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