Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Reasons I Love Being A Blogger/Reader

Welcome back to another Top Ten Tuesday (with a brand new look)! This week's theme:

Reasons Why I Love Being a Blogger/Reader

Being a Blogger:

1. The People. The book blogging community, as I discovered during Love-A-Thon, is so lovely and friendly! I love getting to talk to people who are just as enthusiastic about books as I am!

2. ARCs. I'd be lying if I didn't say that getting ARCs is a huge perk of being a book blogger. I haven't gotten too many so far, but it's always exciting when I get an e-mail from a publisher saying they've accepted my request.

3. Memes/Surveys. You know those books you used to get as a kid where you could fill out everything about yourself, like your favorite color, your pet's name, a list of all your friends, what you wanted to be when you grew up--stuff like that? I loved those things. They were like journals only better, because instead of being faced with an intimidating blank page, you had all sorts of prompts to get your mental gears churning. As a blogger, I love memes and surveys for the same reason I loved those questionnaire books as a kid. It's great to come up with your own original posts, but sometimes it's nice to have a prompt.

4. Designing. I admit that I have a ways to go with this and my blog is not nearly as polished as some others, but one of the really fun parts of starting a blog has been designing it. I love tweaking the colors and fonts and making banners and such. It's time consuming but so fun!

Being a Reader:

1. Falling in love with characters. Sometimes when you're reading a book you find that you like the characters for the most part, but once the book is over they're fairly forgettable. But then there are the books with the characters that you love fiercely. These are the characters that feel real to you, and you can feel your hackles rising if someone so much as utters a bad word about them. You're like the mama bear and these characters are your babies and you will defend them to the death. God help the poor soul who dares to disparage them in your presence.

2. Getting lost in a fictional world. Some books you read and it's so easy to get distracted from them because the story or characters just never quite pull you in enough to give them your full, undivided attention. But then there are the books that reach out from the pages, take hold of your imagination, and pull you down into their world, and it's painful to pull away. When you finish the book or, heaven forbid, are forced to lay it aside for the sake of far less satisfying endeavors (like work, or school, or, ugh, having to, like, talk with real people) you feel disoriented and all you want is to crawl back into that make believe world. I'm talking about the kinds of books that may make you feel the need to become a hermit for a few days, or walk around with one of those "Hello! My Name Is…" stickers on your shirt, tweaked to say, "Don't bother me, I'm reading."

3. Bookstores. I love browsing through bookstores, especially indie ones. As much as I love my go-to Barnes and Noble, I really love discovering independent or small town bookstores.  No, I'm not going to get that new best-seller at a 30% discount at an independent store, but that's okay; the experience of browsing in a unique store makes up for it. I love how each indie store has a different look, a different personality (and you earn major brownie points with me if your store has CATS!).

4. Fandom. Long before I started book blogging, I was constantly fangirling over my favorite books. I would join forums, bookmark countless websites, read and attempt to write fan fiction, and make playlists and horribly edited graphics--basically all the things you do when you are involved in the wonderful world of fandom. I love the sense of community that goes along with it, the shared enthusiasm, the outpouring of creativity.

I'm sure that I'm leaving out something, but it's late and I'm drawing a total blank. I'll have to come back to this topic in the future and add to it.

So tell me: what are your favorite parts of being a reader and/or book blogger?