I’d never heard of the Liebster Award until Bookpapercut kindly nominated me. It’s an award/meme/Q&A handed around by bloggers to new blogs worth reading (with less than 200 followers). So here goes.

Basically, those nominated for the award must:

1. List 11 random facts about themselves
2. Answer the questions that were asked of them (by the blogger that nominated them)
3. Nominate 11 other blogs for the Liebster Blog Award and link to their blogs
4. Notify the bloggers of their award.
5. Ask the award winners 11 questions to answer once they accept the award

11 Random Facts About Me:

1. I hate it when people use different fonts in a single document — standardize your shit, people!
2. I can only drink one cup of coffee a day or I get way too jumpy.
3. I am overly sentimental.
4. My fatal flaw is an inability to let go of the past.
5. Reading the news makes me feel like an ignoramus.
6. When I am sad, I read the Anne books. My favorites are Anne of Green Gables, Anne of the Island and Anne of Windy Poplars. I love Emily of New Moon too, but she makes me just a teensy weensy bit annoyed. What’s with the purple eyes??
7. I have a mild phobia of birds crapping on my head.
8. I (and about half the world’s female population) am unable to watch The Notebook without sobbing. (“I waited for you for seven years and now it’s too late!”)
9. For my last meal on earth, I would like thick cut French fries and mushroom soup. The canned kind. ‘Cos fries and canned soup represent all that’s good and lovely on our earth, dammit.
10. Small talk and meeting new people is very, very painful for me.
11. I sometimes dream about people I haven’t seen in years.

Answers to bookpapercut’s questions:
1. What are your 3 go-to books when it comes to giving out book recommendations? I don’t have any go-to book recommendations, but a few go-to authors: Isabel Allende, Ian Mcewan and Neil Gaiman (depending on who is asking)
2. Why did you start blogging? So that I could slow down my reading
3. Zombies, vampires, or werewolves? Vampires, ‘cos I’m an Anne Rice girl at heart
4. If you could meet any living person in the world, who would you meet? Someone from my past
5. What was the last thing you read, watched, and listened too? Read: Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta, watched: Big Bang Theory, listened: Without You Here by Goo Goo Dolls
6. Of the books you have read this year, which is your favorite? Ooooh, tough one, but I would have to say The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
7. What is your zodiac sign? (Western/Chinese or both) Western: Taurus, Chinese: Rabbit
8. What is your favorite quote. “This is how the entire course of a life can be changed—by not doing anything.” Ian Mcewan, On Chesil Beach
9. Who would you: marry? befriend? hate? (book characters) Marry: Gilbert Blythe, befriend: Hermione Granger, hate: Emma Woodhouse
10. How long have you been blogging? Book blogging? A couple of months, I think.
11. What are your hobbies? This. As well as sleeping, eating, reading and lately, it seems, agonizing over life choices. All hail the quarter life crisis.

Questions for nominees:

1. Why do you blog (about books)?
2. If you could be any book character for a day which would it be?
3. If you could live in any fantasy world, eg Middle Earth, Westeros, Hogwarts, which would it be?
4. What is the book you have re-read the most?
5. What was the first book you ever read by yourself?
6. Is there a book that has had some significance on a past relationship?
7. Do you read more when you are happy or sad?
8. What time of day is your favorite reading time?
9. If you could go back and un-read a book, which would it be?
10. If you could go back and read a book for the first time, which would be it be?
11. Has there ever been a time in your life that you stopped reading, for whatever reason?

I nominate the following bloggers, although I’m not sure what their follower counts are and I fully understand if they want to opt out of doing this. I just think they  all write pretty awesome blogs.

1. Sasha and the Silverfish
2. A Striped Armchair
3. Bella’s Bookshelves
4. Bookzilla
5. Giraffe Days
6. Jenny’s Books
7. Literary Inklings
8. Picky Girl
9. The Perpetual Page Turner
10. Things Mean a Lot

I’ve only got up to ten, since as I said I’m still just dipping my toes into the book blog scene and am in the midst of compiling a list of blogs to read (which actually makes this award pretty damn useful to me, sooooo many links to check out now!). As I said, I know lots of these blogs will have more than 200 followers so they may not be ‘new’ blogs per se, but I love ’em and on the off chance some of you might not have read ’em, I highly recommend doing so.