Book Blogger Appreciation Week is an annual event celebrating the work of book bloggers and I’m pleased to announce that my blog has been long listed in the Best Literary Fiction Blog category.

Thank you to all who nominated me!

It is lovely to know that you appreciate the work I put into my blog and to see that I am amongst such wonderful company on the long list.

I thought this would be an appropriate time to introduce myself to new readers of my blog and highlight some of my favourite posts from the last three years.

About Me

My name is Jackie and I live in Surrey, England with my husband and two young sons. When my first son was born I gave up my ‘proper’ job as an analytical chemist to stay at home and look after him. To make a little bit of money I set up an online business selling second hand books. This gave me the excuse to create my own library at home (take this in the loose sense of the word – imagine wobbly stacks of books, rather than a posh room lined with ordered book cases!), allowing me the pleasure of being surrounded by thousands of books.

I have always loved reading, but spending so much extra time at home allowed me to indulge in my hobby a lot more. This led me to discovering book blogs and eventually starting my own nearly three years ago. Since then blogging has enabled me to do many things I never dreamed of. I’ve met lots of lovely bloggers and have been lucky enough to attend many publishing events in London. I’ve even met some of my favourite authors. All this is wonderful, but what I love most is discussing the books I’ve read in the comfort of my own home. I wouldn’t continue blogging if I didn’t receive all your wonderful comments. So thank you for making my blog what it is today!

My Favourite Posts

My favourite posts are those that generate a lot of discussion. I have written a lot over the years, but my favourite remains:

Does the age of the author matter?

I still notice that I tend to favour authors who are slightly older than me and think this is a more important indicator of how much a person will enjoy a book than most people realise.

I also think my post  Has Reading Ruined Your Facial Recognition Skills? is one all avid readers should ensure they read.

You can see more of my favourite posts by clicking on the ‘My Favourites’ tab in the box of my side bar.

You can see a post listing My Favourite Books, but all the books I’ve reviewed on my blog can be found under the ‘Books Reviewed’ tab in the top right-hand corner of my blog. These can then be sorted either by Author Surname, Book Title or by My Rating, allowing you to easily see my taste in books.

For those interested, I submitted the following posts for the BBAW award:

• How Can We Save UK Libraries?
• Why I Love Debut Authors
•  Who will be long listed for the 2011 Booker Prize?
• Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
• We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

If you’d like any more information about me or my blog, please ask below.

Enjoy browsing my blog!