Announcement: We’re Blogger Award Winners!

So imagine our surprise and flattery when Steve D. from Redstring Paper Cuts gave us the Blogger Recognition Award (which we presume is a recognition of badassery and awesomeness).

Our blog is a year old and it’s really something we’re quite proud of, so to receive an award for it is so incredibly humbling and gratifying. Major, major thanks to Steve D. We’re truly honored.

So to officially accept this award there are certain steps that we have to go through. We’ve covered thanking the person who nominated us. The next is to write a post showing the award. And the rest are as follows:

How Did This Blog Get Started?

We have been friends since we met at our graduate program for Library and Information Sciences, and as one would imagine, we both love to read. Serena had the idea that we should put together a blog of book reviews, reader’s advisory, lists, and various other booky things, and Kate agreed. For a year now we’ve been doing this and have really enjoyed the collaboration and the fun that it has brought, as well as all the reading it’s encouraged us to do.

Two Pieces of Advice for New Bloggers

1. Blog about things you are passionate about. Reading is a huge part of our jobs, but it’s also one of our favorite hobbies in our spare time, so I look forward to writing reviews and lists and posts about reading, books, and librarianship. And make sure to set time for it at designated times a week, because it’s easy to get frazzled and behind if you’re hoping to post consistently. If you make time, it will happen. – Kate
2. Don’t fret too much about having a unique “voice” in your writing. As a reader of other book blogs, I was always very impressed by the creative and entertaining styles of other reviewers. This, in turn, intimidated me when I began reviewing books myself. I felt pressured to come up with some clever “take” on things. As it turns out, if you write enough, your own natural voice/style will emerge. Be patient with this process. Writing is like any other hobby/skill: with practice comes results. And there is always room to continue growing (which is a relief for those times that writer’s block sets in and you begin questioning how you ever managed to write anything before). – Serena

We Nominate…

Kristen Twardowski : She’s not only one of our favorite fellow bloggers,  she’s a very insightful writer with a well written blog about writing and literature. Kristen is great and you should check her out!

The Untitled Book Blog: Donna is a passionate reader who reviews the books in her TBR pile on this site. Solidarity with fellow book bloggers!

Bookish Feminist: Kate’s friend Sarah has a blog that follows the feminist books she and her book club have been reading. There’s a social justice bent to her list and it has lots of great recommendations.

YAPS!: This YA blogger and fellow librarian covers a wide breadth of YA books. This blog is fun to read for a couple of YA nuts like us, and has some great insights into YA fiction.

Storyscope: Marianne is another relatively new blogger on the scene, but her great writing voice and similar taste in reading material (shout out to “Anna Dressed in Blood” and “The Name of the Wind”) makes her blog one of the many that we check out.

Escape Into a Book Site: This blog covers romance fiction more than anything, and as a genre that we don’t cover here but do read occasionally, it’s a good one to check out!

Bec’s Books: This blog is fairly new too, but Bec is a passionate book blogger who reviews stacks of books on this blog, as well as talking about books she wants to read and books she has in her possession.

Book V Book: Another new site, but this one is very fun and spunky. The two bloggers who run it each pick a book from a similar genre, and each make the case as to why their book would win the book fight. It’s funny and well thought out.