User:ViviElnora

Hi! I'm ViviElnora. I grew up and live in northwestern Minnesota, despising the cold, in a home without a TV, but filled with books, so I became a voracious reader. I read mainly fantasy and science fiction, with the occasional jump over to psychology and history. I enjoy not only reading the story, but also trying to understand the characters' culture to attempt to understand why characters make the choices they do.

My desires to understand the "whys" in fiction has developed into an interest in understanding the "whys" in our culture as well. I'm not particularly interested in cold, hard, factual lists of dates, wars, rulers, and leaders, but in the common, dirty, everyday details throughout our history. I'm most interested in how resources were obtained and dispersed, what people ate, what they wore, how diseases, wars, and new laws affected everyday life, and how all that has intertwined and changed to create our culture.

I feel that the idea and ideals in fiction can be as valuable as understanding our history in improving our world. So it is important to me that knowledge of both be preserved and made accessible in an inviting manner.