Appreciating people is hard, y’all. This week is Book Blogger Appreciation Week, a week that many book bloggers use to give a shout-out to favorite blogs and share their favorite things about the book blogging world. Jenny and I have participated for the last three years, and it’s always good fun. Unfortunately, Jenny is busy with start-of-school madness, so I’m on my own unless she gets a little more time later in the week.
Today’s topic, Appreciate, asks participants to share a few of their favorite book blogs. And I am stuck. I have too many favorites! Most years, Jenny and I set some parameters—only a dozen (or a baker’s dozen), blogs we’ve discovered in the past year, or blogs that inspired us when we were getting started. My thought this year was to acknowledge some favorite blogs that have fallen through the cracks in our past parameters. This seemed like an ideal way to acknowledge everyone.
I assembled a draft list of about 10 blogs this morning and let it sit, in case there was someone I forgot. By the end of the day, I had about 20 blogs. And I kept thinking of others. Well, that’s hardly helpful. Who’s going to follow all those links? And how will I find time to explain just how each one of these bloggers is awesome? And oh, crap, I forgot someone else! Argh!
Clearly, I need some parameters. So today I share with you a few blogs that I’ve gotten to know in the past year or so. In some cases, I started reading the blog more than a year ago, but it’s in the last year that I started following each of these blogs more closely. If you want to know what makes them so great, click through and check them out.
- A Good Stopping Point
- A Musical Feast
- Bibliolathas
- The Book Trunk
- TBR 313
- Thinking in Fragments
- Tiny Library
As for the other blogs and bloggers I appreciate, please know that if I comment on your blog once in a while, if you leave comments here, if I share links to your blog here or on Twitter, or if I chat with you at least semi-regularly on Twitter, then I appreciate you. I’m a big believer in showing appreciation year round, and BBAW reminds me of how much I want to make appreciation a habit. Appreciating others can be hard, but it feels good.
Shelf Love 
Big appreciation to you guys! I haven’t joined in BBAW for ages, just because I’ve forgotten it’s coming, but I do love its ethos of community – the most important thing in the blogosphere, and sometimes harder to hold onto now the blogosphere is so huge. So hurrah for Shelf Love and hurrah for the blogs you list – I ‘met’ a few of these during Muriel Spark Reading Week, and grew to love them, but a couple are new to me.
Thank you, Simon! I really enjoy the community-building aspects of BBAW, too. It helps me remember to appreciate a little more openly all year.
I’m so honored to be included – thank you! You all are tops on my list.
You’re welcome! I have to appreciate a fellow Lymond fan :)
Wonderful choices!!! Some I love and some new-to-me! Thanks for the recs!
You’re welcome!
I just found your blog via Sophisticated Dorkiness, and now you’re leading me on to even more blogs! Ack, I think I just fell down the book blog hole.
I know that black hole all too well. (I found your blog earlier today through Kim as well and added you to my reader.)
my favorite thing about blogging is our community, and how supportive we are of each other. thanks to BBAW for reminding us to give each other an official shout out every now and again!
It’s the community that makes it all so great.
Wow, thanks for the shout-out! I love the breadth of both you and Jenny’s reading selections. You got me to read Stephen King for the first time, among other recommendations. :) I’ll have to check out the other blogs on your list.
You’re welcome! I’m so glad to have introduced you to King. (And I know I’ve been reading your blog for more than a year, but I think it was around this time last year that I realized you were a DC person too and that we should get together–which we ought to do again!)
Ah this week is always so bad for my feed reader! I’ve already added like ten blogs so far.
Me too! I always fill the reader up around BBAW time.
I had a hard time making a list… I always do. And then I finish it and think, “Yes! I must have gotten everyone!” and then within a few minutes stumble across a blogger I should have put on it. I’m not good with parameters though. Anyway, most of the blogs on your list are new to me, so I will have to go check them out :)
One of the reason I decided on these parameters is that I thought these blogs might be new to people.
All of these are new to me! But I will go check them all out right now because I really do value your opinion. And yes, this is definitely one of the homes of good conversations in this little bloggy world of ours. Thank you for that!
Great! I think you’ll enjoy them!
BBAW brought me here and I am glad for that! the joy of discovering great new things is simply wonderful…
So glad you found us!
Thank you, Teresa, for ‘appreciating’ my blog. I am a devoted follower of Shelf Love, and can level a fair amount of blame for the size of my TBR pile at the two of you – your posts are interesting and inspiring and always so well written. I will enjoy exploring the blogs on your list that I haven’t managed to appreciate yet. Thank you, again! [bibliolathas]
As a former student of Koine Greek, I think your blog first won me over simply by having a Greek title. (Plus, I’m a book-forgetter, too, which is one of the reasons I blog.)
Hi T. Well you know I appreciate Shelf Love. Have you checked your yahoo account recently? I sent you an email…
And of course I appreciate My (or should that be your?) Porch.
It is hard to narrow down a list of favorite bloggers, isn’t it? I know I had a hard time too, so excited to check out the one who made your list!
It is hard! I have too many that I love for so many different reasons.
Appreciating others does seem hard, doesn’t it? But let’s do it with comments and talking about books. <3
I love how BBAW reminds me how great it feels to be appreciated and the value of making the effort all year.
How kind of you to mention my blog! I’ve loved your comments and recommendations. I appreciate you too. :-)
I enjoy your blog so much, and I hope you find a way to juggle all your new endeavors.