Me!
Hello everyone, my name is Havilah, although I go by Havs or Hava online (I’m lazy, what can I say?) I was originally hired in May of 2008 to write book reviews of nonfiction books for Today.com. I moved in April of 2009 to this self-hosted blog and am excited to enjoy the freedom that comes with running my own site. 
I grew up reading fiction, so if someone had told me a couple of years ago that I’d be thrilled to write reviews on nonfiction books, I would have laughed at them. I liked books with a great plot and action and all of that other good stuff. Boring nonfiction books didn’t exactly do it for me.
But books in any form have always been a huge part of my life. As a child, my family would sit around the dinner table, each person with their own book, calmly reading and eating at the same time, the only thing breaking the silence being an occasional “Please pass the salt.” There were seven of us in the family, but you wouldn’t have guessed it from the noise level. My poor mother used to have to scold us and threaten us with bodily damage to get us to put the books away when company came over to eat.
As a child, whatever your lifestyle is, that’s what’s normal to you, so to me, it wasn’t rude to read and eat at the same time anymore than it would be rude to breathe air. That’s just what you did at dinner, so I never really appreciated my mother’s attempts to keep the books away from the dinner table. 
It wasn’t until I hit my 20’s that I started to realize just what an unorthodox upbringing I had in that respect.
Considering all of that, you would think that a career as a librarian would top my list of dream jobs as a child, but quite honestly, I never considered it. At various times I was going to be an author, a store owner, a teacher, an astronaut, and a plethora of other random jobs. Never once did I consider the library.
The public library is my favorite place to be
That all changed when my husband and I moved back home to be closer to my parents (we now live roughly 45 minutes away from them) and I happened to stroll into the local library and spot a Help Wanted sign. I had just finished a job interview for a dead end job I didn’t want anyway, so when I spotted the sign, I thought, “Bingo! A job at the library – how much better could it get?” So I applied right then, was interviewed the next day, and hired the day after that. I’ve loved it from day one.
I work at the circulation desk, which means I check books back in when they’re returned, and I check books out to patrons when they want to take them home. Basically, this means I get to eyeball every book that goes in and out of the library, and I’ll often put promising ones on my hold list to come to me after they’ve been checked in.
It’s common to get to work and find four books on hold for me that just came in from various patrons. It’s like Christmas, but it happens five days a week. A book lover’s dream come true. 
I finally decided that I need to make this official, and I applied to go to college in the fall of 2008 to get my AA in Library Science. After a semester as a Library Science student, however, I realized that there is a difference between a part-time job at the circulation desk, and a full-time job as a librarian. The classes showed me that library science is not the direction I want to go.
Starting in the spring of 2009, my major has been changed to Elementary Education. With any luck, I’ll graduate with my bachelors in elementary education a long, long time from now. If it’s really bad, I might not graduate for a long, long, long time. Which would just suck.
It’s because of the library that I finally learned to love nonfiction books. When I first started there, I was reading regular fiction as always, but the more I worked there, the more the nonfiction books started to intrigue me. There were just so many interesting topics that I could learn more about! I have always loved to learn, so to me, the library has provided an almost overwhelming amount of choices.
I struggle not to bring home every book that catches my eye, but even with my best efforts, I still end up with books covering the end table, the coffee table, the dining room table, the hall tree, and the two built-in bookshelves. And that’s when I’ve managed to keep them from stacking next to me on the couch! 
My husband good naturedly moves the books when he wants to sit down, and I pretend as if I didn’t hear him sigh.
books upon books
Luckily for me (and this blog) I’m blessed with the ability to speed read (I have never taken a class on it – it’s just a natural talent most of my family seems to have) so I’m able to tear through a book a day quite often, more if there’s nothing else on the agenda.
Have I mentioned I like books yet?
As you’ll soon see, I read a wide variety of books – from cookbooks to college prep books to animal training to autobiographies (my favorite!) to planting a garden to books on writing a novel. If it looks interesting, I’ll pick it up. I won’t always finish it, but I will always note whether I finished it or not in my review. Although I don’t have the desire or time to finish every book I pick up (some are just a waste of time!) it is important to know whether I finished it or not, because perhaps the ending saved the book, so it really is worth reading. Not likely, but ya never know.
Is there a particular kind of book that you love to read? Who is your favorite author or subject? Feel free to either leave a comment below, or on one of my posts. I love to hear from my readers, so please, speak up!
To great books,
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