blog?
My husband and I both enjoy reading and posted book reviews on the first blog I started originally to promote my book over at the Personal News Network (http://karen.pnn.com). I realized our blogspot blogs got more traffic and saw blogger came out with some new templates that I thought would be fun and easy to use. Since there are a lot of book blogs, I decided to create one too and Grab A Book From Our Stack was born in March of 2010.
What types of books do you most commonly review?
We do mostly mystery, suspense, non-fiction, inspirational, and young adult, but just about anything except for science fiction and fantasy, although we both loved the Hunger Games series.
How does your faith impact how you blog and what you blog about?
We always give our honest opinions while trying to be nice which is hard to do sometimes. I always consider the author’s feelings when I write a review and if I really hate a book, I will not even review it. We just add it to our “dud” list which is on a separate page of our blog. On our personal blog, Right Where We Belong, I sometimes write about our experiences, church activities, faith, pets, things we learn and funny things to entertain and amuse our readers. I try to post with our readers in mind and be genuine.
If you had to choose three books that you think everyone should read, what would they be and why?
This is tough because everyone has different tastes in books. In view of this, I guess that I would have to choose some very good non-fiction books that I believe would benefit anyone who reads them. Therefore, my three would be:
- The Holy Bible simply because it is God’s Word and it is so very important that people read it to find out what God wants us to know, how He wants us to live, how to become His child and receive forgiveness and eternal life.
- One Simple Act: Discovering the Power of Generosity by Debbie Macomber because it gives so many examples of how we can be a blessing to others which will enrich our lives as well.
- The Last Lecture by Rancy Pausch because it has so many good tips for living in it.
Be sure to check out Grab a Book From Our Stack and leave a comment!
Thanks for introducing us to Karen and her husband. I think her blog sounds interesting!!
Nice to meet you Karen. I’ll be sure to check out your blog.
I have The Last Lecture sitting on my bookshelf. I’m almost scared to read it. I thought Randy Pausch’s story was soooooo sad, I cried whenever I saw him on the news. So now I have the book, but I’m waiting for when I’m in the mood for a good cry.
Joy–
The book “The Last lecture” really isn’t sad at all but very inspirational. It’s more about his advice for living a full life than it is about his illness. I’ll be stopping by your blog too!