wrapped up in books

I saw April at Good Books Good Wine was hosting a 15 Day Book Blogger Challenge, so I decided to participate. I am going to do a mix of posts here and on my Tumblr, since some of them are better suited to each platform in terms of length, etc. The schedule is above, so I’m starting off here with 15 book-related confessions.

1. Ya’ll (can you tell I’m channeling April here), I used to read and write fanfiction, and though I don’t have time to do it now (book blogging has mostly taking over that free time) I still love it and the friends I made through my tiny fandom (no, I’m not spilling what fandom or any other details!)

2. Mister BS took a class Teaching Young Adult Literature when he got his teaching certificate. Each member of the class picked a YA book for them to read and discuss. Some girl from the class picked Twilight. He said to me, “hey, you like vampires (I was a big Buffy fan from way back) and this is about vampires and you might like it.” I was like “I don’t read YA” then one night I couldn’t sleep and picked it up and read it straight through, and now I work in the YA section of the library. Twilight may not be the best YA book, but it was super-compelling and I may or may not have a scrapbook page about the experience of reading it (yes, the feminist in me still has issues with the story, but damn, I devoured it).

3. I had never read comic books until Season 8 of Buffy came out from Dark Horse. I went to my local comic book shop Astrokitty Comics and paid for a subscription and now I collect them all (I get BOTH covers).

4. My mom used to let me stay home from school to read sometimes.

5. I got in trouble numerous times for reading during my eighth grade English class while I was supposed to be paying attention to grammar lectures. When I told the teacher I already knew all the stuff she was teaching, she was not amused.

6. I dog-ear pages and write in the margins of books I own.

7. I still have nearly every book I bought in college, which means I have an extensive collection of Latin American history and politics and Women’s Studies books.

8. Sometimes I buy an ebook and a hardback copy of a book. *cough* Lumatere Chronicles and The Miseducation of Cameron Post *cough*

9. I remember when I loan books to people and they don’t return them. Chris, if you’re reading this, I’d especially like my copies of Slaughterhouse Five, 1984, and A Clockwork Orange back.

10. I stole a copy of Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger from my high school library. I still have it, and a signed copy.

11. I never finished The Scarlet Letter in Junior English but  I still got an A on the test and a paper on the symbolism of color imagery in the book (sorry, Mrs. Larson. That shit was boring).

12. My 9th grade English teacher wrote that I “lack tact in dealing with authority figures” on my IEP. It was (and is still) true.

13. I house sat for my graduate adviser in college one summer, and I totally snooped in her and her husband’s bookshelves. They had an awesome collection. When you first walked into their foyer, there was a four sided column of bookshelves that divided the living from the kitchen from the living room area and I totally want the same setup in my future dream house.

14. My dad let me read The Dark Towers series when I was like 11 and it gave me nightmares (he had the illustrated edition and those pictures were scary).

15. I read every R. L. Stine book from those Scholastic catalogs in grade school. Seriously, I couldn’t get enough of them.

Check out April’s challenge! It’s lots of fun and a great way to get to know others from the book blogging community.