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Classics, Nonfiction, and Children's Literature

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I Am a Mother: Thoughts on BBAW and Life

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I am so delighted to be honored not only with a nomination as a Best Classics Book Blog, but also with placement on the short list! Thank you so much for reading along.

Other classics bloggers on the short list include Allie at A Literary Odyssey and Amanda at Dead White Guys.

Allie is a teacher working her way through a list of 250 classics. She’s read 112 of them, and has many more wonderful books to discuss. She writes about classics because she loves them and because she wants her reading life to have meaning: reading the classics is helping her ground herself as she searches for a full-time teaching job. I love reading of her discovery of new favorites! It’s an odyssey that she invites all of us to join in on.

Amanda subtitles her blog “An Irreverent Guide to Classics Literature” and I think that’s a perfect description! Here’s how she describes her blog:

I found a few blogs about classics, but they weren’t funny, and they made the books sound as entertaining or enticing as sticking knitting needles in my eyes. And I like knitting. SO! DWG was born. Here, we approach the classics in a light-hearted, sarcastic, silly-but-never-stupid way in order to remind people that these books are worth reading because they’re super awesome.

I love reading her responses to the books she reads — some of which she loves more than I did, and others that she loves (gasp) less than I did. She does make classics fun.I full appreciate the fact that I write about classics in a less exciting way, and I’m not working on classics projects or staying very organized as I read and write about what I read. So go check out these other awesome book blogs and then feel free to vote for your favorite on the BBAW ballot. Regardless of who you vote for, I hope you keep reading classics, classics blogs, and so forth.

Voting for Best Classics Book Blog, as well as for bloggers in many other categories, is now open until September 10. Go and vote for your favorite blogs today!

Who I Am

If you are new to Rebecca Reads, I thought I might take this chance to introduce myself. I’m Rebecca Reid and I like to read. My reading preferences are rather broad, from classics to nonfiction and some modern literary fiction. I also read lots of children’s books, mostly picture books and early readers these days, although I do enjoy an entertaining middle grade novel every now and then. I don’t dabble in YA very often, and I occassionally find a graphic novel that I enjoy. I try to be open minded, but I also know what I like best, and try to stick with that. There is only so much time, and there are so many books to read!

I began blogging in 2008, when I was a new stay-at-home mom with an infant. It began as a way to interact with other readers when I lived thousands of miles from friends and family: I was living in Australia. It has become a journal of my reading. I love looking back on the past years of reading and reflecting on life past and present.

My main goal for the coming year is to refocus my life on my role as mother.Yes, I’m a book blogger. A classics blogger. But even more than that…

I am a mother.

I will still be reading at least one or two classic novels a month and writing about them. I lead a classics book group at my library every month and I love it. I run The Classics Circuit, a frequent tour of classic authors and books, and I find a lot of joy in that. I like writing about the picture books Raisin and I enjoy. I’m not going to stop keeping an online journal of my reading. But…I will probably be less of a presence than I have been in the past. I will probably continue to read a lot less and therefore I will be blogging a lot less than I have been in past years.

My son (named Raisin on this blog) will be four in one month. I’m also ready to make an announcement….(drumroll please)…. that Baby Number 2 will be joining my family in February!1

Raisin is delighted and excited to become a big brother and has already announced that baby’s name is Curious George, “a really good name for monkeys and for babies.”  I have told him that if baby is a monkey, we will name him or her “Curious George.” If baby is a human, Mommy and Daddy get to choose baby’s name. He’s okay with that. He likes to talk to baby through my tummy and even reads him/her stories.

So anyway, that’s my news, and that’s my plan for the future. I am honored to be shortlisted as best classics blogger. I love classics blogging and I’m not going away from the blogosphere, but I also look forward to the changes coming to my family in the coming months, and it probably will affect the amount of time I spend blogging.

Remember, Book Blogger Appreciation Week begins next week! I’ll be here, but I do have in-laws coming in town, so I would be as much of a participant I wish I could be!

Just for fun, I’ll leave you with my bio in six words:

Learned to read, Reid-ed, still reading.

or

Redhead girl married then birthed redheads.2

  1. If any of you were wondering where I was for a while this summer, now you know: I was busy losing my food a few times a day and napping a lot because I felt dead to the world. ↩
  2. Yes, all of the Reid family has red hair: Mom, Dad, and Raisin. ↩

Related posts:

  1. BBAW: Community Part 2
  2. BBAW Meme + Thanks for the Nominations
  3. Book Blogger Appreciation Week: First Treasure
  4. Reading Journal September 26, 2012


Comments

  3. Amanda says

    I already said it on Facebook, but congrats again! I hope the morning sickness goes away fast. Did you have any with Raisin? I’m so lucky I never had it with any of the boys, but the downside was that I had severe sciatica with all three of them instead! (Can you tell I’m thrilled to be done with pregnancy??)

    Also congrats on the BBAW shortlisting! Your blog and Allie’s are two of my favorites, so I’m kind of glad I’m not even registered to vote this BBAW – I don’t have to decide which of you two to vote for!

    • Rebecca Reid says

      Amanda, Morning sickness is much better — there is still a bad day here or there but overall, much better. Few more weeks and then hopefully it’s gone for good. Yes, I was sick with Raisin too. I’ve determined I have a very bad memory, though of how bad it was! I was working full time so I had less time to feel sorry for myself and I think that was actually much better. It’s very hard being home with a kid all day and feeling like that. The good news is that I felt WONDERFUL during the last two trimesters with Raisin. No sciatica, which sounds so painful!, or really much discomfort. I have a long torso so I measure small and no one believes I’m really pregnant. I even said, “I love being pregnant” many times I felt so good for much of the time. So I’m hoping these icky days pass soon so i can enjoy it. It is hard being the most sick when no one knows. How I wanted the world to know!

  7. SuziQoregon says

    Congratulations!! Love the names kids come up with for the new additions. When my SIL was pregnant with her 3rd, my nephew announced that the new baby’s name would be “FroggyHead”.

  9. Suzanne says

    Congratulations again Rebecca!
    One of my former co-workers did let her older son name their new baby — at the time he was fixated with The Little Mermaid so if the child was a girl Arial would have been fine, however the poor boy was named Sebastian.

  17. Chrisbookarama says

    Congrats! That’s big news! All those little red-headed babies, they’ll make adorable Christmas card photos. And congrats on the shortlist! I was glad that you made it.

  18. Allie says

    Congratulations again on the nomination. I was seriously honored by the fact that such wonderful classics blogs were there beside me. Your blog was one of the first I found and read, and I am so glad I did.

    And a new baby?? HOW EXCITING! 🙂 Congrats! That is just the most wonderful news!

    When my mom was pregnant with my little sister (there is a six-year gap between us), she had us suggest names. My two brothers both wanted to name her Shaina and I wanted her to be named Mistress Merriweather. Needless to say, her name is Torrie. 🙂

  19. Jackie (Farm Lane Books) says

    Congratulations on both BBAW and the new baby. I hope that the rest of your pregnancy goes smoothly and you and Raisin can agree on a more appropriate name for the new baby 🙂 I know my boys have some very bizarre ideas about naming things!

  26. amanda says

    I’ve been reading for a while, and I don’t think I’ve ever commented, but I just wanted to pop in and say Congratulations on both fronts!

  27. Eva says

    Congrats Rebecca! Another little bookworm on the way! 😀 It’s so crazy to think I’ve known you since you started blogging, and that Raisin is so much older now.

  32. Jenny says

    *gasps and shrieks* Rebecca! Congratulations! That’s so wonderful! A new beautiful baby! How fun and brilliant for Raisin to have a little brother or sister! I am absolutely wild about my sisters and could not imagine my life without them. Congratulations to everyone! And also of course congratulations to you on the nomination.

  33. Erin says

    Aww, congratulations on both the short list and the forthcoming new addition!! One, obviously, a bit more life-changing than the other, but both pretty cool. Also, that first 6-word memoir might be one of my favorites…ever. I love it!

  36. Shelleyrae says

    Congratulations on expecting #2, I sympathise with the morning sickness – I threw up with all of my four up til the 8th month!

    Good luck with your BBAW nomination as well!

  37. Kinna says

    Congrats on the developing new addition to your family. Morning sickness is the pits. I’m not one to vomit during pregnancy but the awful awful feeling of wanting to retch and feeling nauseous would last for months. With my second child, I found that eating chilled, sliced watermelon in the morning helped. Also helped to cool me down in our tropical heat. Take care of yourself. All the best.

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