Today I would like to give a very belated thank you to Deanna at The Book Lover’s Attic for thinking of me for the Shine On award. About a month ago, I was certain I would have this post up any day, but this month has been unusually busy and so here we are. As I recently received the WordPress Family award which allowed me to recognize some friendly wordpress bloggers, I’ll be using this award to recognize some non-wordpress bloggers who have also been incredible about making me feel welcome in the blogging community

THE SHINE ON AWARD
Here are the rules of the award:
1. Visit and thank the blogger who nominated you.
2. Acknowledge that blogger on your blog, and link back.
3. Share seven random, interesting things about yourself.
4. Nominate up to 15 bloggers for the Shine On Award, provide a link to their blogs in your post, and notify them on their blogs.

First, my seven random things:

1. I recently got to see Maggie Stiefvater at Oblong Books in Rhinebeck, NY!
2. I’m currently taking a very  interesting class on general linear models but it is largely responsible for my recent reduced posting rate.
3. I’m very excited for blogging events this month, including Non-fiction November and the Orange is the New Black read-a-long.
4. Raisinets are my motivational snack of choice for making myself write.
5. I love challenges and am already thinking about which ones I’ll be doing next year.
6. I’m watching all of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes for the first time and I think they’re a lot of fun.
7. Ebooks are really growing on me, which could be bad for my self-restraint when it comes to requesting ARCs.

And now to pass on the award! My nominees are:

Jenn at The Relentless Reader
Allison at The Book Wheel
Rebecca at Love At First Book
Asti at A Bookish Heart
Kelly at The Well-Read Redhead
Jessica at The Quirky Bookworm
Aylee at Recovering Potter Addict
Suey at It’s All About Books
Anya at On Starships and Dragonwings
Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness
Charlene at Bookish Whimsy
Birana and Krysta at Pages Unbound

It’s possible I’ll think of more to round out my 15 but for now, that’s the list. Thanks for being so awesome you guys!

The post Shine On Award appeared first on Doing Dewey.

Alison at The Cheap Reader
Claire at Bitches with Books
Alice at Alice in Readerland
Kathy at BermudaOnion’s Weblog
Geoff at The Oddness of Moving Things
C.J at ebookclassics

The post WordPress Family Award appeared first on Doing Dewey.

Shirley You Jest Book Awards: May 20th – July 22nd

This book award event is a great opportunity for authors, since the prizes are all publicity based and includes things like blogger reviews. As you might guess from the title, the awards are for books that “deliver the funny” in both a fiction and non-fiction category. Entry requirements are listed here.

Armchair BEA: May 27th – June 2nd

This online event corresponds to the Book Expo America conference in NYC. It’s a way for bloggers who don’t make it to the actual event to get to know each other by sharing prompt-inspired posts; having twitter meet-up; and commenting on each others blogs. Also includes giveaways. Sign-ups are here.

Classics Retold Month: September

For Classics Retold Month, each participant signs up to read a classic and at least two adaptations. Up to four bloggers can work on one classics and bloggers who want to do more than one classic are encouraged to do guest posts. Classics are divided into five categories and sign-ups for each category are hosted by the following bloggers:

• 19th Century and Gothic Classics: Bookish Whimsy
• Children’s Classics: The Cheap Reader
• Ancient to Renaissance Literature: Books Take You Places
• Mythology: The Book Addicts Guide
• American and Miscellaneous Classics: Excellent Library

The post Book Blogging Events appeared first on Doing Dewey.

The Liebster award is an award passed on by bloggers to new blogs (less than 200 followers) worth reading. The idea is to show some support to new bloggers by featuring some that you like. I love the idea of supporting other new bloggers, but sadly don’t follow many new blogs. Fortunately, there are lots of good, new blogs out there, so I found some I wanted to follow and am sharing them with you here So, while this is a long-ish post, I promise it will be well worth your time to find out about these awesome new bloggers!

11 Awesome Bloggers

1. The Bibliotherapist is actually an exception to what I said above, being a blog I already followed and couldn’t find follower stats for. So while Maryann might already have more than 200 followers, I plead ignorance. My favorite thing about her reviews are their unique format, especially the “Initial Impressions” section which is often funny, smart, and spot on.
2. Tanya, at  52 Books or Bust, has reviewed a varied selection of adult books and is trying to read more non-fiction this year (yea!). Her posts look like they’re all reviews and they all look like great reviews. Each has a nice summary, shares anything you need to know that might have affected her feelings for a book, and ends with a great section describing who she’d recommend the book to. I thought the last section was particularly helpful and well done.
   
3. The Sleepless Reader‘s reviews are a little more stream-of-conscious than I would usually like, but her reviews were great because they gave me a good idea what she was thinking about while reading each book and were still well organized. She’s also currently listening to Hyperion, which I hope she loves as much as I did!
4. Short and to the point, Wandering in the Stacks does a great job quickly conveying the feel of a book and reads a wonderful variety of books, including a good amount of non-fiction.
5. Adventures in Voracious Reading writes some thoughtful reviews, uses GIF’s to great effect, and demonstrated the ability to write a first class hilarious rant in her recent review of Half-Blood.
6. The thoughtful and often funny reviews, especially some really great ones on non-fiction books, are my favorite part of The USB Review of Books.
7. Little Swag of Books focuses on Australian books and ends with a fun variety of genres. Perhaps because of this focus, a lot of the books Raelke reviews are ones I’ve never heard of and her clear, well written reviews make me want to read them all.
8. I Am Sam Tule is another blog with short reviews that still give you a good idea of what the book is like. I also felt like I shared Sam’s feelings about the books I’d read, so hopefuly this will be a good blog for me to get some recommendations from
9. I enjoyed getting caught up A Year In Books enthusiasm in her well written reviews. I also aspire to read as many independently published books, since I think highlightling little known books is a great thing for bloggers to do.
10. Larts and Etters had me from her funny, talking-to-a-friend style review of Madame Bovary. I think I’m going to very much enjoy reading and laughing along with her posts in the future.
11. Sundae Writers has many of the qualities that you’ve probably realized that I like, including short-ish, helpful well written reviews in a variety of genres. In particular, they seem to have some good mystery and spy novels recommendations.

11 Questions For Nominees (in which I shamelessly steal ideas from the nominees before me) 

1. How did you get started blogging?
2. Do you have a favorite genre?
3. What was the last thing you read, watched, and listened too?
4. What are your hobbies?
5. Of the books you have read this year, which is your favorite?
6. Where would you go for a dream vacation?
7. Are you a cat person or a dog person?
8. Do you always match your socks?
9. Do you prefer chocolate or vanilla?
10. Ebooks or hard copies?
11. Do you play an instrument? If so, which one?

The post Passing It On… A Liebster Award Post appeared first on Doing Dewey.

Woot! Doing Dewey has just received it’s first award! The Liebster award from Dani at Book Paper Cut. Thanks Dani! The Liebster award is an award passed on by bloggers to new blogs (less than 200 followers) worth reading.

Recipients of the Liebster Award must:

1. List 11 Random Facts about you
2. Answer the questions that were asked of you (By the blogger that nominated you)
3. Nominate 11 other blogs for the Liebster Blog Award and Link to their Blogs
4. Notify the bloggers of their award.
5. Ask the award winners 11 questions to answer once they accept the award

11 Random Facts…

1. My hobby obsession lately (other than reading), is playing Guild Wars 2.
2. I can’t get enough frozen blueberries, which I like better than fresh ones.
3. I’ve only ever broken one bone, a pinkie finger when I crashed my bike.
4. I used to be scared of toll booths – what if I hit one?! But I got better
5. My first pet was a small blue lizard I caught outside.
6. I currently have a cat named Maggie.
7. The first 100+ page book I red was Redwall by Brian Jacques.
8. I’m currently learning how to golf.
9. Fall Out Boy is my favorite band and I’m going to see them in Niagara Falls!
10. I also love 90′s music in general.
11. My favorite flowers are daisies.

Answers to Dani’s 11 Questions

1. What are your 3 go-to books when it comes to giving out book recommendations?
   I’m currently planning on recommending After The Ending to everyone because it was independently published and is one of the best fiction book I’ve read all year. For fans of fantasy, I’d recommend Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series and for fans of sci fi, I would recommend Hyperion.
2. Why did you start blogging?
   I was inspired to start blogging by Gretchen Rubins’ The Happiness Project. In her book, she decides to read magazines on various topics and that sparked my idea to read through the Dewey Decimal system.
3. Zombies, vampires, or werewolves?
   Vampires or werewolves, as long as they’re done well. Anne Rice is my favorite for vampires and I loved Blood and Chocolate for werewolves.
4. If you could meet any living person in the world, who would you meet?
   Tough question! Maybe Julia Stiles. I love the characters she plays and think I might like her if we met.
   
5. What was the last thing you read, watched, and listened too?
   I’m currently reading Queen of the Air – A True Story of Love and Tragedy at the Circus. The last thing I watched was an episode of The Daily Show and the last thing I listened to was Call Me Maybe.
6. Of the books you have read this year, which is your favorite?
   My favorite fiction would either be After the Ending or The Time of My Life and my favorite non-fiction is definitely The Botany of Desire.
7. What is your zodiac sign? (Western/Chinese or both) 
   I’m an Aquarius, but I had to look that up
   
8. What is your favorite quote? 
   I’m not sure I have one, but in case you need a laugh, I’d like to take this opportunity to direct you to this page of hilarious Douglas Adams quotes.
9. Who would you: marry? befriend? hate? (book characters)
   I haven’t met a book character I would marry. I would definitely befriend Lucy from The Time of My Life  or any of Meg Cabot’s character. And I recently read a review of Glitch which pointed out how terrible one member of the love triangle is and agree completely!
10. How long have you been blogging?
    I’ve been blogging for about 18 months.
11. What are your hobbies?
    Reading, photography, gaming, and golfing.

The post Getting To Know You… A Liebster Award Post appeared first on Doing Dewey.

Also, a sincere thank you to Alice of Alice in Readerland for passing the award along. You can get to know her better at her award post here.  And now here are the rules, responsibilities, and fun questions that come with the award:

Now, on to answering the questions that come with the award

Questions From Alice

1. What post are you most proud of writing? – Probably my review of Hyperion. It’s my most viewed review page and I think I did a pretty good job describing why Hyperion was so awesome. A lot of the time, I finish a great book and feel completely incapable of describing just what made me love it, so I’m happy I was able to do this on justice.
2. Do you just write reviews or do you like to write other pieces as well (stories/poems/articles/etc.)? – Just reviews here. I occasionally do memes, but that’s about it.
3. What is something great that’s happened to you/your blog since you started blogging? - Personally, I’ve moved to Cornell and made a lot of great new friends. Although I do miss my friends at ISU, I think overall the move has been good for me. For my blog, I just passed 100 followers during a very fun blog hop (winner of associated giveaway to be announced later today because I’m silly and forgot about it on Monday!).
4. Who is your favorite character from a book and why? – I found this one very hard to answer, but I think my favorite might be Lestat. He’s a little bit insane, but he doesn’t at all conform to vampire tropes, except perhaps for being dead sexy.
5. Is there anything that’s surprised you about the book blogging world? – Well, initially, people actually reading my blog came as a surprise, especially since I didn’t start the blog trying to get followers. Now I’m still constantly surprised by how nice everyone in the book blogging community is and interacting with people has become by far my favorite part of blogging.
6. What’s one book that you wish you could’ve written and why? – Maybe Rober Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. I don’t actually want to write a book ever, but I love and admire this series so much that I can’t help wishing just a little that I could write something like that.
7. Who is your favorite character from a T.V. show and why? – I think that would have to be Veronica Mars. She’s a strong female lead who beats out Buffy as my favorite because you don’t constantly get the idea she was designed for boys to drool over. She’s also a lot funnier
8. Do you have any pets and what are they? - I have cat named Maggie who I adopted from a shelter and who is great company. When I’m home, she follows me everywhere.
9. Aside from reading, what are your favorite hobbies? – As those of you who read my blog know, photography is definitely up there. Other than that, my biggest hobby is probably playing computer games with friends.
10. Where do you get the majority of your books from (stores/libraries/contests/etc.)? – By far, the majority of my books come from the library. I just don’t see any reason to pay for books when my library has more books I want to read than I can ever possibly get too!
11. What’s the story behind your blog name and why you started blogging? - I started blogging after reading The Happiness Project. Gretchan Rubin starts reading random magazines to learn more about new topics and I thought it would be fun to do the same thing systematically with books. That’s when I decided to try to read one non-fiction book for ever number in the Dewey Decimal system. And so Doing Dewey was born

And Finally…My Nominees

A small caveat – several of the bloggers I nominate don’t display follower counts. Since I think the bloggers I’m nominating are all wonderful, I could easily believe that 199+ other people would have joined me in following them, but I’m pleading ignorance and only eliminating from the running bloggers who obviously have too many followers to meet the requirements.

Quirky Bookworm – Currently reviewing children’s books, but also does some great historical fiction reviews. I like pretty much all her recommendations and she’s great about interacting with readers.

Dustylizard – The only non-book-review blog on the list, dustylizard is simply hilarious. And she takes amazing pictures too!

A Little Blog of Books and Other Stuff - This is a blog I follow via e-mail and I frequently click through posts to “like” them and realize I’ve done this before…for pretty much every post. The author probably thinks I’m a stalker, but really they just write really good reviews and lots of fun book spine poetry.

The Bibliotherapist – A blog I recently followed, drawn in by well written reviews with a fun, unique review layout. Favorite review segments: “Why it took me so long to read this” and her sometime humorous “Initial Impressions”

Deliberate Reader - Another new follow for me and I think a very new blog, currently doing a fun feature – “31 Days of Great Non-fiction Read”. Awesome.

Now What? Should you choose to accept, the rules of being awarded/awarding the Liebster Award are: 1) Answer the 11 questions from the person who nominated you (below). 2) Think up 11 questions of your own. 3) Choose 5 fantastic bloggers (each with less than 200 followers) to answer your questions and present the Liebster Award to. Don’t forget to thank/mention who nominated you! 4) Comment on their blogs to make sure they know they’ve been awarded.

And My 11 Questions for Them to Answer:

or where I shamelessly steal my favorite questions from previous award winners

1. What’s your favorite part of blogging so far?
2. What’s the story behind your blog name and why you started blogging?
3. Do you schedule posts in advance or do you prefer to write when you’re ready to post?
4. What’s your favorite book and why? (You don’t have to pick just one)
5. What advice would you give to new bloggers?
6. Do you like to cook? And if so, do you have a favorite dish?
7. Do your friends and family read your blog?
8. What is your guilty pleasure TV show?
9. Who was your favorite band/musician in high school?
10. What do you enjoy most about the fall?
11. Do you have any pets? And if so, what are they?

The post Liebster Award appeared first on Doing Dewey.