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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“The day Sloan Cooper died began before dawn and ended shortly before midnight. As a corporal in the Natural Resources Police, she’d helped take down a trio of men who spent most of the fall harassing, robbing and assaulting hikers on the trails in the Western Maryland mountains.” -
“Theo couldn’t imagine wanting anything in this sadness-infused pile of discards.... There were some old paperbacks slugged into a beer carton. He was always curious about what people read. He reached down to check the titles. And that is when he saw the horse.” -
“Later, not a single person will recall seeing the lady board the flight at Hobart Airport." -
“Phillip. The story begins before the reporters and the television correspondents flocked to interview the team." -
“Day and Night, the final pages of “Clearly It Is Ocean” haunted me. I couldn’t stop rereading them." -
“April 6, 1865. Well, father, who won the majority? Emma or Mansfield Park? William Stevenson answered from behind his newspaper at the head of the breakfast table, “Emma, of course.” -
“The monk heard that a ship had arrived carrying one of the dog-headed people whom travelers speak of when they tell tall tales of the one-eyed and the winged, and he went out to the docks to see if it was true.” -
“As the fist in her belly pulled tighter, she bit her bottom lip. Ignoring the pain that rippled and receded, she tiptoed barefoot into the night." -
"For years, Allina had begged her aunt and uncle for more information about her real parents. Your mother and father loved you very much, they’d always reply, but it’s best to keep the past in the past.” -
“One of the first bullets comes in through the open window above the toilet where Luca is standing. He doesn’t immediately understand that it’s a bullet at all, and it’s only luck that it doesn’t strike him between the eyes."
