malka1966
malka1966
| Forum role | Member since | Last activity | Topics created | Replies created |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Member | Nov 12, 2015 (10 years) |
- | 3 | 6 |
- Forum role
- Member
- Member since
Nov 12, 2015 (10 years)
- Last activity
- -
- Topics created
- 3
- Replies created
- 6
Bio
Thanks to my beloved Grammy, I started reading mysteries at about 7 years old with good old Nancy Drew. She would find old copies in her local used book store in Brooklyn. I have so many memories of sitting on the floor of the narrow store, searching the stacks for books in the series I hadn't yet read.
Grammy graduated me to Agatha Christie when I was about 10 years old and after that there was no stopping me; I had found my genre. It took me about 10 years to read every Agatha Christie book and short story, but by then I had also branched out to Ngaio Marsh and Dorothy Sayers.
This was all before the internet, when finding a new release in your series, or a new author, meant going to a bookstore or library and spending pleasurable hours searching the shelves.
When I moved to Seattle in 1990, there was a mystery book store just a few blocks from where I lived. And another a neighborhood over. And another downtown. Bookstores devoted only to mysteries!
Then came the Barnes and Noble era, and our local specialty bookstores, one by one, bit the dust. And then the digital era came, and the big B&N near me closed too. The joy of wandering the aisles, communing with fellow enthusiasts, was over.
In the spring of 2008 I happened upon a local Seattle event--the Mystery Book Exchange at Phinney Neighborhood Center. People came with their old mysteries and traded for new ones. My people!
It dawned on me, after seeing the success of this event, that with this many people in Seattle loving mysteries there had to be a regular Mystery Fiction book group. I heard rumors of one at the University Book Store, and some murmurings about one at the downtown Mystery Book Shop (now sadly closed). But they didn't seem to meet regularly and I couldn't get any decent info.
So I made a decision. I'm a community organizer at heart, and with the combined good fortune of meetup.com and the Seattle Public Library, I started the Seattle Mystery Lovers Book Group in January 2009.
I couldn't have done it without meetup.com, and will always be grateful for their philosophy of finding your community online, but then getting out there and meeting in the real world. I was able to fill my grouup without having to do any advertising on my own.
We first met in the Wedgwood library, until that branch closed on Sundays, our chosen meetup day. We've moved around since then, and are thrilled with our current location in the University District of Seattle.
In 2017 I started our website, external to meetup.com We needed the flexibility of additional online features to post our reading lists. And our group was becoming extremely popular. But I did notice that many people wanted to join our group, but couldn't attend in person. Thus the website. You can now follow our reading list, check in to see how the group felt about each book, and add comments of your own.
In January 2019 we will hit our 10 year anniversary. I couldn't be prouder of our group, who meet continuously, read voraciously, and discuss passionately. I hope you can join us, either in person through meetup.com or at our website www.seattlemysterylovers.com
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