The Blogger Positivity Campaign is a series of posts that aim to spread the love around the book blogging community.
Introduce yourself and your blog!
If you are new here, I’m Heather from Ohio. I’ve been blogging since 2004 and here since 2005. I write about books and travel and pets mostly. I’m on Twitter and Instagram as @dvmheather.
Who or what made you the reader you are today?
Good question. I always had books around as a kid. I don’t really ever remember not reading. I remember compulsively reading phone books (I’m old) and cereal boxes over breakfast as a kid just to entertain my brain while I ate. I still read to entertain my brain. I don’t know what other people do.
Who or what made you decide to create a book blog?
I didn’t really decide to do that. I started a blog just to have a place to vent all my opinions on things. Eventually I started doing the It’s Monday! What are you reading? meme. For that I did a weekly post about all the books I read that week. Just in the last year or two, have I started talking about books in separate posts.
What are your thoughts on the blogosphere today?
I think people are getting too specialized. I like blogs where people talk about a little bit of everything. In book blogs I get bored when people only read one genre. I want them to branch out and find new things! I wish people commented on blogs as much as they used to but there are just so many other platforms.
5 random facts about you?
- Christmas is my least favorite holiday mostly because of all the hype and all the War on Christmas stupidity that is going to show up on my Facebook feed.
- I’ve been avoiding all political talk by saying that I won’t discuss it until it is 2016. I’m about to need a new excuse.
- If you consistently can’t spell and make elementary grammar mistakes, I will judge you. Not sorry. Education is important.
- I’m doing NaNoWriMo for the first time this year. My main character is over 70 because there needs to be more tough older women in fiction.
- Getting rid of cable was the best decision ever.
5 favorite books you’ve read and loved?
Are you serious? This is the hardest question ever for a book person!
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
The fact that I know off the top of my head that I’m a Ravenclaw and that I’ve been to Universal Studios several times just to go to the Wizarding World must mean I’m a fan. Oh yeah, there’s this too.
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| Me at King’s Cross in London |
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
I love Alice. It was a book that made me love absurdity in my reading.
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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
I think this is the logical successor to Alice. This is a book that I’ll reread over and over. It is on my iPad so I can read it anytime.
This is the beginning of the best King Arthur series, for ever and ever, Amen. It is also one of the best historical fiction books I’ve ever read. This is also one I go back and reread every few years.
The Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd
This is a great book on evolving spirituality and feminism in religion. It is also a great reread.
5 favorite book bloggers
This is hard too! I can’t limit myself to five without feeling bad about leaving other people out.
Aarti from BookLust – I love Aarti for organizing Diversiverse in October and having great reviews and discussions all year.
Katie from Doing Dewey – I love the focus on nonfiction that she has. Nonfiction doesn’t get enough love.
Tanya from Mom’s Small Victories – She organizes the Travel the World in Books readathon and monthly events. This is great for expanding the settings of the books that you read. I love everyone who participates in this.
Shannon from It Starts at Midnight – She is a great cheerleader for other bloggers.
Bex and Hanna from Ninja Book Swap – I like swapping books and they consistently run great events.
What a lovely idea this campaign is! I LOVE getting to know all sorts of new bloggers like this!
Yeah! I am so glad to see you are are participating in this too! It’s such a great campaign! I completely agree with your choices of Harry Potter and Alice in Wonderland – those are both two of my favorites as well. Thanks for sharing, and I can’t wait to see your next post on Friday! ♥
Your NaNoWriMo novel sounds awesome! How’s it going? I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this year so I’m basically just living through other people and that seems to be working pretty well.
OMG I love your photo from platform nine and three-quarters and I’m also so jealous of that! I’m a HUGE Harry Potter fan and one day I am going to visit all the theme parks and places to do with it… It’s just a little difficult at the moment because I live in New Zealand and there’s really not much here.
I’m a little over halfway done and running out of plot so I need to go back and add more description. I tend not to be very wordy when I write.
You may not have any Harry Potter stuff in NZ but you’ve got Middle Earth!
1. That is a GENIUS plan for politics! (Well…at least for another couple months. Then you’re just doomed).
2. I don’t read many reviews anymore since I don’t like spoilers/already have a billion books on my list anymore, but I also like it when blogs have a variety – whether it’s genres of books, personal posts as well as bookish ones, or just a side interest like gardening or make up or something as well as books!
3. That’s awesome that your MC is older! I feel like “ageism” is not just a tv thing – the older age groups (particularly women) aren’t really reflected in any medium I see – and certainly not as a main character. So that’s super cool!
4. I mean, obviously I LOVE Hitchhiker’s Guide – I need to get an ebook copy so I can read it at any time too! Plus I have the omnibus edition so it’s a bit unwieldy to be carrying around. I haven’t heard of the Jack Whyte novel before, but I’m all about Arthurian things so I’m going to have to go check this out!
If there are old ladies in books they are either super sweet or naive or needy or something. My MC isn’t anything like that.
The Whyte books are amazing. The first book is about Arthur and Merlin’s families starting Camuloud years before they were born.
Thanks for the shout out Heather! Totally with you on Harry Potter,Alice and Hitchhikers!