book blogger appreciation week

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BBAW: That Was the Week That Was

Today is the last day of Book Blogger Appreciation Week.  And what a week it’s been!  Let’s look back at some of the highlights, shall we?

Cue sentimental music …

  • I met Chris @ Chrisbookarama.  What a treat!
  • Sheila from Book Journey wrote a great guest post about how she discovered community. She said, “I love hitting ‘publish’ and later seeing who had what to say about what I wrote.”
  • Speaking of which: so many comments this week!  I loved having more visitors and chit-chat.
  • Kim from Sophisticated Dorkiness opened my eyes to the world of nonfiction book bloggers.  I’m not ready to take on that blogging challenge (first I’d actually have to read more nonfiction!), but I love the idea that there are brave souls out there doing it.  And I bet they have book recommendations for me, too.
  • Florinda at The 3 R’s Blog wrote about the important role book bloggers play in producing authentic opinion, and followed up the next day discussing objective critiques vs. enthusiastic recommendations.
  • Simon at Stuck-in-a-Book has introduced me to several bloggers already, but his appreciation post (and the comments) gave me even more to visit and discover.  This is great, because as I said on Wednesday, blogging is all about community!
  • And finally there was Twitter!  I confess to being pretty new over there, and not having it all figured out yet.  But following #BBAW was great fun.  And I even tweeted a bit (yeah, I know that’s the point, but like I said, I’m new).  I kinda get it now.  Before BBAW I felt like an owl, hooting in the night and wondering if anyone heard me.  With #BBAW, it was more like being in a huge tree with hundreds of other lively songbirds, chirping away.  (Oh, have I mentioned I’m a bird nerd as well as a book geek?)

The result of all this book blogger love is a much-needed energy boost.  I hope the glow lasts a good long while!

What were the highlights of BBAW for you?

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BBAW: What’s in it for me?

Today’s BBAW topic is “What does book blogging mean to you?”  I can sum that up in one word: Community.

In yesterday’s interview with Chris @ Chrisbookarama, I said:

The best part about blogging — and it was totally unexpected — has been the community of other bloggers.  And the most important thing I’ve learned, and am still learning, is about how to build and sustain community. … It’s important to understand what you most enjoy about blogging and devote time and effort to keeping that flame alive, but be flexible and open to new ways of doing so.

We all have those low periods where our blogging energy flags.  When this happens to me, it’s almost always because I’m feeling disconnected.  Sometimes I bring this on myself — such as when life gets busy and I don’t visit & comment on blog posts as often as I’d like.  At other times, I’ve felt “overworked” by blogging itself.  I used to do a lot of reading challenges, until I got bogged down in maintaining challenge lists, setting up reading plans to make sure I finished each challenge, posting links or reviews on challenge blogs, and writing challenge posts and wrap-up posts.  I scaled back on challenges in 2010 and dropped them entirely in 2011, and enjoyed the flexibility this brought to both blogging and reading.

But even though blogging became easier, it took time to find a new community to interact with.  So many book bloggers had jumped on the ARC bandwagon, reviewing contemporary fiction, interacting with authors and publishers, and hosting giveaways.  But the commitment to ARCs just looked like challenges in a different form.  It wasn’t for me, but I sure felt like I was missing out on something good.  And for a while, I felt like a lone voice in the wilderness.

That is, until I stepped back and thought hard about the type of literature I most enjoy, and the books that have landed on my “all-time favorites” list over the years.  I gravitate towards prize winners & nominees, and classics, especially those by women authors.  So nowadays I consider myself a literary fiction & classics blogger.  This may be a niche; at least, it’s taken a while to find community.  But it’s there if you invest the time and effort.  Several of my favorite literary bloggers are fans of Virago Modern Classics (books by oft-neglected women writers).   The Classics Club is working hard to create a blogging community, too, and I’m looking forward to expanding my connections there.

And I’m always open to suggestions.  Where have you found community?

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BBAW: Interviewing Chris @ Chrisbookarama

When I signed up for BBAW interviews, I was a little nervous about who I’d get paired up with.  It took me back to college days, waiting to learn who my roommate would be, and all that associated nervousness.  What was I worried about?  A quick peek at  Chris at Chrisbookarama‘s blog and I promptly forgot about everything I was supposed to be doing at that time.  My goodness, we like a lot of the same books.  Why is Nova Scotia so far away from Pennsylvania?!  I want to visit and chat over coffee or whatever.  So I did the next best thing and began following her on Twitter and Pinterest, added her blog to my feed reader, and hoped she wouldn’t think I was a stalker. 🙂

As Chris and I began exchanging email and developing our interview questions and answers, we kept discovering similarities between us.  Late last week she tweeted: “I think @lindsayla18 is my blogging doppelgänger. It’s kinda scary how alike our tastes are.”  Whew!  So she’s a stalker, too!  Click here to see my answers to her questions..  Well this was really a lot of fun.  I enjoyed getting to know Chris, and I hope our association continues beyond this interview.

So without further ado, here’s Chris!

We both started our blogs in January 2007.  How have your reasons for blogging, or your approach, changed over the years?

I’m constantly changing my opinion about book blogging. At first, it was just a creative outlet for me and I liked finding other people who loved reading as much as I did. For a little while I thought about trying to make it more than a hobby. After that, I took the middle road and considered it a “serious hobby.” These days I’m not posting as much as I once was and I’m finding it harder to write reviews. I know that it’s just a phase and try not to worry too much anymore about the occasional bumps in my blogging. I always find my way back to it. It’s too much a part of my life now!

I love your “Cupcakes and Apples” rating scheme.  Have you ever read a book that rated tops in both categories?

I had to go back and look and I’m surprised that I did have a few: The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Everything Beautiful Began After by Simon Van Booy, and The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter. There might be more that I missed. I do think that these were excellent stories, though all quite different from each other.

Your reading is fairly balanced between audio books and other media. How do you decide which books to “read” on audio?

Because I’m kind of cheap, I use the library for audiobooks (Overdrive). This limits what I can choose from when it comes to them. In a way, this is a good thing because I’ve picked books on audio that I never would have picked up otherwise. When I can’t decide between reading the paper copy or listen to the audio, I’ll listen to a sample. Usually the library has one for each book, I think this depends on the publisher though. A good narrator can make an audiobook an excellent experience, while a bad one can make it a miserable one.

What is your favorite book so far this year?

I think that would have to be Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. I know it’s been hyped up but I thought it was well done. It’s a book that you can’t talk about with anyone who hasn’t read it for fear of ruining it for them.

If you could make everyone in the world read one book, what would it be?

Without a doubt, Jane Eyre. I’m such a Jane fangirl. I would also have to insist that everyone love it.

How do you spend your time when you’re not reading?

Besides reading, I like spending time outdoors with my family, when the weather permits. I’ve also taken up running. I like that bit of alone time. I also like to crochet while watching the primetime lineup. So, basically I like to keep busy!

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BBAW: Appreciation for Fellow Book Bloggers

Welcome to Book Blogger Appreciation Week!  We’re kicking things off, appropriately, with appreciation:  sharing the blogs we enjoy reading.  The book blogs I follow most diligently appear in my sidebar.  Last year I profiled some of these, in my 2011 appreciation post and earlier posts (here and here).

But the blogosphere is vast, and I continue discovering new ones that pique my interest.  At any point I’m “test driving” about half a dozen.  If I find myself reading them a lot, they earn a place on the sidebar and in my feed reader.  Recent additions include:

  • Savidge Reads:  Books on the Nightstand led me to The Readers podcast, which led me to Simon’s blog.  I’ve listened to Simon and fellow blogger Gavin since the early days of their podcast.  Simon’s taste in books is similar to mine, and he is personally responsible for two of my 5-star reads this year:  Gillespie and I (my review) and Song of Achilles (my review).
  • Chrisbookarama:  Chris’s blog is a very recent discovery, and I’ll be interviewing her tomorrow!  Be sure to come back to learn more about Chris and her bookish thoughts.
  • Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings: I first “met” Karen through the LibraryThing Virago Group, and enjoyed her thoughts on Virago Modern Classics and her fabulous finds in second-hand bookshops.  I’m glad she decided to start blogging about them!

During BBAW I would be remiss if I didn’t give an appreciative shout out to all the Virago-reading bloggers who play such an important role in this year’s Elizabeth Taylor Centenary. These intrepid souls are all hosting monthly readalongs and discussion on their blogs, and are active contributors in the LibraryThing Virago Group, and on Facebook’s Virago Modern Classics Readers page.  These bloggers rock!

I hope you’ll spend a few minutes today visiting all these fine bloggers.  I bet you’ll find at least one to add to your feed reader!

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The Sunday Salon: Bring on Book Blogger Appreciation Week !!

Book Blogger Appreciation Week starts tomorrow, and I’m pretty excited about it!  Last year, a mix-up in my Google Reader meant that I didn’t learn of the event until it was underway 😦  This year I’m all in.

BBAW has grown from its humble beginnings in 2008.  For each of the past four years, the event focused on community building and appreciation, largely through an awards process.  As the community grew, the awards became more numerous and complicated, and were so prominent that some felt the sense of community was lost.  I didn’t think I had especially strong feelings about this, until I read that this year there are no awards.  And my first reaction was, “YES.  That feels right.”

So in 2012 BBAW returns to its roots, “to recognize the hard work and contribution of book bloggers to the promotion and preservation of a literate culture actively engaged in discussing books, authors, and a lifestyle of reading.”  It’s a time to recharge, connect with each other, and feel good about what we do.

All week the BBAW site will have guest posts and blogger profiles (so you might want to add it to your feed reader if you haven’t already).  On book blogs everywhere, people will be sharing their thoughts on the “topic of the day.”  Tuesday there will be interview swaps — I’m really excited about my interview with Chris @ Chrisbookarama, and she’ll publish an interview with me, too!

Come along and join the fun, won’t you?

Hope to see you here during BBAW!

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