Nice ta Meetcha -- Monday, November 5th: Liesl, Daniel, & Shelly

This week, we've got a mix of old and new faces as well as...A BOY! Yes, we do have male staff members here at the Boulder Book Store! 

Liesl -- 

• When did you start working at BBS?
•  The Stone Age--before Computac, before the Annex (Blogger's note: ahem, she means the Upper North Room), before email. (that would be the early 90's BTW
• What is your role on the floor?
• To make people smile, especially kids, to hand out the bathroom code, and straighten stuffed animals. (Another note from the blogger -- Liesl is also our "Children's Room Inventory Manager" and she's a wonderful resource for recommendations for young folks!!)
• Where are you from originally and what brought you to Boulder?
• There is no time before Boulder--my parents brought me when I was an infant. 
• What are some of your favorite genres/specific titles?
• Children's (but you knew that) what you may not have known is that I also like Sci-Fi, Mysteries, Cooking, and Crafts.
• What is your favorite thing about working at BBS?
• Books and people and rep night. 
• What is one unique/interesting fact about you that one wouldn't necessarily learn in ordinary conversation?
• My dad was an Olympian.  He went to Mexico City in 1968 and was co-captain of the men's gymnastics team. No he didn't win, but, hey, he went!

 Daniel -- 

• When did you start working at BBS?
• I started in June of 2012
• What is your role on the floor?
•  I am  a bookseller.
• Where are you from originally and what brought you to Boulder?
• I am from Belleville, IL, the home of Jimmy Connors and Stag Brewery.  The never-ending onslaught of present moment discovery in the contemplative psychotherapy program at Naropa University brought me to Boulder.
• What are some of your favorite genres/specific titles?
• My favorite genres:  fiction, film, psychology, poetry, Buddhism, and shamanism.  Ten of my favorite titles in no particular order: Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Rock by Legs McNeil, Cathedral by Raymond Carver, Sculpting in Time by Andrei Tarkovsky, Desolation Angels by Jack Kerouac, Valis by Philip K. Dick, The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles, Freedom from the Known by Jidda Krishnamurti, Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.  I guess this goes up to 11.  Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson.
• What is your favorite thing about working at BBS?
• The money obviously.  Ok, ok the books.  What a wonderful, diverse collection of glorious books.
• What is one unique/interesting fact about you that one wouldn't necessarily learn in ordinary conversation?
• I'm a fighter, not a lover.

Shelly -- 

• When did you start working at BBS?
• November of 2005
• What is your role on the floor?
• Part-time bookseller
• Where are you from originally and what brought you to Boulder?
• From Conifer and Evergreen, though I usually just say somewhere close to South Park. And now I live up in the sticks of Gilpin County, which is why I don’t work at the Book Store more often. I moved back to Evergreen for my family, but when the local drugstore and hardware went belly-up, I moved to the cabin where I am now. It’s hard to see all the changes in Boulder too (I will eternally miss Tom’s Tavern), but it’s worse for me in my hometowns, since I’m such a sap.
• What are some of your favorite genres/specific titles?
• I read mostly contemporary literary fiction: short stories and novels, plus memoirs. Certain graphic novels or cartoons, literary magazines, and any other subject that peaks my curiosity, unless the writing/art itself doesn’t suck me in enough. The titles are endless, but two memorable story collections are Vanishing by Deborah Willis and Girl Trouble by Holly Goddard Jones. And I can tell you my three favorite Colorado writers and books: Laura Pritchett, Sky Bridge; Tim Z. Hernandez, Breathing, In Dust; Kent Haruf, Plainsong or Eventide. (All three will have new novels out in 2013.). Wyoming’s Mark Spragg, who wrote
  Bone Fire, is also brilliant.
• What is your favorite thing about working at BBS?
• Shelving, finding books for customers (and myself), and meeting writers, such as the local people above. I first found Laura and Tim’s books on our shelves and I’ve since become pals with them, and worked with them as a writer myself. Kent and Mark are also lovely human beings. Stephen Graham Jones, who lives here in Boulder, is amazing and funny. Terry Tempest Williams left me in awe. And Andre Dubus III gave just about the best reading I’ve ever seen. Ideally, I love writers who are talented, smart, hilarious, and very authentic. I also like writers who swear (dammit).
• What is one unique/interesting fact about you that one wouldn't necessarily learn in ordinary conversation?
• I started wearing mini-skirts during my first year of college when I also stopped shaving my legs. And, with respect to my brothers, I was raised by wolves.