Book Blogger Appreciation Week Interview Swap

Today is the day to post our interview swaps. I interviewed Florinda from The 3 R's: Reading, 'Riting, and Randomness. I really enjoyed this as I have never interviewed anyone before. I have to say she was much better at coming up with the interview questions. I completely drew a blank when it came time to figure out what to ask. I hope you enjoy the interview!

• Your profile tells us you're a wife, mom, and stepmom who works with numbers but loves words. How many kids do you have? Boys or girls? What's your job? What are some of your favorite pastimes aside from reading and blogging?

I'm married for the second time, and have a 16-year-old stepdaughter and 10-year-old stepson. My son from my first marriage is 26 and lives on the East Coast; I live in California, and I'm too young to have a 26-year-old son! I'm an accountant, and I work as the Controller for a nonprofit organization in Los Angeles. When I'm not reading or blogging, I like TV, movies, music, and travel.

• How long have you been blogging? What made you decide to start doing it?

I started this blog in March 2007 as a place to record information and thoughts on what I was reading, because I wasn't remembering them very well! But I knew from the beginning that I wouldn't blog just about books.

• What regular/recurring features do you have on your blog?

I've dropped the ball on some of my features lately, but I hope to get back on track before the end of this year! I participate in the Sunday Salon, and I try to post link round-ups regularly. Tuesday (or Thursday) Tangents is where I occasionally ramble on about things I can't build up into a blog post of their own.

• Has blogging about books changed your reading habits? How - the kinds of books you read, the amount of time you spend reading, the things you pay attention to while reading, and/or some other way?

Book blogs have become my main source for information and opinions about books, and have occasionally spurred me to broaden my range of reading to new subjects and genres. Writing about the books I read has made me a more attentive and thoughtful reader, but the time I spend blogging has cut into the time I used to spend reading!

• Which three books that you've read this year have made the biggest impression on you, and why? 

A Fierce Radiance, by Lauren Belfer: A fascinating historical novel about World War II, the rise of the modern pharmaceutical industry, and a single mother who chronicles it as a photojournalist for Life magazine. I've waited ten years for this author's second novel, and I couldn't put it down.

The Heart is Not a Size, by Beth Kephart: I've read four of her books this year, but I thought this one was the very best. The writing's beautiful, the setting and characters are original, and the author has challenged nearly all of my perceptions about young-adult literature.

In the Land of Believers, by Gina Welch: This memoir of a year spent "undercover" in a fundamentalist congregation was suprisingly compassionate and insightful, and gave me a lot to think about.

• What do you like best about book blogging?

The people I've met because I do it, and the way it's improved both my reading and my writing.

• Do you blog about subjects other than books? What are some of them?

Current events, things I do with my family, TV shows and movies, and the occasional moment of reflection.

• Do you use anything, like goodreads or shelfari to organize and keep track of the books you have read/reviewed?

I originally thought I'd use my blog for that, but that's not the most user-friendly way to track things, so I also use LibraryThing. I started with it almost three years ago, and I'm very happy with it. I add books to my TBR collection there as soon as they come in, I cross-post reviews there, and I have a Wishlist collection there too.

• Are you an organized blogger or do you mostly just wing it?

I do the opposite of winging it! I'm fairly organized, and I nearly always write my posts in advance and pre-schedule them. There were a couple of times this summer when I had posts prepared and scheduled more than two weeks in advance - I can't do that all the time, but I really liked it! I usually try to have most of the posts for the week ahead written and scheduled out by Sunday. But sometimes something worth blogging about catches me by surprise, and then I'll move some of the pre-scheduled posts to make space for it.

• How did you get the name for your blog?

I've always liked the back-to-basics concept of "the three R's - reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic," but even though I'm an accountant, there was no way I was going to blog about math! "Reading" was pretty obvious, since I started the blog as a book journal, and so was "'Riting," since that's what I'd be doing here. My third R was "Randomness," because everything non-book-related I chose to blog about could fit in under that.

• What is your biggest pet peeve in a novel, something that just drives you nuts?

Grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors! They annoy me in advance copies, but I can be a little more forgiving at that stage. They really bother me in a finished book, though - wasn't someone supposed to fix that stuff before it got published?

• If you could pick only one book/series to be stranded on an island with, what would you choose and why?

Probably the Harry Potter books, because that's a lot of pages and they could keep me busy for a while!

I hope everyone enjoyed the interview! Make sure to check out Florinda's blog if you get a chance! The 3 R's: Reading, 'Riting, and Randomness