Reader's Fave

Recently I interviewed Connor Emlen-Petterson of Skamokawa for our 11th installment of Reader's Fave, a casual talk with someone who shares their favorite book. I met up with Connor out at Puget Island (P.I.) Gardens where he works. On a related note, now is a beautiful time to visit P.I. Gardens.

As we talked, Connor shared The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, an award winning author of many science fiction and fantasy books, along with other genres. Connor said he'd read a couple of books by Guin before reading The Dispossessed, but what captured him with this particular book was the strong socio-political commentary, which really impressed and spoke to him. "It's a very political book," Connor pointed out.

He recalled how the author develops a story of a people who live in a cooperative society where they volunteered in sharing their limited resources as they dwelt on this other planet's moon. However, Connor also stressed how Guin revealed various personality challenges or flaws in the people and how some were "wrapped-up in their own egos," revealing that while they lived in a cooperative-sharing society they were faced with the fact that they were all an "imperfect people, too."

Connor mentioned how the people, as they tried to live and progress on this distant moon, struggled with, "all these grey areas" in their ideals. They were corrupted in their own individual ways," Connor said. In the end, these people faced the time-old challenges of being human.

When I asked Connor about what influenced him to be a reader, he said, "Having a mom who is an English teacher was a big influence. I came from a family of readers." He recalled when he was young he enjoyed the classic fairy tales along with nature field guides, reading-up on various animals and their habitats.

Along with his family influence, Connor also has fond school-age memories of going to the school library and "checking out a lot of fantasy-type books" among all this "free literature." He said, "I can still picture the book shelves where I'd go to in the library." It was evident Connor remembered those days with pleasure and thankfulness for the joy reading had brought to him. Whether it be a hard-copy, e-book, or maybe an audio on the Libby app, may you wonderful Wahkiakum readers enjoy a book to read.