Well Worth Watching Blogger Profile (1) The Book Zombie

What better way to honor the creator of the Well Worth Watching Blog Award than with my first Well Worth Watching blogger profile?

I first met Joanne of The Book Zombie through LibraryThing and the Tuesday Thingers meme. Usually after I comment on someone's Tuesday Thinger, I also check to see what else is new on their blog. I noticed Joanne read a lot of quirky/interesting books (including YA) and had great reviews so I started coming back regularly. She is also hilarious and makes me proud to be on TEAM ZOMBIE! Check her out if you haven't yet. And enjoy the interview.

If someone were to blurb your blog in 25 word or less, what would he or she say?

Holy crap, way to start off with an easy question there Lenore ;) Okay here goes: The Book Zombie Blog is a collection of personal thoughts about everything book-related, including informative and honest opinions on a wide range of reading genres. (Hah! 25 words exactly!)

What kinds of books do you read and review on your blog?

I've reviewed books from just about every genre. My reading taste has always been all-over the place so there's not really much I won't read. Although I do tend to shy away from romances in the Harlequin style and mushy chick-lit. Horror/fantasy has always been my guilty pleasure, along with indies. I'm also very fond of contemporary family dramas, anything with quirky characters and books that make you think about or re-consider your normal way of thinking.

Graphic novels and Young Adult are like candy coated cocaine for me - extremely addictive. Non-fiction is something I find myself reading alot of, especially if a certain subject interests me, then I try to read every book I can find about it. Oh and memoirs - love them - all kinds, personal, celebrity and themed (lately I've been reading a bunch of humorous memoirs written by librarians. Okay, I guess I could sum it up by saying, you're likely to never know what will be on my blog next :)

What were a couple of your favorite books recently and which ones are you most looking forward to reading soon?

Well my favorite read of 2008 was Andrew Davidson's first novel The Gargoyle - wow it completely blew me away. Superb writing, fascinating characters, and it was written in such a way that there were numerous stories within the main story - which I think takes immense talent to pull off well.

So far in 2009 my most enjoyable read was Cracked Up To Be a Young Adult novel by Courtney Summers. Normally I enjoy YA because they are quick, easy and fun reading. However Summers novel pulled me in and didn't let go, even now the story is still with me. I really cared about the main character, to the point that I was left wondering okay what's next. It's not that the book ended in a unsatisfactory way, it's more that I didn't want to say good-bye.

What I'm most looking forward to reading next is Nick Hornby's The Polysyllabic Spree and doing a re-read of The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. Both of these are books I added to my TBRpile because of other bloggers (Nymeth and Chris) One of the biggest dangers I've discovered since starting my blog is that your TBR pile becomes exponentially larger. Since you (Lenore) are being awesome enough to interview me I will not mention the books (tons) that you've inspired me to read. :P

What are some of your favorite posts or reviews in your blog archive and why?

The Weekly Geeks posts where we teamed up with other geeks to interview one another about books we'd read. I interviewed Maree about Space and she interviewed me about The Gargoyle. These were so much fun to do and I loved that I got to know Maree better.Posting reviews about Fables Volumes Vol. 1, Vol. 2 and Vol. 3 was great because I found a whole group of bloggers who were also reading the Fables series. It was interesting to see everyone's opinions on this series since we were all reading the same things at about the same time (even though I fell pathetically behind).

And lastly, I've been doing some coverage on the Canada Reads 2009 event. The first was an introduction to the event and the second was a spotlight on the first of 5 books featured during the upcoming debate. I really enjoyed doing these posts because it involved not only reading a book, but also researching the event and trying to present lots of interesting information to my readers.

What are some posts or reviews on other blogs that have caught your attention as being well worth reading?

Something I've been seeing alot of lately is bloggers doing video posts and one I really enjoyed was from Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin' where Trish and Jessica discussed the Twilight series. Another blog I always look forward to is the Estella's Revenge Book Zine - no particular post, I love them all. For my own selfish book-lusting reasons I adore Chris's Mailbox Monday/Bad Blogger posts. Three terrific posts I came across after signing up for the VC Andrews challenge are Taren's VC Andrews Primers - Part 1: The Pattern, Part 2: The Female Characters and Part 3: The Male Characters

Complete this sentence: "If I didn't have my blog..."

If I didn't have my blog I would have lots more time to read and likely my house would be more tidy, but I would terribly miss all the wonderful people that make the book blogging community the amazing thing that it is.

Thanks for playing along, Joanne!