Q&A with Sarah

How long have you been at P&B?
I am one of the more recent additions to the staff at Page and Blackmore, moving from being a very loyal customer to being a very loyal staff member in March of 2013.

Previous book selling experience? (or other interesting jobs)
When I was in London working for the National Trust in the garden of 17th Centuary Ham house I worked weekends in the wonderful ‘Ian Sheridan’s bookshop’ an quintessential second hand bookshop in Hampton. Instead of getting paid in the normal fashion I was paid in books and some of my most special books date from this time, including a very early edition of Mrs Beeton and a 1625 copy of ‘The Historie of the Most High, Mighty, and Euer-glorious Empresse, Elizabeth, Inuincible Queen of England, Ireland, & c. True Defendresse fo the Faith, of immortall Renowne, and nuer-dying Fame and Memory’, how’s that for a title? I’ve always been an avid reader generally with several books on the go at any one time and a stack waiting in the wings.

Seminal books from your childhood/life or favourite reading memories?
I struggled with reading when I first started school so every Friday evening my dad would take me to Whitcome and Tombs in Christchurch to purchase another AM/PM reader and once I mastered the craft of reading I was off. I was often getting told off for reading under the covers with my torch! Now I get the pleasure of reading to my children, each evening the girls and I read the next chapter of our current book.
Favourite authors, genres to read.
I have fairly recently returned to study and are completing a science degree with an environmental science focus so I’m attracted to anything that looks at the nature, landscape and environment as well as human interaction with it. Fortunately there is no shortage either nonfiction or fiction that explore these themes.  Recent  fiction favourites being the Margaret Atwood’s ‘Year of the Flood Trilogy’, Barbara Kingsolver’s ‘Flight Behaviour’ and Wu Ming-Yi’s ‘The Man With the Compound Eyes’. There are far too many nonfiction books to mention, fortunately Page and Blackmore has a large selection to feed my appetite for reading from ‘Ghosts of Gondwana’ to ‘Continents on the move’ to George Monbiot’s ‘Feral’ and anything by David Suzuki.

Hobbies/pastimes/family:
I am mother to three wonderful daughters who are aged 6, 8 & 10 who have fortunately inherited my love of reading, which makes Christmas and birthday presents easy. Any reference of our family wouldn’t be complete without mentioning our beloved pony Tiny, who although not fond of reading had become a lead character in many of the girl’s stories.
When I get the chance I like to get out in nature; tramping and camping are great especially with the girls.