Armchair BEA: Introductions first!

Well, this is weird.  It's Book Expo America time, and I'm not there.  I was there last year and the year before that and had an absolute blast meeting bloggers, picking up ARCs of the hottest new books, and networking with all kinds of publishing people.  While I wish like heck I could be there this year, the finances aren't there and the timing's not good, so here I am, bittersweetly watching all the tweets of those many who are on their way to a week of bookish awesomeness.  Rather than sitting back and being vaguely depressed all week, it seemed like a much better idea to enjoy the pleasures of Armchair BEA.  Sure, it might not be quite the same, but it's quite a bit cheaper, I didn't have to pack, and I've heard I'm not even required to wear pants to participate.  As it so happens, I am wearing pants, but you probably don't even care about that - yes, I could get used to this whole Armchair BEA thing.  As the kick-off for the event, we're interviewing our own selves and then getting out and about to visit the rest of the crowd.  So, without further rambling (okay, there's much more rambling), I give you an interview with....me!

Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? How long have you been blogging? Why did you get into blogging?

I'm Megan.  I've been blogging here at Leafing Through Life since October 2007, which seems like eons ago in blogging time.  Okay, it seems like eons ago in normal time.  Book blogging started for me when I came back from a six-month stint living in Boston, where I spent several enjoyable months working at the Downtown Crossing Borders (RIP :( ), with people who knew about and enjoyed books as much, indeed sometimes more than I did.  When I came back to Pennsylvania, I found myself jobless, aimless, and short of bookish companionship.  I've always been one for creating projects for myself, and I'd seen a few book blogs around.  I missed writing, and I thought it would be a grand experiment to try and review every book I read for a year.  Or 5.  ;-)

Tell us one non-book-related thing that everyone reading your blog may not know about you.

Since my aimless, jobless autumn of 2007, I have indeed managed to acquire gainful employment in the least bookish area I could find (unintentionally, of course).  I work in a surgical pathology lab giving case numbers to things like your appendix or your gallbladder or whatever when they are delivered out of the operating rooms of a pretty major Pennsylvania health system.  It's a sort of job I never knew existed, much less thought I'd ever be working at, being kind of a word nerd and a pretty major science-phobe.  I have to admit that the job I stumbled into is definitely interesting, but it definitely leaves me with a major need to escape into the bookish once I escape it.  Another reason I'm still plugging away in blogland at this much later date. =)

What are you currently reading, or what is your favorite book you have read so far in 2012?

I think I might talk about "best ofs" tomorrow, so, right now, I'm reading The Car Thief by Theodore Weesner, a re-release of a would-be American classic coming of age story.  It's a little young to be a real classic in my opinion, but it definitely reads like it could be one.  I'm also casting aside my book monogamy law (reading multiple books at one time doesn't really work out for me, usually), to read Stephen King's The Stand for Trish's readalong (The Stand...along!).  It's my first readalong.  So far, so good.  =)

Which is your favorite post that you have written that you want everyone to read?

Oddly, some of my favorite posts I wrote in response to (now defunct) Weekly Geeks prompts.  I mean, there's the one about the the magazine problem of yore, and the one where I wrote the mean letter to W. Somerset Maugham.  But, uh, I do actually like books from time to time as evidenced by the annual Leafy Awards which are hopefully as entertaining to read as they are to write.

(I think the point of this 5 question exercise was for this to be short and sweet.  As it happens, I am neither short nor sweet.  Okay, I'm kind of short, but not on verbiage.  What I mean to say is FAIL.  Also, I'm going to skip the fifth question because I'm kind of thinking you might want to have time to visit bloggers that aren't me today, too.)

If you're stopping by from Armchair BEA today, please do leave your link.  I look forward to visiting as many of you as I can after my liberation from giving case numbers to the tonsils and the gallbladders and the appendixes (appendices?) and everything later today!

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