Melanie:Though I enjoy the occasional apocalyptic novel, I mostly read non-fiction and poetry. I just finished Stolen Focus by Johann Hari. It examines the latest results from a variety of disciplines and scientific studies to discover the many causes, some of which will surprise you, of our ever-shortening attention spans—I think everyone should read it and reclaim their attention.
While I do enjoy reading printed books, I tend to do a lot of my reading on the road listening to audiobooks during my commute to campus. I like that I can listen to a book after I've read it—it makes it easy for me to engage with the book and its ideas. I also have ADHD, so I retain more if I can listen to the book while reading it so that I get dual-sensory input.
As an English professor, it is often hard to pick just one author or just one book as a favorite, but if I had to choose, Cormac McCarthy and Stephen King would be at the top of the list. More on McCarthy later, but King—-King's writing is engaging, frightening, and enlightening and a perfect representation of a great American author. In all of his books, King takes an ordinary person and gives them an extraordinary circumstance. Navigating through this circumstance becomes the story. Plus, some of his short stories and novels contain interconnected characters and he drops hidden treasures throughout the stories that reference the other stories. That said, about six months ago, I walked into our local Red Rock Books here in Ridgecrest, looking specifically for a new-to-me King novel to read. Now, I've read every single King novel except his Dark Tower series, so I was anticipating settling on one of his short story collections.
Lo and behold, I came across the first book (there are seven) in the Dark Tower series, The Gunslinger. After encouragement from one of my creative writing students, I decided to go on the Dark Tower journey, and what a journey it is. I am currently on the sixth book Song of Susannah. The series follows Roland Deschain, thought to be the last gunslinger, in his quest to find the dark tower—a magical structure thought to connect universes across time dimensions. Part Western, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Time Travel, Horror, and Apocalyptic, Roland's (and his friends') journey is a rollercoaster 
storyline filled with infinite adventures and lovable characters (Eddie Dean is my favorite). Song of Susannah (the book I'm reading now) takes place across time frames and on Earth and Mid-World. Roland, Eddie, and others are faced with traveling from Mid-World to Earth in 1999 and 1977, respectively. One team of gunslingers went to rescue pregnant Susannah in 1999 and the other went to Maine to find characters in another of Stephen King's novels Salem's Lot. I'll leave it at that.
Returning to Cormac McCarthy is simply the best. In prose and structure, McCarthy's novels are magnificent and life-changing. The Road and Blood Meridian are my favorites. The Road is a beautiful story of a young boy and a man he calls Papa post-apocalyptic journey while Blood Meridian is a Western-type novel that follows a runaway boy as he navigates the Indian wars of the 19th century. I'm not doing either book justice here. Pick up a copy.
I teach, English, Speech, and Creative Writing at our Tehachapi campus; I also teach for our Rising Scholars program at California Correctional Institute in Tehachapi.
I teach in the English & Foreign Language department at the IWV/Ridgecrest campus—both on-ground and online courses. I teach Freshman Composition ENGL C101, Critical Thinking through Literature ENGL C102, Speech Communication SPCH C101, Creative Writing ENGL C141, and American Literature both pre-and post-Civil War (ENGL C241 & ENGL C242).
Why do I think Libraries are awesome? From the earliest libraries in ancient Mesopotamia to our local libraries, I think libraries have been around almost as long as we have. They are a testament to the importance of preserving knowledge and stories for future generations--books are so important that they deserve their own building. They are one of the last public spaces that are free and open to all.
Also, librarians rock—they are among the bravest advocates and defenders of literacy.
For me, libraries are cool because of the librarians. Yes, the shelves are full of wonder and imagination, but it's the librarians who navigate through the wonder to help discover the stories that change our lives. Librarians are full of knowledge about new novels, classic novels, research topics, thesis suggestions, research approaches, reference material, and anything else. Libraries contain books, but librarians point us to those books.
Deanna Ing Campbell
Cliff Davis
Tyrone Ledford
Melanie Jeffrey & Debilyn Kinzler
