ArmchairBEA: Introductions

I’ve learned about so many different things in the few months I’ve been blogging and the BEA is no exception. After hearing about I was jealous of the people who would be attending. But when I saw Sarah’s post about the ArmchairBEA, I was intrigued. So I signed up and I’m excited to see what it’s all about.

Today kicks off the week-long event with an Introduction. We choose 5 of the 10 questions to introduce ourselves.  So here are the five I selected with my answers:

1. Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? How long have you been blogging? Why did you get into blogging?
My name is Danielle and I’m from Massachusetts.  I’m an avid book reader (though I suppose that’s a given if I’m participating in this, right?) I’ve only been blogging since October, so for about 8 months now…wow, time flies!  I started blogging because I wanted to try something new.  I had a livejournal for a long time throughout high school and college.  But I decided I wanted to do more than livejournal and reach a larger audience.  I found WordPress and it just went off from there.  You can see in my About page that I really love to read and love being able to share the experience with others.  I love the idea of teaching children how to read and exposing them to what a wonderful world books can bring to them.

2. What are you currently reading, or what is your favorite book you have read so far in 2012?
I’m currently reading The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.  It was a slow start for me, but now I’m really getting into it, and I’m about halfway through it.  As for my favorite book so far in 2012, I think it would have to be The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. I love the picture that was painted.  If that circus existed in real life, I would absolutely go.  

8. What literary location would you most like to visit? Why?
This is a good question. I think first I would like to visit Hogwarts. I mean, really, who wouldn’t?  All that magic, and moving staircases and pictures. There’s lots of fun stuff there.  Ohh, or maybe Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade. Those would be fun places to visit.  All those fun stores and the magic.  For a non-magical place, I would like to visit Thornfield  Hall from Jane Eyre, but before the fire.  I watched the Zeffirelli version from the 90s yesterday and the estate was definitely much larger than I imagined, though I fully admit that I don’t always picture things as they’re described, so to see it how Charlotte Bronte envisioned it would be cool.

9. What is your favorite part about the book blogging community? Is there anything that you would like to see change in the coming years?
I think my favorite part about the blogging community is the camaraderie. Everyone I’ve encountered has been so friendly and welcoming into the community.  They’re helpful. I never thought I’d have people commenting or regular readers; I didn’t know if anyone was going to be interested in what I had to say.
I think the biggest thing that bothers me is all the spam.  Luckily, it does get filtered, but it would be nice if it just didn’t exist. Of course, that’s just wishful thinking 🙂
Although sometimes when I try to post comments on people who have Blogger blogs, it doesn’t work; that’s annoying!

10. Have your reading tastes changed since you started blogging? How?
I haven’t noticed my reading tastes changing, I still like a variety of stories. I have started taking notes to prepare for reviews I post here,  so that’s what I’ve noticed the most: being more aware of how I want to talk about the books I’ve been reading.

I can’t wait to see how everyone else answered these questions.  And I look forward to see what else the week holds! 🙂