yendi

I work in higher education by day (as an academic application admin and a feral librarian), and I freelance as a book reviewer for Publishers Weekly (with the odd freelance writing gig thrown in). I'm something of a packrat, and am all too subject to the collector's mentality, which is why swapping is either very good or very dangerous for me. :-) I'm not sure if I've got a specific area of interest, but I do love foreign currency (coins and notes) and stamps, as well as toys and games of all stripes (including video games). I'm also a huge animation and comics fan, and love related merchandise. Although I'm not generally crafty, my wife knits and has done some jewelery making, and my daughter (who's 15) dabbles in assorted crafts as well. We've also got three cats, although they have the typical feline habit of preferring hair ties and other items to cat toys.

I'm insanely eclectic when it comes to my musical tastes, but some music I've been listening to recently includes: SJ Tucker, Tori Amos, Metric, MGMT, The Oyster Band, Metallica, Squeeze, Weird Al, Great Big Sea, TMBG, Nellie McKay, Poison, Leonard Cohen, and more.

I read a ton, most of it professionally for PW. Favorite authors include Charles de Lint, Jasper Fforde, Andrew Vachss, Jim Steinmeyer, Tom Standage, and dozens other others. I'm partial to genre fiction and to nonfiction (with history, sociology, and lit crit my favorite nonfiction subgenres), but I like good books of just about every stripe.

I adore TV. There's a lot of junk on the air, but at its best, TV, allows for some incredible long-form entertainment, and can easily surpass movies if the creator is given the right level of control. Favorite shows include: Buffy, The Wire, Lost, Party Down, Veronica Mars, Homicide, Black Books, Slings and Arrows, Castle, CSI (original flavor only), Glee, The Closer, The Tudors, True Blood, and more.

Picking a favorite movie is tough, but some of the ones I can watch multiple times include: Citizen Kane, The Third Man, The Muppet Movie, 2001, Memento, The Usual Suspects, The Naked Gun, Big Fish, and dozens more.