BBAW Interview with Amused by Books

 I am thrilled to be participating in 2010's Book Blogger Appreciation Week!  If you are not familiar with BBAW, please take a moment today to peruse the site. Today there will be numerous interview links listed by book bloggers of fellow book bloggers on the BBAW site. A wonderful opportunity to get to know the readers behind the books!  It is my honor to interview and introduce to you, Leah from Amused by Books:

How long have you been blogging about books and what inspired you to begin?

I started blogging at the end of Sept 2009 - so I am almost reaching my one year blogoversary! I can't believe it :) So much has happened in one year. I guess I began blogging because I’ve always been an avid reader and I was getting a lot of my book recommendations from magazines and discovered that they were often leading me towards books that were not very good. This soon led me to searching the internet for recommendations which lead me to book blogs. A light bulb went off. What a wonderful idea! Cataloging and discussing your books online with like minded people! It sounded like so much fun and I am so glad I started my blog because everyone is so friendly and there are always so many wonderful events going on. I have learned so much since starting my blog and believe me, the book recommendations have vastly improved since reading blogs and I hope others have gotten a lot of great recommendations from reading mine!

Nyquist, the Cat

What do you do when you're not blogging or reading or "harassing my boyfriend's cat?"

Besides reading and blogging, I work full-time but nobody wants to hear about that, so in my off-time, I also love to cook and when that fails, head out and try one of the many delicious restaurants in the city of San Francisco. My boyfriend and I enjoy fixing up our house by visiting flea markets and plant indoor gardens in our small space. My green thumb is getting better but if you have any tips I will gladly take them because so far I have spent a lot of money on plants that I quickly throw out! In the summer time we love to bbq and make delicious cocktails. I also love to do a bootcamp near my house in the park – it kicks my butt but it’s totally worth it!

What book would you most want to climb inside as a character?  Why?

Oh I love this question! I think maybe it would have to be something like 'Gone with the Wind'. I know that Civil War would have been absolutely horrible to live through but a large part of me so wants to go back in time and see what it would have been like to live during that time period and experience all of that huge part of making the history of our country. Plus Scarlet and Rhett - who wouldn't want to watch that play out!

Your reading habit has gotten quite expensive to maintain and something just has to go ~ what will it be? Why?

Not only is it expensive but it takes up a lot of space ;) Honestly though I've stopped buying new books for myself. Don't get me wrong I still support plenty of bookstores because my number one favorite gift to give is a book and I have plenty of people to buy gifts for but before I even started up blogging I realized I couldn't afford my book buying habit and something had to change. That's where I discovered used book library sales and the joy of paperbackwap.com. It's been a blessing for me. Now I save the money I would spend on myself for books on gifts for others, or you know things like groceries!

What do you find most challenging about blogging? most rewarding?

The thing I find most challenging is probably keeping up with all of my review copies. I know that there is a pace to it and while I am probably a faster reader than the average joe, I am not the fastest reader by far in the blogosphere and I quickly get overwhelmed by those review copies staring at me. But that's also a blessing because it means I am getting free books and how cool is that? The most rewarding thing though always makes up for it and that is meeting and making friends with all of the wonderful bloggers out there who are so friendly! I never expected all of this camaraderie when I started my blog. It's been great!

Can you give a piece of advice to any baby bloggers that may be reading this that are just starting out?

The best advice I got rings true - comment on other blogs! Make your presence known and then they will find you! Otherwise no one will know you are out there. Also, just be true to yourself. Write what you want to write about the books that you want to write and people will respond to that.

Speed Round ~

• One book at a time or multiple books-in-progress? - One book preferably! 
• Favorite place to read? My bed or couch!
• Three books you think everyone should read: To Kill a Mockingbird, Payton's Place, and Bridget Jones's Diary :)

Thanks so much for interviewing me!

There ya have her, folks! Isn't she fabulous! I love the part about harassing her boyfriend's cat and being a character from Gone With the Wind....the dresses would be so grand to wear for probably, ah a day! Then back to jeans for me! When you visit Leah's site be sure to tell her which Gone With the Wind character you would want to be! And if you'd like to read Leah's interview with me (which was so much fun, thanks Leah!) just click here.

Have an awesome Tuesday!