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Musings, Memories and Miscellany from our MoM’s

Tuesday, September 20th, 2016

Cyn F. (Cyn-Sama) is our newest Member of the Month, named MoM in September 2016.

How long have you been a PBS member? 

Since 6/26/06

How did you find PBS?   

I honestly don’t remember. I think I had a friend on a message board tell me about it.

I know it was before the big boom in m/m themed publishing, because I started the first game featuring unconventional couples. At that time, finding books with a homoerotic plot was difficult.

I still have some of the books that I gained through those games, and fondly remember the members who played with me.

 

How has PBS impacted your life? What does PBS mean to you?

PBS has helped me share the books I love, and introduce others to them. I love knowing that a review I’ve written, or a suggestion I’ve made has helped a member discover a new author or genre.

PBS is always surprising me with just what I can get on my Wish List!  I’ve gotten two embalming textbooks so far. It just goes to show that PBS has something for everyone. Even people like me!

 

What book impacted you most as a child or young adult?

There were many books that shaped my childhood.

I was a very strange child. I could read at 16 months (which kinda freaked my parents out), and this lead me to tackling books that may have been a bit too old for me.

I’ve written a blog post here on PBS, devoted to my love of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, but there was also A Little Princess, The Secret Garden, as well as all the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

        

When I was in Jr. High, my favorite books were the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice.  I was also devouring Steven King, my favorite book by him being The Eyes of the Dragon.

         

When I was 15 a friend at summer camp introduced me to Mercedes Lackey, and that has become a love that has stretched into adulthood.

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

The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford was a book that truly opened my eyes to the world of death culture, something that has been the obsession of my life – Death Culture, cemetery history, and the history of mourning. (Hence me getting excited about my embalming books!)

When I’m not reading books on history (my husband and I are reenactors, so we read a LOT of history books), my favorite authors to curl up with are Mercedes Lackey, J.R. Ward, and Lisa Kleypas.

 

What are you reading now?

Smut!  While switching between Clarissa Dickson Wright’s History of English Food, and How to be a Tudor by Ruth Goodman, I’m happily reading some wonderfully trashy ebooks like Heart of the Hunter by Chance Carter.

        

 

 

Do you know of another PaperBackSwap member who just seems to go above and beyond? One who makes you smile, or helps you figure out something about a swap, or who simply makes you glad she or he is part of the club? You may just have found yourself a MoM (Member of the Month)!
MoMs are special members, ones who put a little extra effort in for the benefit of others, even when they think no one may ever notice. Maybe they send their packages well-wrapped bearing cheerful stickers on the outside, or they post interesting topics in the Discussion Forums that get people thinking and talking, or they work behind the scenes to correct book listings or upload images to book listings. Maybe they’re Tour Guides and help other members navigate swapping, or maybe they create extra-fun games in the Games forum, the kind after which everyone feels like they’ve made new friends.
If you believe that you have encountered a MoM, submit your nomination to us here. Tell us why you think the member is a MoM — the more details, the better! The Member of the Month 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 the club. Who knows–the next MoM might just be YOU!

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Musings, Memories and Miscellany from our MoM’s

Wednesday, March 6th, 2013

NICOLE H. (tinyavenger) was named our Member of the Month in December 2012.

 

I joined PBS on January 24, 2008. A couple co-workers and I were discussing my love for books as I was always reading during lunch. One of the ladies mentioned hearing about PaperBackSwap.com.

I joined after researching and figured I would give it a try for a few months. I had never heard of a site like this one and just knew there had to be a catch. After being with this wonderful site for 5 years my own library has increased. And there is the catch!! You meet lovely people here and get so many great book recommendations that your collection grows.

I began reading new series and books I would never thought to have given a shot to much less probably discovered on my own. When I finally started venturing onto the Discussion Forums I found a whole fun new side to PBS. I love the daily discussions and participating in the games/swaps that I have been a part of so far. So now five years later the one extremely full bookcase I had when I first became a member is still in the living room along with three more upstairs! Thanks to PBS I seem to always have a steady stream of books going in and out. Our postman even once asked my husband what these packages were that I was always getting and sending. When he told him they were books he asked him if I actually read that much!

 

It is so hard for me to pick favorite books because I can not remember a time when I didn’t love reading. When I was a kid I would have to say that some of my favorites were Where the Wild Things Are, Green Eggs and Ham (who didn’t love Dr. Seuss when they were 5!!), Charlotte’s Web, The Indian in the Cupboard, Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret, Eating Ice Cream with a Werewolf and any Nancy Drew book I could get my hands on.

 

 

 

                                       

 

 

 

When I was a freshman in high school we read The Hiding Place, the story of Corrie Ten Boom and her family helping Jewish people escape Nazis during WWII, for a class.
By the time the class was on chapter three I had already finished the book. It is one of the first books that I can remember being brought to tears by.

 

 

 

 

 

As an adult I have read a lot of great books (many thanks to this site) that it is so hard to choose. I think some of my favorites just in the last year have been Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire, Stephen King’s Under the Dome, Ghost Story (Dresden Files #12), Warm Bodies by Isaac Martin, The Next Best Thing by Jennifer Weiner, The Fault in Our Stars by John Green and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.

           

 

 

I am one of those people that usually have a couple books going at once and am currently reading J.D. Robb’s Calculated In Death (In Death Series #36) and Don’t Breathe a Word by Jennifer McMahon.

 

 

 

 

My reads currently on deck are Guilty Wives by James Patterson, Tiger’s Curse by Colleen Houck and Paper Towns by John Green.
     

 

I am so glad I was pointed to this site as I have come across some great people and been introduced to so many more books and authors! PBS is one of the first sites I check daily and am always excited for the daily Wish List e-mail to see what other books members are putting on their lists. Helps me keep my Wish List maxed out! Many thanks to the people who make this place amazing!

(Oh and for any of those that may still be wondering, the thing I did on 11/5/12 that people would think I was crazy for….I put up my Christmas tree and decorated it!!)

 

 

Musings, Memories and Miscellany from our MoM’s

Thursday, January 5th, 2012

James L. (JimiJam) was named our Member of the Month in August 2011.

 

How long have you been a PBS member?  It’s been a little over 4 1/2 years now, though it honestly feels as if it’s been much longer than that. I can’t fathom how I got on before joining the Swap.

 

How did you find PBS?  My partner at the time had been a member for a few weeks, and kept pestering me to join as well. I remember being severely skeptical for quite a while. I guess I thought it unlikely that I’d find good titles in acceptable condition; my only experiences with used books up to that point had left quite a bit to be desired. When persistence failed to convince me, she resorted to more devious measures: she requested a book she knew I couldn’t resist. I wish I could recall what that book’s title was. As I think back, there’s a blur between my skepticism and filling in my information, reading through the Help Center, and placing the first requests on my own account.

 

How has PBS impacted your life? What does PBS mean to you?  The effects of my new life as a Swapper were almost immediate. I had always been a reader, and had been through more titles than ever during the first 5 months of that year. In retrospect, I liken that pace to a snail’s when compared to the Atlas V rocket of Swap life. I suddenly found myself within easy reach of hundreds of titles from every category along the spectrum of my preferences. It wasn’t long before I reached that point of realizing that every day is like Christmas when you’re a Swapper. I learned to use bibliographies in the first of my Swap books to discover even more titles, branching off into new topics and genres. To me the Swap was, and continues to be, a nigh-inexhaustible source of knowledge, insight, and entertainment. I found vintage copies of favorite books; out of print books now invaluable to my c.v.; titles of which I had heard but had never yet encountered in person; titles of which I had never heard, and now value above most others. What’s more, I discovered that there’s more to the Swap than books; the friends I’ve made in my time here have been the most sincerely and undeniably wonderful people I’ve ever known. Much as I’d be lost without the Swap, I’d be doubly lost without those friends. All in all, the very course of my life life itself was arrested and redirected toward an ever-increasingly excellent state of existence.

 

What book impacted you most as a child or young adult?  I have been most fortunate as a reader, in that I’ve discovered dozens of titles that have been essential to my continued development as a person. It has been a surprisingly frequent occurrence, to find myself claiming “This book completely changed my life!”. Among these are: The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran; Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse; Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky; Escape from Freedom, The Art of Loving, The Art of Being, To Have or to Be, all by Erich Fromm; On Writing, by Stephen King; A Scanner Darkly, by Philip K. Dick; Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert A. Heinlein; The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams; Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett; The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman; Diagnosis of Man by Kenneth Walker; The Image, by Daniel J. Boorstin; and, easily the most important of all, Frank Herbert’s Dune. I’ve reread Dune countless times, having revisited it at least once each year since first reading it as a teen. I could honestly go on for days about what I think of this book, and what reading it and its sequels has done for my life.

 

What is your favorite or most meaningful book read as an adult? Aside from Dune, the book that likely had the biggest impact on my life as an adult would probably be Erich Fromm’s Escape from Freedom. It helped me to better understand so much about myself and the world in which we live, and did more to further me along my personal path–at a time when I most needed it–than any other book I’ve ever read. I now own a dozen or so of Fromm’s works, each of which have proven invaluable to my continued education and development.

What are you reading now? I usually keep a dozen or more books going at a time, but chiefest among these at present are: Becoming a Writer, by Dorothea Brande; Beneath the Wheel, by Hermann Hesse; Gulliver’s Travels, by Jonathan Swift; Civilization and its Discontents, by Sigmund Freud; and The Transformations of Man, by Lewis Mumford.

 

        

 

Musings, Memories and Miscellany from our MoM’s

Wednesday, August 17th, 2011

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!

Memories, Musings and Miscellany from our MoM’s

Saturday, August 6th, 2011

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!

MOM MOM MOM MOM MOM MOM MOM MOM MOM MOM MOM MOM MOM

Memories, Musings and Miscellany from our MoM’s

Saturday, July 9th, 2011

Today our featured Member of the Month is Jerelyn H. (I-F-Letty). Jerelyn was named our Member of the Month in June 2011.

 

How long have you been a PBS member?

I have been a member since 3-14-09

 

How did you find PBS?

I follow a blog, by one of the ladies in the historical fiction forum, it was either her talking about PBS or one of my fave authors talked about it on her blog, I don’t remember which. The funny thing is that same author requested a old out of print book from me. I didn’t realize it of course until I printed out the mailing label. I wrote a quick note telling her that I had her first 2 books, both had been self published. She kindly sent me 2 new autographed copies. Thank-you Susan Higginbotham! This is also an example of the *PBS nice* that is so prevalent in our community.

 

How has PBS impacted your life?

I went through a very serious illness, then I fell on the ice not once but twice and was injured rather badly. Needless to say I had a lot of time on my hands, I had to stop working, my life changed, friends fell away. I was desperately wanting to find new authors and talk books. PBS has been a God send! I met some amazing people, my friend Bonnie for one I think we were friends or sisters in our last life. Boss Lady, and all the friends on the Historical Fiction Forum have so enriched my life. It was wholly unexpected, and so welcome.

 

What does PBS mean to you?

I have a much wider view of the world. It has pulled me out of a fairly serious depression. When your used to being out working and doing then that comes to a screeching halt, to be reduced to just your house because it was just to difficult to go out, PBS became my window on the world. I have also been interviewing authors for the PBS Blog. I can’t believe how much fun this is! I feel like I am contributing to our community, it is a good feeling.

 

Did you read as a child?

Oh yes. I am the youngest of 5 children. I learned to read at 4 by playing school with my sister who is 3 years older than I. She taught me to read with the Dick and Jane books. I got my first library card at 6. My first book was My Friend Flicka. I have always been a history geek. I loved biographies. I remember reading Lady With The Lamp about Florence Nightingale.

 

What was your favorite book growing up?

That is hard to say, but I loved Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Series. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls, he lived down the street from us when I was very little. My eldest brother and sister both have a autographed 1st edition of his book.

I also loved Nancy Drew. My Mother would read them to us on trips to see our grandparents.

 

What book impacted you most as a child or young adult?

In 8th grade I had chickenpox, I read Gone With the Wind for the first time. It was my first grown-up novel, I was sneaking my elder sister romances very soon after that. Bond of Blood by Roberta Gellis,  The Flame and The Flower , and The Wolf and the Dove by Kathleen Woodiwiss. Pretty racy stuff for a 14/15 year old.

 

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

I have to say it would be Sharon Penman’s novels. She is a master in her genre, authors respect her work her fans love her. Even college professors are using her novels to teach Medieval studies, she simply the best!

 

What are you reading now?

I am been reading The Sweet Smell Of Decay by Paul Lawrence, also Dark Enquiry by Deanna Raybourn.

 

On deck are Before Versailles, the newest novel by Karleen Koen, The Daughter of Siena by Marina Fiorato, and The Virgin Widow by Anne O’Brien.

 

 

 

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!

Mary’s MoM Musings, Memories and Miscellany

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

 

Mary (kilchurn) is today’s featured Member of the Month. She was named Member of the Month in April 2011.

 

1. How long have you been a PBS member?

I became a member on June 29, 2007 – so 4 years tomorrow.

 

2. How did you find PBS?

I was sitting in my teeny home office surrounded by bookshelves filled with books.  I hadn’t been to the used bookstore in a while and I was due.  My husband came in my office with a post-it note and handed it to me.  He glanced around the room at all of my books and told me I might find that website “helpful”.  Neither of us had any idea of what was to come.

 

How has PBS impacted your life?

While PBS has opened my eyes to new genres of books, the books take a backseat to the wonderful people I have met.  PBS has provided me with my real-life best friend as well has two other wonderful women who are great friends and co-conspirators.  I have made friendships with people all across the US with whom I laugh, cry and share my own experiences.  I am going on the cruise in February 2012 and I CANNOT WAIT to hug everyone!!!!

 

What does PBS mean to you?

PBS came along during a difficult year in my life and my involvement with the site is the greatest unpaid job I’ll ever have.

 

3. Did you read as a child? What was your favorite book growing up? What book impacted you most as a child or young adult?

I was an avid reader as a child – my mother promised me that I could have a horse if I learned everything there was to know about them.  I LIVED at the library in section 636.1 for most of my youth.  I am quite sure I checked out every horse book at my library at least 10 times.

 

 

My favorite book as a young girl was Man O’ War by Walter Farley.  I still have my beaten up copy.

 

The book that impacted me most was The Valley of Horses by Jean Auel.  I had wanted to read that book for years (because it said “horses” in the title”).  My mother allowed me to read it during the summer between my junior and senior year in high school.  We had moved from the small town where I grew up to the big city of Atlanta and I completely identified with the main character.  We were both alone and making our way through a whole new world.  The Valley of Horses is the only hardcover book on my keeper shelf and is definitely a touchstone for me.

 

 

 

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

I don’t really have a favorite book that I’ve read as an adult, since most of what I read is for pleasure.  However, I read The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein last year and I would say that it is the book that has made me stop and think.  It also makes me look at my cat and wonder what is going through her walnut-sized brain.

 

5. What are you reading now?

Unfortunately real-life is overshadowing my reading right now, but I have a TON of books on my TBR pile.  I want to read my copies of Lover Mine and Lover Unleashed by JR Ward.

 

Thank you and Happy PBS Anniversary Mary!