About the Blog

Dog Eared Pages has been a  long time in the works. Growing up, I was rarely found without a book in my hand, no matter whether I was hiding my book inside a desk during class or reading under the covers in bed at night. My family is a bunch of avid readers and they were always encouraging me to read as much as possible.

My grandfather built me a "library" in his basement with many classic literature novels. Of course, of the books that were down there, I was more interested in the tchotchkes or jewelry that came shrink wrapped within the book packages.

My favorite memories involving books are buying my first few vintage Nancy Drew books at antique stores in Cape May, New Jersey. My grandfather completed my Nancy Drew book collection buy buying the entire series at Costco and filling up my book shelves with the beautiful yellow hard covers. I have enjoyed reading them (still to this day) and adding vintage editions of the novels to my collection as well.

My other favorite memory involving books is waiting with my mom at Atlantic Book Store in Cape May, New Jersey for the final installment of the Harry Potter series in 2007.  The line was wrapped around the corner, waiting for midnight to strike to be allowed into the store to pick up our two copies of the book -- because my mom and I could not wait for each other to finish so we each had to have our own copy. It was a quarter of midnight when a man came around the corner, reading what seemed like the last page of the new book and he was reading out loud. Everyone in the line shouted and covered their ears so the story wouldn't be ruined. The lady in front of me called over the police officer sitting on his bicycle, ready to intervene. He escorted the man away, so he wouldn't read us the final chapter of Harry Potter. I spent the rest of my summer vacation tearing away at the pages and finding out that "all was well."

So here you are, reading Dog Eared Pages, because I have an extreme passion for books that I credit to my family. I decided to call the blog Dog Eared Pages because my biggest pet peeve involving reading is when people "dog ear" the pages - or fold them over. So why call my blog something that drives me crazy? Perhaps because I hope that you will "dog ear" this blog and come back often :)

-Rachel Shubin (May 2014)