The current Weekly Geeks theme revisits one of Dewey’s original topics for the meme: Ten Things About Books and YOU. Here are mine:

1. The current population of TBR Purgatory is 326.
2. I give up book-buying for Lent every year, and this year it’s been surprisingly easy to stick to it. For one thing, I’m getting better about wish-listing books so I won’t forget I’m interested in them, but I think the bigger factor is that I’m really aware of how big TBR Purgatory is now – and feeling the weight of it!
3. There really aren’t as many books in the various TBR stacks around my house as there are in the bookcases, but sometimes it feels that way.
4. What I’d really like for my birthday (next week!) is a new bookcase or two, but I don’t know where we’d put them, so I think the stacks are sticking around.
5. I don’t think I’ll ever manage to read more than 60 books in a year, but I’m very glad I read more than 50 last year.
6. I don’t count e-books in my TBR numbers because I’m less physically aware of them.
7. If I’d known about LibraryThing first, I’m not sure I would have started a book blog at all; it does a lot of the things I thought a blog would do, and it does some of them better.
8. If I leave a bookstore with only one new book, it feels like a wasted trip.
9. I don’t like shopping in most used bookstores because it can be hard to find anything I want, but I’m very happy to let them have my own used books for people who DO like to shop for them.
10. I don’t like to be “in between” books for long; if I go more than a few hours between finishing one book and starting another, it makes me anxious – and therefore, the giant TBR collection is a sort of security blanket.

What’s been your favorite experience as a book blogger? (Or you could make a top 10 list, instead of picking just one.)

Choosing the option that didn’t require as many limits, I went with the Top 10 List. These may not be the TOP 10, but they are ten favorite experiences as a book blogger, in no particular order (so they’re not numbered):

• Meeting up with fellow Southern and Central California book bloggers (and an occasional out-of-state visitor) at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books in 2009 and 2010 – an experience I’m afraid I’ll miss in 2011. The LATFoB is relocating from the UCLA campus to USC this year, and has shifted the date by one week along with that – and I have a schedule conflict with the new one. Can we plan an alternative get-together for some time this spring, folks?
• Discovering the fun of attending book signings (and actually getting my husband to go to one with me!)
• Participating in the founding of Armchair BEA in 2010 – it all came together in a relatively short amount of time via the cooperative efforts of an excellent team, and it was a thrill to see how well it was received. I’m glad it’ll be back this year, and even though I will be in New York City for the “real” BEA this year, I intend to Armchair it too!
• Book Blogger Appreciation Week, every year (2008-2010), but providing daily recaps of the events and awards for She Writes in 2010 added something more to my participation
• The 24-Hour Readathon, every time – I’m planning to be reading (and probably cheerleading too) again on April 9!
• Being offered my first book for review, after almost a year of blogging – and it had never occurred to me that I could actually ask for review copies. There are a few things about book blogging that I didn’t learn very quickly! (Interestingly enough, this is also my most-viewed review post, according to my analytics – I have no idea why.)
• Preparing my annual Reading Year in Review posts (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010) is always fun and thought-provoking for me, and I’m glad I supplemented that with my Books of the Decade list (2009), highlighting favorites from pre-blogging days. That led to…
• Re-reading two of those books, The Sparrow and Children of God, as part of co-hosted group reads where I could finally discuss them with other people (and introduce them to a few new readers)!
• Technically, this experience hasn’t been fully realized yet, but just being invited to moderate a panel at the 2011 Book Blogger Convention was one of those affirming, “it’s an honor to be nominated” moments.
• I did get to talk about book blogging as part of a panel at BlogHer’10, but visiting New York City bookstores with my roommate Melissa was probably the high point of the weekend, to be honest.

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