About Me

Hi, my name is Susan and I'm a bookaholic. My obsession started when I learned to read at age 4. I just never stopped.

As a kid, I was hooked on the usual: Nancy Drew, Amelia Bedilia, The Box Car Children, Anne of Green Gables, etc. I grew up in a tiny town and spent many hours trudging down to the library, browsing through books, checking out a stack and lugging it home. The walk down to the library was a breeze - all downhill. With my arms full of books, the trek back home was a little more difficult. It was worth it, though, to be able to visit the library whenever I could, without waiting for my parents to chauffer me.

Even though it wasn't the cool thing to do, I still read voraciously as a teenager. My tastes tended toward mysteries and horror at this point. I remember my Dad raising an eyebrow at all the sinister-looking novels his good little girl was bringing home. Perhaps that is why he introduced me to Mary Higgins Clark. Her books are clean mysteries that kept me up late way too often!

I also loved to write as a child, composing cheesy little stories and even submitting work for publication in national magazines. I laugh now at my naivete. In high school, I spent many, many hours writing and editing articles for the newspaper and yearbook.

My interest in reading and writing propelled me to major in English at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah (its distinguished alumi include Stephenie Meyer, Brandon Mull, and Jessica Day George to name a few). As part of my Journalism minor, I became a reporter for the college's newspaper, The Daily Universe. It was also in college that I met Eric, the man who would become my husband. We got married in August of 1997, a short time after he returned home from an LDS mission in Chile. I graduated from BYU in 1998; later that year, I gave birth to our first child. I stayed at home with him, wrote articles about books on the Internet (which you can probably find by Googling my name), and read a lot.

In 2000, we moved to Arizona, where we still live. My husband works as a dental consultant. We now have 4 kids - they're 10, 7, 4 and 4 months. I stay-at-home with my kids full-time. Besides reading and blogging, I like to cross-stitch, listen to music, eat (can you say chocoholic?), spend time with my family, and play word games.

I started Bloggin' 'bout Books in 2006 as a way to record what I was reading. Back then, I had 3 faithful readers: my husband, my mom and my sister. One day, I was trolling the Web for reading recommendations and stumbled across A Patchwork of Books. Amanda had dozens of links to other book blogs - I started clicking around and a whole new world opened up to me. Suddenly, I was part of a big, exciting book blogosphere. I love being a part of it. I've "met" tons of wonderful people, read books I never would have otherwise, chatted with lots of authors and had a great time. I love what I do!

So, there ya go. More about me than you ever wanted to know.