Liebster Award

 

Many eons ago, Elizabeth at so long and thanks for all the fish and Caro at A Girl That Likes Books
tagged me for the Liebster Award which was super duper nice.  As I mentioned in the book blogger test post I have been dragging my feet on it simply because every blog I follow has already been tagged for this usually multiple times.  The rules are that you have to tag nine other bloggers and while I have no problem blathering on about myself and have many blogs I love to follow and know more about, I don't really want to tag folks that have already been tagged a hundred billion times.  So this is what I am going to do.  I am going to gamble that there is no overlord of the Liebster award who will come and disqualify me from the blogger community if I don't follow the rules exactly.  In an attempt to honor the spirit of the award, I will post 11 questions at the end of this post and if anybody who visits this post wants to answer one or two or all 11 of them in the comments that would be fantastic!  I am also going to list some of my favorite blogs that you should visit at your leisure and discover, hopefully, some new blogs.  And you should definitely visit Elizabeth and Caro 'cause they are awesome.  Thanks to both of you for nominating me!!

So here's the actual 4-1-1 on the Liebster Award:  thank the blog who nominated you, list 11 facts about yourself, answer the 11 questions that they asked you, ask 11 questions that your nominees have to answer and nominate 9 blogs with under 200 followers for the award that are not the one that nominated you.

Eleven Facts About Myself

1. I’ve been to three out of the four Tennis Grand Slams (U.S. Open, Wimbledon and Australian Open).  Would really like to get to the French Open some day, particularly because I’ve not experienced tennis on clay before!  I am a HORRIBLE tennis player.

2. I have a weird obscure phobia of crocodiles.  About 15 years ago, I randomly had a cluster of nightmares involving crocodiles and they now give me the serious willies.  Good thing I live in Iowa.  If anybody has an interpretation of nightmares involving crocodiles I’d love to hear it.

3. The next place on my places I’d really like to visit is Greece.  I’ve never been and I have been fascinated by Greek Mythology since I was a kid.

4. I have really cute dogs named Jasper and Rudy and a ginger cat named Rosie.  

5. I am somewhat obsessed with Llamas.  

6. The Outer Banks of North Carolina is probably my favorite place on the planet.  My family vacationed there every summer when I was a kid and it never fails to make me feel extremely peaceful.

7. I have a dream to have a 5 acre homestead with loads of dogs, chickens, horses, goats and Llamas plus a huge vegetable garden, orchard and some beehives. 

8. I suspect I am way too lazy to actually manage everything from item 7.  Realistic Dream is a couple acres with some chickens, a whole passel of dogs and a small garden.  And perhaps a Llama.

9. I’m a wildlife biologist which is not as exciting as it sounds.  It’s a lot of answering e-mails and government bureaucracy with the occasional day in nature.

10. I was born and raised in Richmond, VA but now live in Iowa which is quite frankly nowhere that I ever thought I’d be.  It’s actually pretty nice except for Winter and the distance from any oceans.

11. I’m a huge Anglophile which mostly these days expresses itself in a great fondness for British TV, British authors or books set in Britain.  I spent a lot of time in England up until my early twenties and I’d really love to go back for a good long jaunt. 

Elizabeth's Questions

1.  How did you come up with your blog name?

I can get pretty obsessive about things that I love and basically will dork out pretty hard about books, favorite TV Shows, Gardening etc…. I started the blog partially to connect with folks with similar interests.  I feel like my blog name expresses this (i.e. don’t be afraid to come dork out with me) and is sufficiently dorky in and of itself ;0).

2. What/who are your three favourite bands/artists/composers?

This changes a lot on top of the fact that I go through periods where I engage more or less with music in general.  I’m in kind of a not really engaged with music period and have been for a while now so this is a hard question.  I’ll give it a shot and likely I will cheat.  In popular music I should probably mention Sting as I’ve loved most of what he’s done in The Police to the present day.  He’s probably my most steady favorite for the longest time.  As a teenager my favorite without question was Duran Duran who I still have some nostalgic love for as well as any other British Pop invasion band from the 80’s including those bands that emulate the sound like The Killers.  In my current life, I like more folk, bluegrass, acoustic stuff with probably my favorite being Martin Sexton.  Since Elizabeth is a classical musician I’ll mention that my favorite composers are Tchaikovsky (mostly because I’m a former dancer and love his ballet music particularly Serenade in C) and Mozart.  Boring but true.

3.  What is something on your bucket list?

Attend the French Open Tennis Tournament.  I’ve been to the other three grand slams.

4. Who's your celebrity crush?

On a semi-regular basis I have yearnings for Richard Armitage and Matthew MacFadyen – which apparently indicates that I like men with beautiful deep northern English voices.  Ooh Ooh and Jensen Ackles from Supernatural – He’s dreamy.  And not from the north of England. 
 
5. Book boyfriend?

None really.  I’d say Francis Crawford of Lymond from Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles but the truth is he is too intimidating for me.  Gilbert Blythe maybe from Anne of Green Gables?

6. Favourite color, number, word, and animal?

Green, 42, perspicacious, Llama (if we are dismissing pet animals like dogs which I also adore)

7. What movie, tv show, and book/comic/manga are you most looking forward to in 2014?

Probably the second installment in the Lovegrove legacy from Alyxandra Harvey though I don’t really keep up with what’s coming out when.  
 
8. Who would you consider your role model? (It can be a real life person or not)

My dad.  As I became an adult I lost a lot of my hero worship of  him that I had as a kid but there is no denying that he had a huge influence on the person I am and the paths I’ve taken in life.  
 
9. Who would be your bookish bestie?

 Ista from Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold.

10. Top 5 tv shows? (Or movies) 

Doctor Who (new who), The X-files, Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Veronica Mars. Honorable Mention: Farscape, Deadwood, The Mighty Boosh, Glee and Stargate SG-1

11. If you could meet one person - (character, historical, celebrity, someone in your past - anyone!) who would it be and why? 

Charles Darwin – I’d like to hear how his ideas about evolution developed and what the journey on the HMS Beagle was really like.  Alternatively, Aldo Leopold who is the father of modern Wildlife and Conservation Biology – we could use his eloquence now. 

Caro's Questions

1.  Do you make part of any book club? If so how did you come to join it, if not is there any that tempts you?

I am not and I am always longing to join one but I’ve been part of clubs in the past and it hasn’t worked out.  I’m a mood reader and don’t do well with assigned books.  That’s actually part of why I started a blog! I love to discuss books but not in the “rigid” confines of a book club.  The blog means I can put my thoughts about any book out there and if there are any folks who also have thoughts on that book they can jump in (and vice versa I can jump in on other’s reviews of interesting books).

2.       What is your least favorite genre, the one you just can't seem to like at all?

I struggle with urban fantasy though I have found a very few that I like.

3.       Do you listen to any bookish podcasts? If so which one and why?

SO Many! Books on the Nightstand, Book Riot, Sword and Laser, Reading the End, NPR Books podcast, Bookrageous, The Readers, Literary Disco.  They all offer a little something different.  My favorite are those where the hosts recommend books and discuss those that they are reading and also perhaps some particular bookish topic. Bookrageous is great for that as is Reading the End.   I wouldn’t have said I’m a huge junkie for book news but I just recently started listening to the Book Riot podcast and I really like it.

4.       What is your favorite place to read?
The Beach.  I don’t get to do it very often since I now live in Iowa so it’s an extra special treat these days.

5.       What is your stand on Audio books?

Huge fan. I’ve always liked them even back in the days when they were on fifty million cassettes but I’ve been doing a lot more Audio books in the last 2-3 years.  I get so much more opportunity to read when I can do it while I’m walking the dogs or doing housework. I am also a really slow reader so the amount of books I could read in a year would be much smaller without audio books.  I used to feel like they didn’t really count as reading but the folks at Books on the Nightstand convinced me otherwise and I’ve never looked back! I do have some superficial rules which I pretty much break regularly but basically I try to look for “simpler” books to listen to – YA, Romance, Cozy Mystery – since it can be easier to get a little distracted when listening. 

6.       As a kid, what was your favorite book?

The Chronicles of Narnia and D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths

7.       Do you write in books? If no, how do you manage the notes for your reviews?
No but not because I’m opposed to it.  I usually just jot down notes in the word document I use to work on reviews.

8. What is the book that you haven't read but everyone keeps saying you should?
hmmmm.. Nothing’s coming to mind.  I don’t have a ton of reader friends (in real life) and those that I do have don’t usually try to pressure me to read anything.  Obviously some books pop up and are EVERYWHERE in the blogosphere (The Rosie Project, Boxers and Saints etc…) but I don’t feel pressured or anything. Two classics that I feel pretty lame for not having read are Catcher in the Rye and The Grapes of Wrath.

 9. Have you ever lied about reading (or not) a book? Why?
I don’t think so but my memory isn’t the best so possibly.  I may have lied and not even realized I was lying:). 


10. What is the best bookish gift you have ever received? 
      My grandfather made bookshelves for all of the grandchildren.  It’s nothing fancy but I love it. 

11.  Do you have a goal of books per year?  How do you determine it?

      I do and I’ve just been slowly trying to up the number – adding on 10 a year or something.  I’d like to get over 100 sometime.  My goal this year is 90 so I’m close but I've also fallen behind because May wasn't a great reading month.

My Questions for You!
1. What is your favorite genre of book and why do you think you love it?
2. What kinds of Characters do you love the most?  How about hate the most?  What are your representative examples of these character types?
3. What are your top five TV shows? Movies?  Books?
4. Do you judge people based on the books they read even if you think it's not a great thing to do? What kinds of books?
5. If you were in charge of designing a high school reading curriculum what books would be on there and why?
6. What food would be included in a perfect meal?
7. Beach or Mountains?
8. If you could teleport anywhere in the world right now where would you go? (someone needs to invent this technology!)
9.  If you had a time machine where would you go?
10. What do you hope people remember you for?
11. What do you wish someone would invent?
12. BONUS QUESTION: What's your favorite recipe for Swiss Chard?

Here are some blogs that are nice - They are all Book Blogs

Lovely Literature
Sophisticated Dorkiness
A Bibliophile's Style
The Bookwyrm's Hoard
Bookish Realm
Gossamer Obsessions
Reading the End
The Avid Reader's Musings
Fantasy Cafe
The Steadfast Reader