Showing Some Needy Love at Book Lovers, Inc.

Man, am I ever excited to finally be able to bust out some happy news I've been wanting to share for a while! Today, I've been officially added to the awesome book blogging team known as Book Lovers, Inc.  BLI has easily been my favorite book blog, with a freaking rockstar band of blogger contributors, a great community of readers, and fantastic content not easily matched elsewhere. Indeed, "fortunate" and "blessed" are just two ways of many to describe how I feel about being counted amongst its ranks.

But anywho, I'll be providing contributions as "The Needy Lover"--'cos really, is there anything better than having that need to read? ^_^ Also being brought on at the same time is Anna of Books to Brighten Your Mood. She's the Coffee Lover, and she is pure, undiluted awesomeness...a bright spirit, as her blog name suggests. It's a pleasure to have the pleasure to work with her, as well as with all of the other Book Lovers.

If you have not yet been acquainted with the Book Lovers, I'd highly recommend you do; the site is constantly teeming with book reviews, author interviews, giveaways, news on the book world, and all sorts of reading-related special features.

So rock on. I'll be here at MNtR, and I'll be there at BLI. I hope to see you at both places!

Notice Anything Different?

....Not much, really.....it's only a complete blog redesign! ^_^

Thanks to the wonderful, talented and absolutely fabulous Zoe of Chic and Sassy Designs (thank you, thank you, thank you, Zoe!), this blog is now a more accurate reflection of the blogger behind it. I'm excited about the new look, and I very much look forward to bringing content awesome enough to match its appearance.

A little about the design...
Do you recognize the skyline in the background? I'll give you a hint...it's known for its fog, perennial Springtime weather, cable cars, open-mindedness, and sour dough bread. ^_^ Having been raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, I have very much felt like it's ingrained in who I am, and I carry the Bay with me everywhere I go.

The "P&P" on the book is for the wonderful Jane Austen classic, Pride and Prejudice. It's got so many of those delightfully romantic and fairy-tale-like elements....and it remains one of my favorite books (the other is Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game).

One of my favorite places to read is in the park. It's got it all...other park-goers (for the optional people-watching, naturally ^_^), greenery, and relative quiet. Under a nice shady tree on a warm n' sunny day, reading can be a dream.

You'll notice that so many of the books featured and reviewed here at MNtR are in genre fiction (with some humorous non-fiction thrown in for good measure). What would the world be like without werewolves, cowboys, fairies, passionate interludes by Regency-period gentlepeople, or quirky, hapless heroines? Not a very fun world, that's for sure.

At any rate, I hope you enjoy the new look! Ya'll come back now, y'hear???

Bloggiesta 2011: Let's do it!

So, this weekend (Jan. 21, 22 and 23) is the fourth annual Bloggiesta, hosted by Natasha over at Maw Books Blog. What is Bloggiesta, you ask? As Natasha puts it:

In short, it’s a blogging marathon.  A opportunity to cross those nagging items off of your to-do list and improve your blog while in the good company of other awesome bloggers doing the same thing. Our awesome mascot Pedro (Plan. Edit. Develop. Review. Organize) is ready to break out the nachos, enchiladas, drinks, mariachi music and whack a pinata or two!  It’s nothing short of an awesome fiesta!

I'm quite excited because I've been meaning to set aside a serious block of time for nothing but planning and developing ideas and future content. Some of my goals--which may or may not completed this weekend, but will at least be worked on--include the following:

• write reviews (there's plenty of raw data for that!)
• research for interviews
• work on post templates
• gather HTML crib-sheet
• scout out possible books for challenges
• work on design plans
• brainstorm (hopefully) interesting article topics
• develop review policy
• work on Features page
• create landing page content
• "research, research, research" all things publishing 
• install a stats counter (Google Analytics)
• ...and other stuff!

It should be fun to be able to do all of these things in the virtual company of other great bloggers. Almost 200 people are participating...so it's going to be a righteous party fiesta. ^_^

**Note: I may be making edits n adjustments that result in odd-looking content. Pay it no mind...it should all be normalish by Monday.**