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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“Thursday, December 27th, eleven p.m. Kuldesh Sharma hopes he’s in the right place. He parks up at the end of the dirt track, hemmed in on all sides by trees, ghoulish in the darkness. He had finally made up his mind at about four this afternoon, sitting in the back room of his shop. The box was sitting on the table in front of him. He made two phone calls, and now here he is." -
On a recent trip, I listened to the audiobook of Chris Bohjalian’s civil war novel The Jackal’s Mistress. Based on a real-life story, it presents an interesting dilemma... How much would you risk to help a wounded enemy? -
“Sybil is a mother and grandmother, divorced, retired from a distinguished career in law, these things are all there around her. On Monday around ten or half past Sybil Van Antwerp sits down at her desk again. It is the correspondence that is her manner of living.” -
“On February 19, 1963, a troublesome, imperfect, controversial woman named Betty Friedan published a troublesome, imperfect, controversial book titled “The Feminine Mystique.” The book didn’t solve the problem. But it did put a name to it, shining a light that helped women who felt isolated and powerless find one another, and their voices.” -
“A sleek black motorcar was edging its way through the crowds of passengers going toward the boat. It stopped when it was still a good ten yards away from her, and a woman got out at the passenger side with a canvas bag in her hand and a bundle in a blanket in the crook of her other arm. She was not young, sixty if she was a day.” -
“Bethany Waites understands there is no going back now. Time to be brave, and to see how this all plays out. She weighs the bullet in her hand. Life is about understanding opportunities. Understanding how rarely they come along, and then rising to meet them when they do." -
“There’s an old saying about stories, and how there are always three versions of them: yours, mine and the truth. The guy who first said it worked in the film business, but it holds true for journalism too. We’re not really supposed to take sides. We’re supposed to deal in facts: Facts add up to truth.” -
“A human life improved by a dog isn’t just a theoretical concept. It’s a real life event that happens a million times a day, all over the world.” -
“Volterra. The ninth of April, 1478. They put her little brother in a cage. Her brother, who wasn’t so little anymore, but because Ravenna Maffei was older, she would always think of him that way." -
“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."
