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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"Somewhere, out in the world, are the people who touched us, or loved us, or ran from us. In that way we will live on. We are in the back of hundreds of people’s photographs - moving, talking, blurring into the background of a picture two strangers have framed on their living room mantelpiece. And in that way, we will live on too. But it isn’t enough." -
"Somewhere, out in the world, are the people who touched us, or loved us, or ran from us. In that way we will live on. We are in the back of hundreds of people’s photographs - moving, talking, blurring into the background of a picture two strangers have framed on their living room mantelpiece. And in that way, we will live on too. But it isn’t enough."
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This is “a story about therapy: how we heal and where it leads us.” Gottlieb allows us to follow the progress of several of her patients, as well as her own, as we sit in on their therapy sessions. One of her patients is lonely, one is an alcoholic, one has anger issues and one is dying. -
Twenty-four year old Catherine has just graduated from nursing school and is soon leaving to begin her job at John’s Hopkins Hospital. She’ll be living away from her mother, Sarah. She’s looking forward to being on her own for the first time in her life. -
“The Wedding Night. The lights go out. Outside a storm is raging. It shrieks around them, it batters the tent. It feels personal, this storm. This isn’t the first time the electric has shorted. They’re beginning to feel afraid. This darkness feels somehow ominous, intent. Then from outside comes a new sound. You might almost mistake it for the wind. But it rises in pitch and volume until it is unmistakable.” -
“Few know more about how movies are made than Tom Hanks - not just the technical details but the history drawn upon and the lives and relationships that must intertwine to create a motion picture. Hank’s ambitious novel is about the making of a multimillion-dollar superhero epic.” -
If you’re a parent who has had similar work/family balancing issues, then you must read It. Goes. So. Fast. by NPR's Mary Louise Kelly. -
If you’re interested in reading a novel about the turpentine process during a hard time in our country’s history, but with a just ending, then you must read "The Saints of Swallow Hill" by Donna Everhart. -
If you’re looking for a novel that’s about four enterprising women figuring out life and solving a crime at the same time, then you must read "Someone Else’s Shoes" by Jojo Moyes. -
“The Writer. The story on Alice’s computer screen had been finding its way into words for more than five years, or maybe forever. Over that time, it had grown, changed, creaked, flown, gone silent and then gained its voice again, its plot taking unexpected paths, its characters turning into people she hadn’t thought they would be, just as she had.”
