Betty Martin
Host, Martin's Must-ReadsBetty Martin was born in Boston, Massachusetts to a Lutheran pastor and his organist wife. Betty’s love of books was inspired by her father who read to all four children each night.
After graduating from the University of Connecticut with a B.A. in American History in 1975, she followed her mother’s advice and earned a Masters in Library Science from the Southern Connecticut State University. In her first professional library position she served as the children’s librarian for the Wallingford Public Library in Wallingford, Connecticut, for fifteen years.
In 1992 she moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where she served as a Regional Youth Services Coordinator for the St. Louis Public Library. She moved to Cape Girardeau, Missouri in 1994 to marry Mark Martin and was hired by the Cape Girardeau Public Library to serve as the Adult Services Coordinator which she did for three years until being promoted to director. She served as director for twenty-one years and counts leading the organization through a building project as the highlight of her career.
She retired in July of 2018 and now has plenty of time to read. Her reading tastes lean towards historical fiction, any well-written novel with quirky characters and a few nonfiction titles. Her ultimate hope in recording book reviews is that, someday, someone will make an action figure of her just like Nancy Pearl has, or maybe a bobble-head.
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“His name was David Winkler and he was fifty-nine years old. This would be his first trip home in twenty-five years - if home was what he could still call it." -
It’s hard to find a truly funny book ...but this is one. If you love books, trivia contests and witty repartee, then you must read The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman. -
In 2001, Geraldine Brooks, one of my favorite authors, published her first novel Year of Wonders. She wrote it after coming across an intriguing finger post in England pointing to the Plague Village. -
If you’re looking for a well written, World War II story, more fact than fiction, that illustrates the power of human goodness, then you must read The Ragged Edge of Night by Olivia Hawker. -
If you’re looking for a book that sheds light on the amazing work the British code breakers accomplished shortening WWII by two years, then you must read The Rose Code by Kate Quinn. -
If you’re interested in the history of flight or love McCullough’s writings, then you must read The Wright Brothers by David McCulllough. -
"Any multinational organization can be cutthroat, but when the organization is made up of trained killers, the stakes are incalculably high." -
“There is a place, hidden among the sweeping sandy swaths of southern desert, where all you can see is red. From above, it’s a carpet of crimson, but as you lean closer, you see that it’s not one singular sheet of color, but rows upon rows of distinct red dots. Like a wild field of poppies. Except it’s nothing like that." -
“Sometimes, in her sleepless hours, she watches the strips of moonlight slide across her bedroom ceiling, glances at that photograph, and thinks wistfully about the family she could have had, all the pictures of holidays that will never exist...." -
“Salento, Italy, June 1934: A coach stops in the main square of Lizzanello, a tight-knit village where everyone knows one another. A couple gets off: the man, Carlo, is happy to be back home after a long time away; the woman, Anna - his wife - is a stranger from the North. Carlo’s brother is there to meet them, and he and everyone else can’t help but notice that Anna is as beautiful as a Greek statue.”
