Aloha, Bookworms!
Today I’m taking a little break from Top Ten Tuesday to participate in a little something known as Armchair BEA. Here’s the deal. Book Expo America is this ginormous conference that brings together publishers and librarians and authors and most recently, book bloggers. Unfortunately this conference takes place in NYC, and I try to limit the amount of money I spend on a hobby that currently nets me zero dollars. The way I see it, I can only justify one conference a year, and this year I’m heading to BlogHer in July (it’s in Chicago!) Sooooo, I’m pleased that some fabulous book bloggers organized a way for those of us celebrating from afar to participate in BEA.
Design Credit: Nina of Nina Reads
To kick off this little celebration, the Armchair BEA committee issued some questions to participating bloggers. Ready?
1. Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? How long have you been blogging? Why did you get into blogging? How sweet of you to ask, Armchair BEA! I’m Katie! I started Words for Worms last August, so about 9 months? (OMG, my blog could be a full term baby!) I had blogged privately in the past, but I thought it might be fun to start talking to the whole wide web. (I may or may not have been spurred into action by Quirky Chrissy and Lauren Filing Jointly, but I don’t want to go inflating their egos or anything…) Even on my (now deleted so don’t go looking) once upon a time blogs, I would occasionally write an update on what I had been reading. The concept of talking about books the way I like to talk about books was endlessly appealing. I’m so happy that I’ve found a little tribe of weirdos to join me!
2. Where in the world are you blogging from? Tell a random fact or something special about your current location. Feel free to share pictures. I am blogging from ILLINOIS! Specifically, Peoria, Illinois. Literary fun fact! Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique is from Peoria. Also! Peoria is the oldest European settlement in Illinois, founded in 1691, which is cool, because I dig history. Now, Peoria proper is fairly developed, but you needn’t go far beyond city limits to hit some serious farmland. Corn and soybeans, people. I am where it’s at!
3. What are you currently reading, or what is your favorite book you have read so far in 2013? I just started reading Stephen King’s Under The Dome for the summer DomeAlong! I have an incredibly difficult time choosing favorites. I hate it when I’m asked what my favorite book is- I feel there needs to be a qualifier, and perhaps a top ten list. (LOVE me some Top Ten Tuesday!) I have read 41 books so far this year, and a bunch of them have been pretty amazing. However. I think I’m going to have to give the title of my favorite so far to Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor & Park. If you missed my review, you can find it HERE. If you haven’t read it yet, you should do so. RIGHT NOW. GO!
4. Tell us one non-book-related thing that everyone reading your blog may not know about you. This will not come as news to anybody who has been reading my blog for longer than a minute or two, but I feel it bears mentioning. I LOVE penguins. If you question my devotion, please allow me to direct you HERE (where you can read an overview) or HERE (where you can meet my penguin butler) or HERE (where you can read about the time I MET A PENGUIN IN REAL LIFE!)
5. What literary location would you most like to visit? Why? This might sound a little cliche, but I don’t care at all. I have a list of literary locales I’d like to visit, but tippy top on my list is visiting Oxford. I want to see the hall that Hogwarts’ Great Hall was based on. I can’t help myself. I adore Harry Potter. Evidence:
Katie. In London. Circa 2004.
What do you think, Bookworms? What literary locations would you like to visit? Where are you joining us from? What’s the best book you’ve read this year? Tell us all about it! Armchair BEA for EVERYONE! WooHoo!
didibooksenglish
Well, I’m living in France and I’d have to say that Where’d You Go, Bernadette is the best book I’ve read this year. Literary locations I’d like to visit: Ethipopia (Cutting for Stone), Hogwart’s too, and who knows where else… Under the Dome was meant to be a summer read for me too but it’s Domelong, so I’m not so sure.
Words for Worms
Ethiopia sounded fascinating in Cutting For Stone, but I’m a wimpy traveler and don’t think I could hack a visit. Bernadette was fabulous, I’m glad you liked it too!
becomingcliche
I just reserved Eleanor & Park from my library. I remember hearing something about it, but I hate spoilers, so I wait until I forget everything I heard before reading something. Now’s the time. Thanks for the reminder!
If you ever come to my neck of the woods, I’ll let you meet another penguin. For real.
Words for Worms
Where are you, how do I get there, and PENGUINS! Sorry. I got distracted by your zoo keeperness. Eleanor & Park is great. No spoilers there :).
becomingcliche
Drive south for what feels like forever. And then park. It’s right off the interstate, so directions are easy like that.
Words for Worms
<3 You are the best. See you in 17 hours.
Christi
I’m stopping by from the greater Los Angeles area, where the weather is fabulous and the traffic is awful. I, too, would love to visit Platform 9 3/4 — so much bookish fun! Although maybe 90% if the books I’ve read this year are YA fiction, my favorite book so far this year has been a nonfiction one, The New Geography of Jobs by Enrico Moretti. It got me to think differently, in a really good way.
Words for Worms
I’ve never been to California. I imagine that nobody in LA looks like a real person, is that an erroneous assumption?
Christi
LOL. People only look plastic in Beverly Hills and the ritzy parts of Orange County. Everywhere else, you’ll find baristas pretending to be actors and lots of “regular” people. I will concede that people in LA are much less likely to be obese than people in any other part of the country.
Megan M.
I live in East Texas. (Texas is so huge that you need to designate the quadrant.) My favorite book I’ve read this year is ALSO Eleanor & Park! Swoon! I’d most like to visit the Harry Potter theme park at Universal Studios. I’m not sure that’s in the spirit of the question, but dang it, it’s the truth.
Words for Worms
I’ve never been to Texas, but it amuses me that you designate a quadrant. When strangers ask where I’m from I tell them, “Illinois. The part that isn’t Chicago.” Although I grew up in the Chicago ‘burbs, I think Peoria gets to count as my hometown now. And the HP theme park is a perfectly acceptable literary destination! I’d love to go there!
Oh, Chrys! (@chrysrawr)
I have been blogging since last year August too! Where’s the baby!? I love your photo evidence for adoring Harry Potter. Cool pic!
Words for Worms
Ha! Actually, I’ve got a brand new nephew that we could call the Blog Baby. He’s adorable and squishy.
Kelly
Ah yes, I too live not far from the land of corn and hay fields. Upstate NY is fairly developed in some areas, and others…not so much. It’s nice to be able to drive a short distance to get a dose of country. lol.
Also, I feel it’s important to tell you that we visited my parents down in CT this weekend, and made a stop at the Mystic Aquarium. The penguins told me to tell you HI.
Words for Worms
Oh, I love that the penguin network sends its greetings. They are such thoughtful little birds! Are you going to for real BEA this year?
therelentlessreader
You love penguins?! Shut up!!! 😉
I’m comin’ at you from northern Wisconsin. I love that you are from Peoria. Will it play in Peoria? For a long time I didn’t know that Peoria was a real place. I thought it was a fictional town that politicians were always worried about. Silly Jen.
Happy ABEA lady!
Words for Worms
Yes! “Will it play in Peoria” is about US! We’re the middlest of the middle. One of the perks of that fact is that we’re often a test market for new products. Of course, our zoo has no penguins, so that’s an epic fail. And our town has no giant fish statue despite being located on a river where a giant fish statue would be completely appropriate…
Andi (@estellasrevenge)
ELEANOR AND PARK! Yay yay yay! I just finished it on Friday night and I LOVED IT. Loved. Screamed when I read the last page.
Congrats on your full-term blog. I need to add you to my Feedly RIGHT NOW.
Words for Worms
I’m so flattered to make your Feedly! Eleanor & Park was just so delicious, I lack appropriate words!
Monika
I hate the “favorite book” question too, it’s just too difficult to select one!!
Penguins are awesome.
Words for Worms
I also hate trying to answer it because I know no matter what I pick, I’ll think of something I liked better later… Or even just one aspect that was done better somewhere else… Too hard to choose, I say!
michellebirbeck
Hi Katie! Nice to meet you! I’ve also been book blogging since last August! Hope you enjoy Armchair BEA!
Chelle
Words for Worms
Nice to meet YOU as well! 🙂 Happy ABEA to our full term book blogs!
Books, Tea & Me
I would also love to visit the UK, Oxford especially. Harry Potter!
Words for Worms
I LOVED my trip to London. I took it as a between semesters class in college. Two weeks in London- so much fun (even though I was desperately homesick.) What I really need is to learn to apparate so I can see everything I want to see and get to sleep in my own bed at night!
ablightedone
I love Penguins! One time I went to the Omaha zoo for a school trip and we hung out in the Penguin exhibit for at least an hour! I’m from Oklahoma, I’d like to visit Paris, Pemberley, and definitely Hogwarts! Great post!
Words for Worms
Oklahoma! That makes me think of the musical, and tornadoes. The St. Louis zoo has a really fun penguin exhibit, as do Brookfield Zoo and (I’m pretty sure) Lincoln Park Zoos in Chicago. And the Shedd Aquarium of course. I’ve never been to Omaha. I should do a nationwide zoo tour and meet all the penguins in the land!
Shannon (Giraffe Days)
1691! I don’t know why but I’m always so surprised to hear how old modern America is. I keep forgetting just how long ago the settlers moved in.
Penguins are great! We have fairy penguins in Tasmania – very cute little mini penguins who waddle up onto the beach at dusk to go to their nests. Super cute.
I nearly put Hogwarts on my “location to visit” answer but thought I should try harder to think of something. I really really wanted to put down Hogwarts, though! (and I’d love to visit those old universities in the UK, too – I love looking at photos of their libraries. So much different from the dark, institutional-brown concrete thing that passed as a library at my uni!)
Words for Worms
Oh Fairy penguins! They’ve always been among my favorite penguins- I checked out a book on penguins in the 3rd grade and I thought the tiniest penguins were the most fabulous. You get to see them just hanging out in the wild?! That is the coolest thing EVER!
I was pretty surprised to hear how old this corner of Illinois was, too! The town I grew up in wasn’t incorporated until the 1960s- no history to speak of there. I think that’s why I like it down here so much. England pretty much made my head explode with the random ruins of Roman walls interspersed throughout the city. Crazy awesome.
mdott922
Eleanor and Park is on my TBR list…I’ve heard so many good things about it!
Words for Worms
I have no doubt you’ll enjoy it! 🙂
Charleen
You’re in Peoria? I used to live in Peoria! My husband (well, boyfriend-then-fiance-at-the-time) went to Bradley. After we graduated I moved down there with him, we were there from August 2006 until January 2009. Crazy!
Words for Worms
I went to Bradley! Class of ’05. Then I got a job and never left. We lived in the same place at the same time! I am now terribly disappointed that we didn’t know eachother at the time. Think of the adventures!
RebeccaScaglione - Love at First Book
I have a similar HP pic! BTW, our blogs, if they were children, would totally play together! Mine was born in July! 😛 Well, I guess it’d be more like parallel play or sit and stare at each other since they are so young still . . .
Love your new header!
Here’s my Armchair BEA introduction.
Words for Worms
Thank you! My artistically inclined BFF made the header for me. I’m in love. I love that our blogs could companionably stare at eachother given their ages! Playdate!
Sarah
Oxford would be incredible. Have you been to Harry Potter World in Florida? So much fun. Can I say that again? SO…MUCH…FUN. I am in Lawrence KS. William Burroughs lived here for awhile, so did Langston Hughes (for a short time). I would love to visit the Brontes’ home and see the moors. Someday!
Words for Worms
I’ve not yet been to Harry Potter World, I hope to go sometime soon! I wouldn’t mind seeing the Bronte’s moors either!
Quirky Chrissy
For the record…you’re totally welcome.
Also, I wouldn’t be half as blog popular if it weren’t for you!
Words for Worms
<3 Thanks Jelly Bean.
The Greedy Reader
I’m from India, the southern-most tip actually . I recently read ‘Meanwhile, Upriver’ by Chatura Rao. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. I was quite happy to see your question about a favourite book, cos I’m so eager to tell every body about this book 🙂
I’d love to visit South Africa, the setting of one of my all-time favourites, ‘The Power Of One’, by Bryce Courtenay. Love your blog 🙂
Words for Worms
Cool! I feel honored to have such a far flung readership :). I haven’t read The Power of One, but I feel that I NEED to. And soon.
alwaysjany
I’m from Colorado. Illinois is where everyone has the weave type hats and wheat in their mouths, right? Maybe I’m just being stereotypical :p
I didn’t know there was an actual Platform 9 3/4 I would love to visit!
Words for Worms
Yes ma’am, there is a Platform 9 3/4 at King’s Cross station in London. It’s visible to muggles, but you know. Photo ops! And yes. The entire state of Illinois is basically a Little House on the Prairie. (Not really, but I don’t want to disappoint you.)
alwaysjany
All my hopes and dreams! 🙁
Haha but I’m definitely going to London to visit it. That’s really cool!