Armchair BEA 2013 or What am I Doing Here?

Design credit: Nina of Nina Reads

Armchair BEA is a virtual event created for book bloggers unable to attend

the BEA Bloggers Conference or Book Expo America (BEA) in New York City,

My Reading Chair 

Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? How long have you been blogging? Why did you get into blogging?

I am known by my glasses

I have kept a book journal of one sort or another going back to the late 1980s. When I retired from the library world in 2007, it seemed appropriate to create an online way to keep track of my reading and share it with friends and colleagues. Books have been a major part of my life since I was a child going to the library with my father. In third grade I won the prize for reading the most books over summer vacation.

Where in the world are you blogging from? Tell a random fact or something special about your current location. Feel free to share pictures.

Tiger Lilies by the pond

In the palm of the Michigan mitten, I can curl up in my chair and gaze out the window at the Grand River not far from its headwaters, where it is neither grand nor what one would call a river.

Have you previously participated in Armchair BEA? What brought you back for another year? If you have not previously participated, what drew you to the event?

At BEA I actually met Hello Kitty!

Until discovering Armchair BEA last year, I had been a solitary blogger. I had attended BEA in the past, not as a blogger, but as a librarian, and found it a wonderfully stimulating experience. The idea that I could continue to be part of the event from home was exciting!

What are you currently reading, or what is your favorite book you have read so far in 2013? 

I feel extraordinarily blessed by the reading choices I have made this year.  Kate Atkinson's LIFE AFTER LIFE had an enormous effect on me, but I am a total fan girl for Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache series. (You can see the books I have read if you look on the right side bar.)

Tell us one non-book-related thing that everyone reading your blog may not know about you.  

I am passionate about theater and especially musical theater and watched the television program SMASH to the bitter end!