Contributors

Molly:

I created a personal blog to play along with a book meme.  In doing so, I re-discovered my love for writing.  I write what I want when I want at The Bumbles Blog.  The QGR collaboration affords me the opportunity to put all my bookish thinking in one place, freeing up the personal blog for everything else.

The biggest priority in my blogging efforts is to build community within the blogosphere by going beyond the blog – developing relationships with people outside of my neighborhood and circles of comfort to learn from, share and laugh with.  Oh – and I don’t mind using the fun stuff as a collection of writing samples to get paid on the side to do what I love – an added perk that blogging has given to me in the 2.5 years I’ve been at it.

http://www.thebumblesblog.blogspot.com/

thebumbles (at) me (dot) com

Faith:

I’m Faith and I’m definitely a quirky girl.  My daytime job doing operational controls at a bank doesn’t allow for creativity, so I express myself in my personal style and in my home.

I’m an avid reader, and would be highly embarrassed if you were to find out how much money I spend on books.  Since I got my nook, thank goodness, the clutter is confined to cyberspace instead of filling up my home office.  I sort of binge on books.  I’m always willing to read a new author, and heaven forbid that I find a new series by an author I really enjoy, because I will obsessively purchase & read every book by that author until I find the next object of obsession.

I have very eclectic tastes in my reading.  I enjoy nonfiction (sociology, cookbooks, reference books, books about words, biographies, memoirs, etc.) along with a wide range of fiction covering everything except chick-lit and romance.  My book reviews will be as random as my book choices are, and I hope you’re entertained and that you discover some new authors you might otherwise have missed.

www.chauceriangirl.wordpress.com

chauceriangirl (at) gmail (dot) com

Izzy:

Like the other quirky girls here, Izzy has a decidedly eclectic taste in books.  She truly loves the classics, but she also truly loves brain candy, the kind of books many people refer to as “trash.”  She likes fiction, non-fiction, some YA, graphic novels, and comic books.  She’s not fond of self-help books, but admits that may be a personal problem.  In short, she’s not really a book-snob.

Her library includes William Shakespeare, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dorothy Parker, L.M. Montgomery, Nicole Peeler, Agatha Christie, Elizabeth Peters (or Barbara Michaels-it’s like they’re the SAME PERSON), JK Rowling, Charlotte Bronte, Suzanne Collins, Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Sarah Gruen, Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Janet Evanovich, Dr. Suess, Mary Janice Davidson, Philip Pullman, Charlaine Harris, and Madeleine L’Engle to name just a few.

If you forced her at gunpoint to pick a favorite book and author, she’d have to go with Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.  She admits to owning pretty much every permutation of that particular classic, including the one with the zombies.  She would love to hear from you regarding books or anything else you want to chat about.

www.izzybella.wordpress.com

izzybellablue (at) gmail (dot) com

Margot:

I’m a life-long reader who started early with Mother Goose rhymes and picture books. One of my first “loves” was Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. She set in place my preference for character-rich stories.  In my teens I devoured mysteries such as Ngaio Marsh, Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and Nero Wolfe. In college I balanced classic literature with biographies and romantic suspense. As I moved through my years of career and motherhood I kept all those favorites and added books on business, children and education.

Now that I’m retired and in the lucky position to be able to read all day and all night, if I want to, I find I’m  still drawn to the old favorites like mysteries, romantic suspense, bibliographies and memoirs, and the wide variety of literature, particularly women’s literature. I’m very snoopy about the lives of other people so, when a book offers me the chance to look at them closely, I do.

In my contribution to Quirky Girls Read, I’m looking at books that have won awards. In the past I’ve been turned off by my attempts to read some of the Nobel Prize or Pulitzer Prize Winners. But, I’m determined to tackle those two prizes as well as the hundreds of other book awards that are offered each year.

The nice thing is that I’ve discovered that some of the books I’ve loved have won awards without my knowledge. There are so many more award-winners to be discovered. I’ll also share a little information on the awards themselves.

I hope you’ll join me every other Thursday. I’d love to hear your suggestions as well as your opinion on award-winning books.

www.joyfullyretired.com

joyfullyretired (at) gmail (dot) com

Jehara:

My mother taught me how to read when I was three. Since then I’ve been hooked. When I was a young child I looked forward to the box of books that arrived on the doorstep each month. I loved the Scholastic bookmobile and would pore over the catalogue in all seriousness, trying to determine which books I couldn’t live without. During the summers, I checked out stacks of books from the library and devoured them in a week’s time.  At school, I would sneak read books under my desk.  I grew up on Babysitter’s Club, Nancy Drew, Sweet Valley High, Fabulous Five, Saddle Club and age appropriate nonfiction.

In short, I’ve been a bookaholic my entire life.  First and foremost,  I love to read. I read most things; however, I have a  penchant for fiction, biographies, memoirs, and vegan cookbooks.

I love love love young adult books. I used to feel guilty shopping in the teen section, my only saving grace that I usually got mistaken for one, until I discovered the book blogosphere and the many adult readers out there who loved YA as much as I do.

I am in love with Harry Potter and secretly adore Nora Roberts trilogies. I love vampires and witches and werewolves. I have ambivalent feelings about Twilight. I have a little thing for all things Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and Anais Nin.  My all time favorite author is Alice Hoffman. I will buy whatever new book she comes out with just because it is by her and I know I will love it.

I adore books. I thrive on variety.  I am inherently quirky.

www.jehara.blogspot.com

jehara3 (at) gmail (dot) com