Name: Aaron Heil
Job Title: Library Assistant
Job Duties: Catalogue maintenance; readers’ advisory; book production and sound editing
Years with Talking Books: 1 year and 10 months
Hometown: Wichita, KS
Favorite Book/Author/Series/Genre?
I try to read some of everything, but the bulk is probably science fiction and fantasy. Isaac Asimov, Robert Louis Stevenson, Shirley Jackson, and James Thurber are some favorite authors. My favorite book by itself is Watership Down by Richard Adams.
Have you ever faked reading a book?
In high school I routinely forgot my Madame Bovary reading assignments, but I did go back and the read whole book later. These days, I think it’s a great book.
Best library memory:
Junk food plus endless stacks of books and databases times stress equals All-nighters in K-State's Hale Library.
First book you remember reading on your own or being read to you?
Green Eggs and Ham for days!
If you could have any famous person narrate any book, who would it be, which book & why?
I would like to hear basketball commentator Dick Vitale read Rabbit, Run by John Updike. It just seems appropriate for a voice that’s so closely associated with college hoops to read a book about a twenty-something former basketball star.
What do you find most interesting/rewarding about working at Talking Books?
Talking to patrons about their books is one of my favorite things about working here. Lots of our patrons are older. They grew up with a lot of the great pulps from the ‘50s and ‘60s, so they’re just thrilled when they find out that we can download Frederik Pohl, Erle Stanley Gardner, Louis L’Amour. Sometimes, they impart a little wisdom, too: I recently started watching Bosch on Amazon because a patron told me how much he liked Michael Connelly.
Farthest you’ve ever been from Kansas?
When I was little, my family lived near Seattle, Washington, but I have no memory of this period because I was so young when it happened.