This is Me




A Reader's Respite
2008-2015

A Reader's Respite was owned, managed, written, and sometimes ignored by me, Michele Jacobsen... airline pilot, wife, and mother of two who reads more than I ought to. It ran book reviews from 2008 to 2015 when I decided to move on to other ventures. Feel free to use any of the reviews I've left here at the site. You can contact me via email (michele dot jacobsen1 at gmail dot com), Twitter, Facebook, or any other of the contact links I've provided on the front page. Happy reading.

I'll read just about any genre except mommy-porn (we all have to draw a line in the sand somewhere). I harbor literary grudges against Jonathan Franzen, Claire Messud, and Ernest Hemingway. And while I can hold my own in a discussion of the classics, sometimes a whale is just a whale and we have to accept that. Melville did. So can we. k?

Things You Probably Won't Find Interesting About Me:
  1. My favorite book ever is Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (who knew I liked westerns? Not me.)
  2. I despise exclamation points.
  3. I'm on a personal mission not to use the word very. Please proofread everything I post and bring any inadvertent usage of this horrible word to my attention. #thankyouverymuch #dammit 
  4. I use bad language. A lot. If you have tender ears you'll have to leave. Sorry. Nice meeting you, bye.
  5. I have series OCD: I must own all books in a series before I can start reading the series.
  6. I love espionage fiction, especially John Le Carre novels.
  7. I've never been able to actually finish a Dickens novel. Ever.
  8. If a historical fiction novel isn't 100% historically accurate I will throw it across the room. I don't care if it's fiction. Don't f*ck with history.
  9. I own every book in the Walter Farley Black Stallion series. Hard Cover. First Edition.
  10. Author crush: Edgar Allen Poe
  11. Author crush #2: Joe Abercrombie
  12. Most talented author of our time: Hilary Mantel
  13. Books I wish I could read again for the first time...Harry Potter, of course. 
  14. My dream vacation is to read Agatha Christie novels while traveling on the Orient Express to Istanbul.
  15. While both of my kids love books, one prefers audiobooks and the youngest just loves Fancy Nancy books. So far, my dreams of young children being lost in thick tomes have not come to fruition.
  16. I generally plow through between 100-150 books per year. Less than 10 of those will be memorable.
  17. I have no preference between dead-tree books and e-books. 
  18. I'm from the Seattle area and we're all tree-hugging commies up here. Just so you know ahead of time.
  19. I can read music and play both piano and flute.
  20. I've visited all 50 states.
  21. I've landed an airplane in 49 states. Damn you Delaware for not having a commercial airport.
  22. I've traveled to more countries than I ever thought I'd see in my lifetime. It's been wondrous.
  23. I've decided there is far more for me to learn than I have time to take in. I'm unsure how to process that fact. So I read still more books. Can't hurt.
  24. I love starting new projects.
  25. I rarely follow through on those projects.
  26. I'm easily distracted.
  27. It's impossible for me to have less than 10 browser tabs open at one time.
  28. I don't understand the point of Instagram. Still.
  29. I am far too opinionated for my own good.
  30. I can be quite patient with kind people but incredibly ill-tempered and wickedly sharp with mean people.
  31. I love classes and education. Obsessively.
  32. I hate how-to or self-help books. Go figure.
  33. Middle-readers are more fun than YA, in my opinion.
  34. I wish I was better-read in fantasy and sci-fi.
  35. Cormac McCarthy may be brilliant, but he'd be more brilliant if he'd just get over himself and use some damned punctuation. I dislike pretentiousness.
  36. I have both a dog and a cat. It depends on the day which one is my favorite. Probably the cat. Maybe. She can be a bitch when she wants to be though.
  37. My dog is a miniature doberman pinscher named Ivan the Terrible.
  38. I used to have a parakeet. Reference #33 and the part about the cat being a bitch.
  39. I don't understand modern art despite two classes that tried to explain it to me. 
  40. I can name every character in My Little Pony.
  41. I have a bookmark collection that numbers close to 500 at last count.
  42. I can cook quite well but pretend that I can't because it would cut into my reading time.
  43. I read when I fly. Shut up. Why the hell do you think autopilots were invented?
  44. The older I get, the less I like reading horror. What's up with that?
  45. I don't drink alcohol. Not because I have anything against it, I just have never developed a taste. I feel like I'm missing out on something big here.
  46. I drink coffee. Iced coffee usually. All day long.
  47. I can't read new releases that have been overly-hyped. I'll be disappointed. So I wait at least 6 months if the publicity surrounding a book release is just too much.
  48. Compulsive. Kindle. Shopper.
  49. I have more books on my Kindle that I've forgotten I've purchased than ones I've actually read. Truth.
  50. First book I ever purchased on my Kindle? Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. Why would I do such a thing? It remains unread.
  51. I have an unhealthy addiction to peanut butter cups.
  52. Aside from coffee and peanut butter cups, I frequently forget to eat.
  53. I'm designing a tomb in which my unread books can be buried with me. I'm still hung up on the climate control for the books, but am confident I'll figure out a solution at some point. I'm handy that way.



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