Top Ten Tuesday (2)

I've been tinkering around with different orders of my reviews and memes over the past few weeks. I last did a Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish in May and figured "Why not try it again!"

Top Ten Reasons Why I Love Book Blogging

1. Books! I love books. I eat books, I work books, I dream books. Books are some of my best friends. Any opportunity to talk about, listen to, or read about books is an opportunity I love. The idea of a blog where all I do is read, review, and talk about books is so amazing I didn't believe it at first. I absolutely love book blogging!


2. Goodreads! I am a Goodreads addict. It's an open tab on my laptop 24/7. Before I started blogging I had a massive "to-reads" shelf with no end in site. And it's grown! I've since added at least 200 books but also managed to read 41 titles I've never gotten around to reading. I've also started to utilize some of the website features like giveaways and quotes more often too.


3. Sharing My Love of Books! For the past 5 years I've been a member of my local youth book club and every week we discuss new books we've heard about. For ages this was restricted to new releases at the library but ever since I started this blog our horizons have expanded. Now everyone knows about 2012 releases and can't wait to read and review them. Sharing my love of books and my new knowledge with friends has made the whole project seem worthwhile. 


4. Sense of Achievement! Creating and running a book blog was my project for 2011. I thought it would be tiresome and I'd give up after a few weeks as I do with most projects. Instead I'm loving every minute of it and having a blast. I haven't felt this proud of myself in a long time and I love to "brag" to my friends and family about The Zealous Reader 24/7.


5. Armchair BEA! Even though this is technically an author event, I absolutely loved participating a few weeks ago. Being a part of such a large global community coming together to celebrate literature is a dream come true. While I would love to attend the in-person event next year I would just as happily participate in Armchair again.


6. Followers! My goal in January was to have 100 followers by December 31st. I figured at least 50 of these would be friends and family. Never in a million years would I be at 91 by the end of June and not know at least 70 of them. Every time a new person follows me my heart soars and I'm so appreciative of each and every one of you for following me.


7. Author events! Since my blogging adventure began I haven't had an opportunity to attend any events but I'll be at Word on the Street and introducing an author for Eden Mills in September. It's also been great to be informed about YA authors coming to Canada more often.


8.  Meeting awesome people! There are too many awesome book bloggers to count. I never thought I'd find some that lived in Canada too! I love hearing what sort of books they're interested in, their favourite authors, and what releases they're looking forward to. In the past week I've started following three new awesome bloggers: Nic at Irresistible Reads, Carina at Fictional Distraction, and Melissa at I Swim for Oceans; check them out!


9. Supporting debut authors! Through researching various authors' struggles to be published and receive recognition for their works in the early years of YA I aim to use my blog as an effective marketing tool for as many debut authors as possible. 


10. Free books! Who doesn't love free books! I've received over a dozen copies from authors and publishers for review in the past 3 months and can't wait to read them all. 




Did you do a Top Ten Tuesday this week? Post your link in the comments and I'll be sure to check it out!