Kicking off Armchair BEA: Introductions First!

(design credit: Emily of Emily's Reading Room)

After seeing this last year on a number of the blogs that I follow last year, I really wanted to participate and when I saw the sign ups a few weeks ago, I knew that it was something that I had to participate in.  And to kick it off, the lovely ladies over at Armchair BEA have gone put up an introductory post with questions that they have developed.

1. Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? How long have you been blogging? Why did you get into blogging?
2. What are you currently reading, or what is your favorite book you have read so far in 2012?
3. Tell us one non-book-related thing that everyone reading your blog may not know about you.
4. What is your favorite feature on your blog (i.e. author interviews, memes, something specific to your blog)?
5. Where do you see your blog in five years?
6. Which is your favorite post that you have written that you want everyone to read?
7. If you could eat dinner with any author or character, who would it be and why?
8. What literary location would you most like to visit? Why?
9. What is your favorite part about the book blogging community? Is there anything that you would like to see change in the coming years?
10. Have your reading tastes changed since you started blogging? How?

1) My name is Melissa.  The name of my blog comes from my middle name.  I have been blogging since about 2005, when I first joined LiveJournal.  I intially got into blogging because some people I knew on a fan board for a TV show were blogging over there and I thought it was a great way of connecting with people that liked the show and it grew from there.  I have been blogging here for about 2 years.

2) I am currently reading a number of books, including The Descendants, The Devil in the White City and a number of classics.

3) One non-book-related thing that people reading my blog may not know about me is that I lived in Brazil for two years when I was a young child and cheer for the Brazilians (or Brasilians as they spell it) during the World Cup (the world cup of soccer for those that don't know).

4) Since I don't host a feature on regular basis, I can't say what my favourite feature would be.

5) I really don't know, but I probably doing some of the same things that I am doing at the present time.

6) My favourite post would be the one I did on the fascination with the 1960s.

7) If I could eat dinner with any author or character, it would probably be Peggy Olson.  I know its a TV character, but I would like to pick her brain about what it was like to work for Don Draper and Pete Campbell and ask her why she left SDCP.

8) I would like to visit Stratford-Upon-Avon in England. I have always been a fan of Shakespeare and its just a place I have always wanted to visit.

9) My favourite part about the book blogging community is that I am introduced to so many books that I have to keep my library's webpage open, just in case I find a book I am interested in reading.  One thing I would like to see change in the coming years in the book blogging community is for book bloggers to read books that are outside of their comfort zone and I would like to see more non-fiction blogged on.  It seems that book bloggers like to blog about books they are comfortable in reading and don't go too far outside of their comfort zone (I am guilty of this) and I would like to see more non-fiction blogged about and not just memoirs/biographies.

10) That's hard to say if my reading tastes have changed, but I can say that I am more willing to try books that are outside of my comfort zone.  Some I have loved, some I haven't, but at least I have tried.