Blogging Goals for the Coming Year

Book Blogger Appreciation Week’s topic today is to be about our blogging goals for the coming year. It is supposed to be concise, in 50 words or less. You may have noticed, but I’m not concise. Anyway, I included my goals in brief and then my goals explained.

My goals in 28 words:

Request fewer free books; join fewer giveaways. Spend less time blogging. Spend greater portion of blogging time promoting the classics. Read with more focus. Join fewer organized “challenges.” Continue reading »

BBAW Interview with Genre Reviews: OCD, Vampires, and Rants, Oh My!

I seriously loved doing a BBAW blogger interview.

I thought that I wouldn’t have much in common with the girls at Genre Reviews: OCD, Vampires, and Rants, Oh My! I don’t read “genre fiction,” I didn’t think. But I learned that even the classics can be considered “genre fiction!” And I loved discovering how their reasons for blogging are similar to mine.

We all read and blog because we love books, and realizing that is what BBAW is all about.

Go check out Genre Reviews‘ interview of me today.

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Rebecca’s BBAW Winners

Happy Book Blogger Appreciation Week: it’s finally begun! I’m so excited to find new blog and to celebrate the old favorites.

To start the week, here are some of my favorite blogs that have not yet been noted via BBAW. I tried to “limit” it to just ten out of the plethora in my reader, but I ended up with eleven, and I don’t want to take any of these off the list. These bloggers all celebrate books in their own way. I love the diversity of blogging, and I appreciate all of you. Continue reading »

BBAW Voting is Open + Rebecca Reads Shortlisted!

I have been out of town for the past five days, and it’s been nice to have an essentially blog-free weekend! I did get my book club book read this week, but other than that, it’s even been a light reading week.

That said, my reception back in to the blogging world seriously made my day, my week, my month, and my blogging year.

Rebecca Reads has been shortlisted for Best General Review Blog along with these excellent bloggers:

• 100 Scope Notes
• Books on the Nightstand
• She is Too Fond of Books
• The Zen Leaf

Continue reading »

Reading Journal (19 Aug): Miscellany

I’m behind on blogging this week, as in I have three reviews that need to be written. I’m behind on the administrative things, like memes (I still haven’t done the BBAW meme and nominations are already closed!). I’m behind on reading your blogs.

And yet, there are so many things I want to talk about.

I want to talk about how I finally caved in. I joined twitter. Do I really need to be online any more than I already am?! Is this really necessary?

I want to talk about how I got all warm and happy when I saw that I’ve been nominated for several BBAW awards. I felt like all the hard work is worth it! I know I am one of many, but I still feel all good inside: someone likes my blog! Enough to nominate me! Me! Thank you so much. It has given me such a feeling of confidence to know that my blog isn’t silly.

I want to talk about how reading everyone’s posts about classics for the Really Old Classics Bookworms Carnival I hosted yesterday was so much fun because it reminded me that there are people who still read the classics and like them! All those books I talked about yesterday? I want to read them. Now. Wouldn’t it be amazing to be so widely read? But not only that: I want to be able to converse about them. I want to be a deep reader too. I want to sit down with John Donne and the commentary about his poetry and I want to understand.

I want to talk about experiencing classics over the course of a few weeks, rather than hours.  While I enjoyed my July filled with modern fiction, I’m getting back into a classics mood. I spent almost a month listening to The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, and it was fun to have that complicated mystery to look forward to. It was a pleasure. Now I’m reading Gulliver’s Travels at about the same pace (although it’s shorter, so I read less every week). While Swift is definitely not as fun, it’s still a relief. I can’t describe why reading a classic feels like a relief, it just does. It’s great, and stretching it out makes it real and physical, rather than a by-passed pleasure. I’m not reading to turn pages. I’m reading to read.

I want to talk about how much fun it is to read nonfiction. The knife book I’m reading is giving me all sorts of great pointers for kitchen skills and safety, and the architecture book I’m reading is, while it may be over-my-head in many points, absolutely fascinating. I find myself browsing the web for additional pictures of these old buildings that are just gorgeous, even more so now that I know how revolutionary their building was 120 years ago.

I want to talk about how I cried when we said good-bye to Pooh again this week, and how when I put down the book and wiped away my tears, my son looked up at me and said, “More? Pooh?”

So I guess what I’m saying is, I want to focus on what I’m reading in these Reading Journals. That means I guess I’ll have to do the other stuff – memes and what not – in separate posts. I love my reading.

What do you want to talk about this week? What are you reading? Do you twitter?

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Book Blogs Rebecca Reads and Appreciates

Book Blogger Appreciation Week is underway! Today we’re asked what blogs weren’t nominated that should have been. I’m only a new book blogger myself, so I know I miss a lot of great blogs. All of those that I’m subscribed to are in my far right sidebar. (I hope I haven’t missed any? It’s been a few weeks since I’ve updated it, and I don’t have time right now to do so.)

Here are some book bloggers that I really think should be recognized: I always appreciate what they have to say. Continue reading »

Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling (and BBAW giveaway)

In honor of Book Bloggers Appreciation Week, I’m giving away my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. For more BBAW giveaways, visit here and here. Continue reading »