Ashley Weaver

Ashley Weaver is the Technical Services Coordinator for the Allen Parish Libraries in Louisiana. Weaver has worked in libraries since she was 14; she was a page and then a clerk before obtaining her MLIS from Louisiana State University.

Weaver's new novel, her sixth Amory Ames Mystery, is A Dangerous Engagement.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:

I’m currently reading Homer’s The Iliad. Every year a friend and I pick five classics of literature to read, and this is the final book on my list for 2019. I read large chunks of it in school, but this is my first time reading it cover-to-cover. It’s amazing how something written so long ago still has the power to stir the emotions. I have the Robert Fagles translation, and I’m really enjoying the clarity and beauty of the language.

My historical topic of interest this year has been polar exploration. I’m enjoying A Wretched and Precarious Situation: In Search of the Last Arctic Frontier by David Welky, which is the fascinating account of a group of explorers searching for “Crocker Land,” a distant and uncharted landscape spotted while Robert Peary trekked toward the North Pole. As with all arctic explorations, however, very little goes as planned, and the men soon find themselves at odds with starvation, the elements—and each other. Another excellent book I recently enjoyed was The Man Who Ate His Boots: The Tragic History of the Search for the Northwest Passage by Anthony Brandt. The search for the Northwest Passage cost a great deal, both in terms of money and lives, and this book examines several of the ill-fated attempts to discover it. It focuses especially on Sir John Franklin’s vanished expedition and the many subsequent voyages to try to discover what became of the explorer and his crew.

As for fiction, I went to be beach last weekend and somehow decided that was a good time to start Jaws by Peter Benchley. I’ve always loved the film, so I was excited to dive into the book. There was something very atmospheric about reading about the havoc wreaked by an apex predator while I sat so close to its home turf. Luckily, I made it home one piece!

Visit Ashley Weaver's website.

--Marshal Zeringue