(Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme brought to you by The Broke and the Bookish. Want to make your own list? Clicking the image will take you to this week’s post. Happy listing!)
This week is the one year anniversary of The Broke and the Bookish, which of course is cause for a special list. Without further ado, here are the top reasons I love being a book blogger!
1. Cheap travel – I’m less than a year into my first grown-up job, so money is pretty tight. But books remove the fetters of penury; if I want to go to Italy, all I have to do is pick up my copy of Under the Tuscan Sun. 1920s Alabama? Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. Explore a mostly-abandoned house, solve mysteries, and enjoy the miracles of growing things? The Secret Garden it is! No matter where (or when) I want to go, there’s always a book that can take me there.
2. Meet new people – I live in a small town where most of the people my age already have kids, or are older than me by at least 35 years — opportunities for socialization are slim. Thanks to the magic of the Internet, though, I can “meet” as many book bloggers as I want! And not only can I find people who like the same kinds of books I do, I can also find bloggers who talk about books I’d never thought I could enjoy (Picture the Dead, anyone?).
3. Expand my TBR list – Not just down (adding more), but out as well. In meeting all these new people, I am exposed to new genres, new books, and new ideas that I have never before considered. My TBR list isn’t nearly as insane as other people’s, but it’s a lot healthier than it was a year ago. I love expanding my knowledge base and learning new things, and meeting new people helps me do that.
4. Create goals when I feel goal-less – After almost 17 years of going to school and working on papers, studying for tests, and preparing for presentations, living in the real world is pretty…dull. You do essentially the same thing all day, and there’s no more real goal (unless you count “make enough money so you don’t starve”). There’s not a whole lot of change. Blogging gives me a chance to take on things like the Gothic Reading Challenge, and participate in fun memes like this one. Blogging helps me set goals for myself, which makes me feel like I’m accomplishing something other than working for the next 40 years.
What are some of your favorite things about blogging? If you’re not a blogger, what are your favorite things about being a bookworm?
I love #1 ! Cheap, yes; not to mention, you don’t need to pack! And agree with the rest of the list, of course!!
Ooh, and no dealing with the TSA and those creepy scanning machines, either. Or, you know, any aspect of flying whatsoever. 🙂 Didn’t even think about that.
Aw crap! I totally missed this meme.
All your reasons are great, and I completely identify.
Also, for me…by knowing that I have to write a review at the close of a novel I tend to skim less. I have stopped reading purely for escapism, which has helped me to examine the ways a book fails or succeeds. I’m hoping my writing will improve as a result.
You should never miss a Top 10 Tuesday. It’s making lists. About book-related things. It’s like heaven. 😀 There’s always next week, though!
I don’t think knowing that I have to write a review has made me slow down my reading pace or skim less, but I do know it’s forced me to think more critically about why I liked or didn’t like a book. It’s also giving me a chance to see how I want my reviews to flow. The first ones I wrote contained spoilers (my blog was on livejournal then, and you could hide a section of text behind a cut). But when I moved to WordPress, I couldn’t hide sections of text anymore, so I stopped adding spoilers — which means my reviews got shorter and, I think, less helpful. And definitely less fun to write. So I’m trying to write more without giving everything away. Practice makes perfect!