#PeopleFirst Friday: Kaitlin Reese
While Event Manager Kaitlin Reese and her older sister were growing up, they developed two entirely unique sets of hobbies.
“My sister’s hobby was playing golf, but mine was reading,” Reese said. “So I would follow my sister around on the golf course while sitting in the golf cart and reading a book.”
Reese attributes her love of reading to her mother, an elementary school teacher and reading specialist, who read to her from birth.
“I remember the first book that I really read was the Harry Potter series,” she said. “My mom started reading it to me, but then she just wasn’t reading it fast enough, so I picked it up and started reading it on my own. But then I got into historical fiction, mystery thrillers, and really just any kind of book.”
Growing up in a small town in Virginia, Reese found reading as a way to learn more about the rest of the world.
“There wasn’t a lot to do in my town, so reading was a great way to go and experience new places and get out of the ‘box’ and understand different types of people and different ways of living,” she said. “It was a good look into the past to see what happened, but books can also shape our future as well.”
Some of Reese’s favorite genres include mystery/thriller, “rom-com,” historical fiction and autobiographies. Her favorite authors are British mystery thriller writer Ruth Ware and American Romance novelist Emily Henry, but she also holds a special place in her heart for the “classics,” mentioning the works of Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women as some of her all-time favorites.
“Emily Henry released a new book two or three weeks ago that I got on a Friday, and finished on Saturday,” Reese said. “When I really want to read something, I’ll make the time to read it.”
While many readers have adopted reading via e-reader or tablet, Reese still prefers the feel of a traditional hardback or paperback book, as well as the traditional shopping experience of buying books in a bookstore.
“I tried reading e-books when I was in college, but I hated it. It saved space in my dorm room, which was nice, but I had a lot of books,” she said. “I love just walking in Barnes & Noble and just looking around and seeing what strikes my fancy. I’ll never turn down the opportunity to just walk into a bookstore and just look around.”
Despite the fact that she is constantly reading, Reese has never been the type of reader who has tracked the number of books she reads in a year, at least until 2023. This year, she’s officially set a goal, which has already been changed several times.
“I started with the goal of reading 35 books this year,” she said. “Now I’ve changed that to 50. So far I’ve read 17 this year, but I think I can finish the year with 100.”