Mallory Kronlund is a dear friend to our family and a bibliophile. As she is behind most of my books on this blog, she gets to go first in this section of wonderful people!
Mallory is a true Northwestern/beauty, with strawberry hair and a porcelain skin that needs 50 SPF sunscreen at least. It is, however, her sparkling, energizing, sassy personality that makes her a unique friend to all four of us. We met Mallory in Seattle in 2015 through common friends and it was the best thing that happened to us that first year in Seattle. This whirlwind of a person would bring such a rush of energy into our home that it felt like a party whenever she was there. Our triple crush of that first year has by now evolved into a loving friendship, transcending two oceans, and her (fairy) godmothership of Willem.
MY THREE WORDS TO DESCRIBE MALLORY:
TEACHER
I remember this event walking around Greenlake where Mallory talked non-stop to us. About everything. About wanting to become a teacher. About living in South-Korea. About math and physics (to Frederik of course). She has an encyclopedic knowledge of facts and she is a gifted storyteller. Simply a natural teacher! And she became a teacher, by the way, just like she said she would. But being a teacher in the States is truly a calling, considering the circumstances and the wages. I have seen so first hand through Mallory’s life as a teacher. For that same reason, I was very happy to hear that she was taking a break from teaching, because, unfortunately, there is another word I associate with Mallory.
PAIN
Mallory sometimes refers to herself as a freak of nature. She says – jokingly – that from the three siblings she got all the bad genes. If you see her, you would disagree, but of course, she is not referring to her looks. Mallory is allergic to lots and lots of things, doesn’t do well with heat, cold or too little sunshine, which is related to her fibromyalgia. Pain seems to be a big part of her life. A particular challenge for even the best of us.
BOOKS
I kept the best for last: books! Mallory is a true bibliophile. She reads at a pace that makes your head spin and always has a couple of books with her. Just in case. She also has gifted us tons of books, to all of us, since we met her! She handpicks them for us, individually and with scrutiny, delivering them at home, personally or in a box, for Christmas or birthdays. And I love it! Having a personal book advisor is a remarkable joy in life. I do no longer carry the burden of picking my own books and every single book I have read through her has been a winner. And it comes with a wonderful bonus: you immediately have someone to talk to about the book you are reading! I think she should have her own blog on books. So, maybe this interview will help!
MY QUESTIONS TO MALLORY:
What did you think of the three words I picked for you? Do they correspond with your self-image or not? Which ones would you have picked?
I love them! I’m currently in a place in life where my health concerns are forcing me to significantly alter how I live my life, and it’s interesting to me that other people are noticing this as well. Being in pain is not something that I would ascribe to as part of my self-image, but it absolutely has become the focal point of my life lately. But books and teaching, I think, have always been a part of me.
Why do you love books so much?
I was a strange, lonely child, and books were always a place I could go where I didn’t have to explain myself; in fact, I could have the confusing world explained to me. I’m going to use a quote from my favorite book, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, to answer this question more poetically than I could:
“From that time on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood. There was poetry for quiet companionship. There was adventure when she tired of quiet hours. There would be love stories when she came into adolescence and when she wanted to feel a closeness to someone she could read a biography. On that day when she first knew she could read, she made a vow to read one book a day as long as she lived.”
I don’t read a book every day (though I did as a kid), but I do read at least one every week.
How does your love for books relate to the other aspects of your life, like being a teacher or being in pain?
My love for books is in all aspects of my life. Here’s the story of how I became a teacher: one night in college, I had friends over to hang out. I decided to read a Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (my favorite children’s book, because it is so whimsical and sad) to them, because I was in a silly mood. While I was reading, I realized that I could read and talk about books all day…and the state would pay me to do so if I became a teacher. It was really my love for reading that brought me into education.
As far as being in pain goes…books help me from feeling like an invalid all the time. I’m currently banned from exercise or movement or, really, anything that requires the use of any of my joints, so books are the way I interact with the wider world these days.
Would you call it a passion or a hobby? Or a profession?
Books are life. It’s so much deeper than a hobby, and only related to my profession in that I can teach books. It’s a sustained and sustaining passion.
When and how did you discover this passion/hobby/profession?
Oh, probably when I was born. My mother is also passionate about books, and she read them to us every day, starting from the day we were born. There were always books in the house–for children, and for adults. I was also raised a Lutheran, which is probably one of the most text-heavy versions of Christianity. I don’t remember learning to read, but my mom tells me that I was obsessed with books from a very young age.
What is the biggest challenge concerning your passion/hobby/profession? What do you consider the disadvantages of having this passion/hobby/profession?
Time! There are way too many books to read, and not enough time in which to do so! I think the only disadvantage is that reading is often a solitary act, and I’m fairly extroverted. I think the only thing I like more than reading is interacting with people, and it’s a little hard to do both things at the same time. I think also, the fact that education is so expensive in the US makes pursuing books more seriously difficult. I would love to get my PhD in something book related, but I don’t have the money for it, and I don’t want to end up teaching freshman composition at a community college somewhere in the middle of nowhere (No offense to the middle of nowhere. It’s just not for me.)
How do you pick the books that you read yourself? How do you pick books for other people?
For myself, I spend a fair amount of time on “book internet,” and I read a fair number of book reviews. I’ve been doing this thing lately where I’ve been reading two books that are ostensibly on the same topic just to see how that feels. I read two books that feature a road trip, two books about Nazi Germany, two books that have ghosts in them…
Choosing books for others is one of my greatest joys!
The easiest way to find a book for someone is to find a non-fiction book. There is a book on every topic that will be reasonable well-written. Just find a topic that someone is interested in, and then find a cool book about it! I think I bought Frederick a book about the periodic table once. I send you guys so many books about North Korea because I know the 3 of us find politics interesting, and there are few things more interesting than North Korean politics. For fiction, it always has to be a book I’ve read. I never give a work of fiction to someone unless I’ve read it. Usually, the book is one I’ve read in the last year. If I read it, and it makes me think of a person, then that is what that person is getting for Christmas! I think you do have to know someone pretty well to intuit if they would like a book. I think you and I do great book exchanges, actually! I’ve never gotten a book from you that I didn’t love.
What book are you reading right now?
Currently, I’m in the middle of a few books; I tend to read more than one at a time so I can have one available for any mood. I’m reading “A Tale of Two Cities,” which is a classic book for high school students in America, but I’ve never read it. I’m enjoying it a great deal; I sometimes forget what a good storyteller Dickens can be. I’m also reading a book called “Cutting for Stone,” which is a novel with underdeveloped characters and incredibly detailed descriptions of surgery.
You have lived in South-Korea for a while. Tell us about that! Why did you pick South-Korea? How did it influence your life?
At the time I went, South Korea was the only country I had been to where I was not groped on public transit (I’ve since been to a few other countries–Germany and Belgium included–where no one assaulted me.). I’d been there before twice before moving there, and I really enjoyed it. It’s safe, easy to navigate as an English speaker (It is very easy to find English language books there.), and has interesting food! I also loved being in a culture where singing and music were such a part of everyday life.
I’ll tell you a story about one of the things that happened to me when I was in South Korea. First, a little background: South Koreans are very proud of their alphabet. It’s an incredibly clever writing system where written vowels mimic the shape a mouth makes when that vowel is made, and syllables are stacked in a super efficient manner. It’s very clever. The alphabet is so important to the Koreans that they have a national holiday called Hangul Day for it! So, on Hangul Day, I met up with a linguistics professor in Seoul who had spotted me on the streets of Daejeon a week before. He had said that he wanted some native English speakers to come and do some recordings for him (This is not an uncommon thing for Westerners to hear in South Korea; I know more than a few people who have gotten various modeling/hosting/recording gigs just for being Western in Korea.). We meet up at a coffee shop, and he gives me a script (in English) that is full of praise for the Korean alphabet. It also contains some blatant falsehoods…like that the Korean alphabet can write every sound that humans can make, and that non-Korean people all over the world use the Korean alphabet. He then tells me he wants to do the recording in front of the former royal palace–one of the most important sites in Seoul! So I go with him to this site, and recite my script praising the Korean alphabet in front of tourists, people celebrating the alphabet, and various official ceremonies going on. This professor did not have a permit to this, and police and guards came to confront him about this. The professor tells the cops that he’s with me, and that I am an official delegate from the US who has come to praise the alphabet! The cops look at me, understandably incredulous, but then let us leave if we promise not to make any more unofficial speeches. I still don’t know what that professor was intending with any of this, but he gave me around $50, and I never saw him again.
I think living in South Korea influenced me in a way that I was not expecting. When I was younger, I always wanted to be an ex-pat, and I thought that I would never live in the US as an adult. Living in Korea helped me realize that, while I love traveling, I get very homesick for the Northwest. I’m just not made for living outside Washington for too long…which means that we’ll just have to visit a lot…or you’ll have to move back 😉