I’m amazed and delighted to have been nominated for The Blogger Recognition Award by FictionFan at FictionFan’s Book Reviews – thank you!

The Award Rules

1. Thank the blogger/s who nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
2. Write a post to show your award.
3. Give a brief story of how your blog started.
4. Give two pieces of advice to new bloggers.
5. Select 15 other bloggers you want to give this award to.
6. Comment (or pingback) on each blog and let them know you have nominated them and provide the link to the post you created.

3. Give a brief story of how your blog started.

It all started in 2005 with Pinkerton’s Sister by Peter Rushforth. It’s a bizarre story seen through the main character’s, Alice’s eyes, which because she lives in a world of books is a very strange place indeed. It’s funny, well ludicrous at times, full of literary and musical references and I got lost in it for hours.

I decided I wanted to know more about this book and a Google Search led me to Book World’s Blog where Sandra had written a post about it (I can no longer find her blog to thank her.)  I had not heard about blogs before, but I was hooked and using her blogroll I discovered more book blogs. I decided to write one myself mainly to keep a record of what I’d read, but it took me another year before I plucked up the courage to make a start in July 2006 with a very short post and another nine months before I really got going in April 2007. I’d just left work and had more time to read and write about books, so I began this blog partly to help me remember what I’ve read and also to extend the pleasure of reading. And so ‘BooksPlease’ was born.

4. Give two pieces of advice to new bloggers.

My problem was getting started, so if you feel like that, just sit down and write and don’t worry about what others think or do. It’s your blog and you decide what you want to write about.

Be aware that blogging is addictive – and if you’re not careful you can find yourself adding more and more books to your To-Be-Read lists, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. Writing a blog also means you have less time to actually read books. It’s a real balancing act, but I love it.

5. Select 15 other bloggers you want to give this award to.

I don’t find this easy, so if you’d like to join in please consider yourself nominated.