Bobbie Pyron

Bobbie Pyron, who holds an MLS, is a part-time librarian in the Salt Lake County Library system. She’s been a library director, a school librarian, a bookstore manager, an Outward Bound instructor, a professional singer and a professional dog trainer, as well as a life guard and gladiola harvester. She lives in Park City with her husband, Todd, and her shelties.

Her debut YA novel, The Ring, is available this month.

Earlier this week I asked Pyron what she was reading. Her reply:

Oh, I love to talk about the books I'm reading! I guess that's why I'm a writer and a librarian. I usually have several books going at once, since I have the attention span of a gnat. I usually have two or three I'm reading at home and one I'm listening to in the car.

So in my car, I'm listening to Wally Lamb's new novel, The Hour I First Believed. This is the first novel he's written since his award-winning I Know This Much is True. His latest book follows the lives of Callum and Maureen Quirk in the aftermath of the Columbine High School shootings. Callum was a teacher at the high school and his wife, Maureen, the school nurse. It's a heart-wrenching, enveloping read. As with his other books, Lamb gives a whole new meaning to multi-layered characters.

At home, I seem to be reading non-fiction that I can dip in and out of. One that I started a couple of weeks ago is Inside of a Dog, by Alexandra Horowitz. Horowitz, an animal researcher and “dog mother” of Pumpernickel takes us up close and personal, inside of each of a dog's senses and perceptions. It's nothing I haven't read before (if you've read Temple Grandin's books you know this stuff), but Horowitz is a lovely, charming writer. She reminds me very much of Diane Ackerman.

I'm also savoring Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Children's Book, edited by Anita Silvey. Famous folks from all walks of life—news, entertainment, sports, politics, business—talk about what children's book shaped their lives. Some were comforted and given hope by a particular book during a painful point in their childhood. Others found a passion that would shape who they became and what they did as adults. The book makes me feel very good about writing for children. Especially after I've been asked for the hundredth time, “Why don't you write for adults”!

Lastly, I just picked up a hilarious book, The Werewolf's Guide to Life: A Manual for the Newly Bitten, by Ritch Duncan. Although I have no interest what so ever in vapid vampires, I will admit to a long-held fascination with werewolves. Any anyway, who can resist chapters with titles like: Home is Where You Hang Your Restraint Systems, So You've Attacked Someone, and The Trouble with Vampires.

Visit Bobbie Pyron's website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue