Armchair BEA: Introducing Me

Armchair BEA is here! This will be my third year of participating in this event that was originally started as a kind of substitute for those of us who couldn't make it New York for Book Expo America and now has grown into a massive week long celebration of books and bloggers!

The first post of the week is one where we are invited to answer 5 questions about ourselves out of a selection of around 10 questions. Here are the five I have chosen to answer.

Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? How long have you been blogging? Why did you get into blogging? 

My name is Marg and I live in Melbourne, Australia. I am a single mum who holds down a full time job, a teenage son (wait, that doesn't sound right!) and most of the rest of the time I am either reading or talking about reading!

I started my blog nearly 7 years ago, which at times makes me feel positively ancient in blogging terms, and I started it because I wanted, no make that NEEDED, to find a way to talk about the books that I was reading and loving.

When I started  my blog I fully expected that the blogging phase would last a few months, and then it would fade away which is precisely what I used to do whenever I started a journal when I was a kid but somehow or another this blogging habit has stuck and I most certainly cannot imagine life without it!

I also am part of a group blog which is focused on historical fiction called Historical Tapestry and each year co-host the Virtual Advent tour with Kelly from The Written World which runs all through the holidays during the month of December. In addition I do some Australian focused things like allegedly run the Australian Book Blogger Directory (I say allegedly because I am very behind on that) and also co-host a weekly twitter chat called #spbkchat (South Pacific Book Chat) which was started as a way of having a regular book chat that was run during times that were convenient for us because most of the other chats seemed to always happen when we were sleeping!

What are you currently reading, or what is your favorite book you have read so far in 2012? 

Today I just finished The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera for my face to face book club. The meeting was tonight and I only just started the book yesterday which was cutting it a bit fine really! In the end I finished it with 37 minutes to spare before book club which is lucky!

I am currently reading Nadia Knows Best by Jill Mansell and I am about to start Attachments by Rainbow Rowell.

The best books I have read so far this year are Me Before You by Jojo Moyes and Legacy by Susan Kay. You can read the discussion post about Me Before You here. I haven't actually written a review for Legacy yet so I will summarise my thoughts on that book by saying I thought I was all Tudored out when it came to historical fiction. Legacy proved that in the right author's hands I could still read books with that setting!

What is your favorite feature on your blog (i.e. author interviews, memes, something specific to your blog)? 

I think I have a pretty stable blogging routine now. I usually do a couple of reviews a week plus co-host the Library Loot meme and participate in Weekend Cooking hosted by BethFishReads. I also participate in Sunday Salon. I think those last two are probably my favourites as there is lots of freedom to post about whatever you want to really!

What literary location would you most like to visit? Why? 

When I was much younger I spent five years living in the UK and whilst travelling had lots of opportunities to visit some amazing places, but now having so many more years of life experience and also having read a ton more books there are loads of places that I am pretty sure that I would get more from if I visited than I did when I first went to.

I would love to do one of the literary tours that authors are being asked to lead. For example, Elizabeth Chadwick is leading one later this year which will take the participants to many places that were significant to William Marshal who lived during the time of the Plantagenets in medieval Europe. It would be fabulous to not only visit all those places but also to have the chance to sit down and chat with one of your favourite authors. I know that Sharon Kay Penman has run one before and I think that there are other authors who are doing things.

The thing is though, if I do get the opportunity to travel again any time soon, as much as I would love to go to lots of literary places, really the first trips that I would be taking would be to see people who have become important to me through blogging. 

I know for example pretty much what my itinerary would be if I was going to get to New York and the east coast of Canada, or if I was lucky enough to get to France I know that I would be heading towards places like Grenoble that aren't necessarily on the normal tourist routes but where I know there is at least one like minded blogger who I would love to meet in real life.

Have your reading tastes changed since you started blogging? How?

My reading tastes have definitely changed since I started blogging. These days I am reading a lot more spec fic, loads more short stories and a lot of young adult and contemporary romance novels which I would not normally have read before I started blogging.

There is a whole world of books out there waiting to be discovered! Blogging and my fellow bloggers are definitely helpful in trying to work out which ones I think might be books that I could fall in love with!