Amanda S. (ABCatHome) was named our Member of the Month for July 2011.

Several years ago…September of 2005, to be exact…I finally became disgusted with the book choices from my local small-town library. I’d read most every book in the genres that I liked and then found out they would charge me money for each book I requested through inter-library loan. Knowing that would add up to be several dollars a month, I quickly began searching for a way to trade books with other book-lovers. After a quick search, PaperbackSwap came up in my results. I browsed the site for just a short time before I knew this was the site I wanted to be a part of. And thus began my addiction…

I honestly don’t remember the specific date that I became a Tour Guide, or when I was asked to be a Tour Guide Assistant Coordinator…I just know that I wanted to help this site grow and become the best book-swapping site that it could be, so every chance I had I stepped up. I also wanted to help other members navigate and learn how to use the site to its fullest potential for them. When the Team approached me about being the Book Bazaar Czar, I wanted to instantly say yes. But knowing that I was expecting our third child and how that would change my life, I wanted to be sure I could truly be committed to doing a good job. It didn’t take me long to realize I would make it work, no matter what.  Being a part of PBS is one area of my life that has stayed constant…no matter what I do, I always have PBS because it joins two of my favorite things in life: books and helping people!

I love to read books…and have enjoyed reading for as long as I can remember. My goal is to instill in my children the love for books, reading, and writing that I have. They get SO excited when they know they’ve ordered a book from PBS and they see that package come through the door…they can’t wait to open it and start reading their new books. As a homeschooling family, we gain a great deal of our knowledge from reading.

My husband, Terry, says that he needs to build me my own library to house all the books I’ve accumulated through swaps and games here at PBS. I’ve gotten very creative with how (and where) to store my books that are waiting to be read. But beyond the books, PBS is an extended family. The Tour Guides have shown me such love and encouragement in the gifts and cards they sent me when my daughter was born. And when my daughter’s birth started a year-long health battle for me, the Tour Guides and members alike showed their concern and their love through cards, PMs, emails, and more. Through the swap games in the  Games Forum I’ve found some great friendships, shared many laughs, and prayed with many members. So while I give back to PBS, the members here have given greatly to me as well.

My favorite set of books growing up was the Anne of Green Gables set by L.M. Montgomery. What a fabulous story of love and acceptance!!

As an adult, Francine Rivers has had a huge impact on me and my reading preferences. Her book, Redeeming Love, is a book all about forgiveness and love. I’ve read it 3 times now and pick it up to read at least once every couple of years. Truthfully, anything by Francine Rivers is a good read!

Other authors I love are Mary Connealy, Miralee Ferrell, Kim Vogel Sawyer, Lauraine Snelling, Debbie Macomber, and Charles Martin just to name a few. And while I truly enjoy Christian Fiction the most, I also read Contemporary Fiction and Chick Lit.

Right now, I’m working my way through the Sons of Encouragement series by Francine Rivers and Bringing up Boys by Dr James Dobson.

If you have any nominations for Member of the Month, submit them to us here.  Your nomination will not “expire”–anyone you nominate will have a chance at getting Member of the Month if enough nominations accumulate over time. Each month the person who has the most votes accumulated when the Newsletter goes to press gets to be Member of the Month and gets a newsletter mention and a nifty MoM icon to wear on profile and forum posts with pride.  So go for it! Tell us who’s helped you in the Forums, who’s been a great swapper, who in your opinion is a credit to PBS.  We are keeping a list of all the nominated members.  Who knows–one of them might be YOU!

Today our featured Member of the Month is Cozette M. (CozSnShine)

who was named our member of the month in December 2007

How long have you been a PBS member?  

Seems like forever in some ways.  How does one make so many friends, play so many games, swap so many books and have so many discussions in just 1,200 days or so??  Signed up on Feb. 05, 2007.   Don’t add up those days, I’m sure my math is spot on!

How did you find PBS?

I read an article about PBS in some magazine, wrote down the name and promptly forgot about it.   A few months later I came across the name again and here I am!

How has PBS impacted your life?

Wow! that is quite the question.  I guess it would be an overstatement to say that PBS has become my life, but at times it feels that way.  I’ve said before that PBS is more than about books, it’s about community.  I’ve found so many new authors and books I’d never pick up, before, in a million years.  But I’ve also found so many FRIENDS, who I’d never have interacted with if it were not for PBS.  People who do not think like me, who were not raised like me, who I wouldn’t have any reason to meet in real life.  But I come on PBS and here they are, the good and the bad, the caring and the UNcaring, the sensitive and the hard, the liberal and the conservative, the happy and the sad.   Those who interact with you and those who react to you.  People, people, people who make up the fabric of PBS and therefore, the fabric of my life.

What does PBS mean to you?

Paper back swap, what does it mean to you???  Good question.  It means I have a ready supply of both books and friends.  It means that I have support when I need it.  It means that when your loved one dies, there are hundreds that crowd around to surround you with love.  You may never see their faces but you always see their souls.

It means that in the middle of the night, when your heart is aching there is somewhere to go, somewhere to place your thoughts.  SomeONE who will hear you.

It means that I have a safe place to ask questions.  A place where I don’t expect everyone to agree with my ideas but where the majority will at least respect them.   It means that I can read and digest thoughts and ideas that are so foreign to mine that they shock me, and yet I can also value them.

Did you read as a child?

I was one of nine children, growing up on a farm in Kentucky.  We didn’t have much but we always had something to read.  I don’t remember my parents buying books when I was a child.   But we always had magazines and newspapers and books from our school.

Once when I was sick, my brother brought home my new health book, from my teacher.  When I went back to grade school a few days later the first thing my teacher said is, “I imagine you’ve read all of this already?”  She was right – I read it from cover to cover.

What was your favorite book growing up?

I’m not sure I had one.  Between the time I started junior high until I graduated, I read almost every book in our high school library.   I devoured them, sometimes so fast that I didn’t retain all the wonderfulness in them.  I remember going through a phase where I was reading about American heroes.  Our library has a set of books about them and I read them for weeks and weeks.

What is your favorite or most meaningful book read as an adult?

That seems to change as my taste change.  Certainly one of the most meaningful books I’ve ever read is  Banker To the Poor Micro-lending and the Battle Against World Poverty.   It completely changed my definition of poverty and changed my perceptions about it.

The Help, recently read, is one of my favorites.  Wonderful book with great insight into a world I grew up knowing about.

In Love and War by Sybil and Jim Stockdale will always have meaning for me as that introduced me to a world of POW’s that I knew little about.  I knew this couple in the later years of their lives but read the book long before then.

What are you reading now?

I normally only read one book at a time but seem to have several going right now.

I’m deep into Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand.  Not an easy read, but one with a lot of insight and meaning.

I’m also reading a Christian fiction book written in 1946.  It is interesting how the genre has changed over the years.  Not My Will by Francena H Arnold.

Just finished Silver Girl by Elin Hilderbrand, a great summer read.

Just finished Medals, Flags and Memories by John and Stacey Holley.  This is the true story of the death of their son in Iraq and their fight to have the fallen soldiers brought home with honor.  Recently meet this couple and they touched me deeply.

PBS is a source of so much for so many.  I watch and see how people love Lester and Marilyn, how they support Abbey and her girls and how they cheer others on and it just touches a deep cord in me.  It still gives me strength today as it did on the day my husband died.

We never know where the words we throw out there will land and what good or harm they might do.  On PBS they do a whole lot more good than harm.  If this was just another book swap, I’d probably be long gone.  But it’s a community of many, each of which is important and is loved by someone.

If you have any nominations for Member of the Month, submit them to us here.  Your nomination will not “expire”–anyone you nominate will have a chance at getting Member of the Month if enough nominations accumulate over time. Each month the person who has the most votes accumulated when the Newsletter goes to press gets to be Member of the Month and gets a newsletter mention and a nifty MoM icon to wear on profile and forum posts with pride.  So go for it! Tell us who’s helped you in the Forums, who’s been a great swapper, who in your opinion is a credit to PBS.  We are keeping a list of all the nominated members.  Who knows–one of them might be YOU!

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