Liebster Award

 

Excited!

The absolutely lovely Maddie and Bee from Heart Full of Books nominated Loaded Shelves for a Liebster award. Granted, i'm not entirely sure what a Liebster award is but i'm excited anyway! Thanks girls :)

The Rules:

1. Thank the person who nominated you and link to their blog!
2. Give your readers 11 random facts about yourself.
3. Answer the 11 questions from the blog who nominated you.
4. Nominate a number of bloggers to receive this award.
5. Come up with 11 questions for your nominees!

Oh wow, 11 facts is a LOT. I'll do my best.
1. So very British of me, but I love a good strong cup of tea.
2. I've been to London 3 times in my whole life, and they were all for book related reasons.
3. My favourite snack is Cadbury's fingers dipped in peanut butter and I tell EVERYONE about it.
4. I'm slightly obsessed with avocado and i'm always looking for ways to eat it differently.
5. I am an avid list-maker and have exceptional organisational skills.
6. I love Yankee Candles so much. I pretty much always have one lit when i'm in the house.
7. Once Upon A Time is my current TV show of choice but my all time fave is Charmed.
8. Maria V Snyder said I should be nicer to my boyfriend because he's the best ever! Coincidentally, she's totally right too.
9. Halloween is my favourite holiday and I wish we celebrated it more like America.
10. One of the hardest decisions to make in life is which book to read next.
11. I'm half way through more than 10 series of books because I just can't bring myself to read the whole thing at once.


Questions from Maddie and Bee: 
1. How long have you been blogging?
I've been blogging in general for over 10 years but I didn't start blogging about books until 2009, which is when I started Loaded Shelves.

2. What inspired you to start blogging?
An absolutely terrible memory. Seriously. When I was at University to study English Literature I was reading all the time and just couldn't remember which book had which story! I started just writing it all down to remember and never really stopped.

3. What Hogwarts house would you be in?
Slytherin! I'm highly ambitious and would do almost anything - but that doesn't mean i'm evil! Honest ;)

4. Is there a book that you really didn’t like?
This probably sounds bad but any book written by L.J.Smith. I read the first volume of Night World when it was released and it's still to this date the only book I have ever put in the bin! I later went on to read the early Vampire Diaries books (not knowing it was the same author until much later) and didn't enjoy those either. The books got much better later when I suspect LJ stopped writing them. Her particular writing style just isn't for me.

5. If you could have any fictional creature as a pet, what would you choose?
I'd quite like a dragon like Saphira in Eragon. Badass female AND flying? Yes please.

6. Which fictional character would you like as a best friend?
I could spend hours trying to figure this out so i'll go with the first ones I thought of - Claire and Eve from Rachel Caine's Morganville series! They're both so incredibly different and yet similar to each other and therefore me too. I think we'd have a lot of adventures and awesome girls nights in with Eve doing makeovers.

7. What fictional universe would you choose to live in?
Probably an overused answer but definitely the world of Harry Potter. I'm a little bit lazy with my imagination these days so living in a universe that I already know how to deal with (with added awesome!) is right up my street. The whole idea that there could be another type of world amongst the one we live in, without us ever knowing it, is incredible and exciting. I'm a huge Potter fan and could definitely see myself living in that universe. (Alternatively i'd pick Morganville again.)

8. What are your other hobbies besides reading?
People DO things besides reading? ;) Erm, I don't really know. As I said before my job has crazy hours which means I don't have a lot of daylight hours to do things in. I watch Netflix a lot and post a lot of pictures of food on Instagram.

9. Have you set yourself any reading challenges this year? If so, what are they?
Last year I was incredibly busy. I found myself with a full time (and big time!) job almost straight out of university with crazy hours, a full time boyfriend who I eventually moved in with and away from my comfort zone totally and was left with very little time. This basically meant I failed literally everything I challenged myself to in 2014. So for this year i'm quite content with just the good ol' 50 Book Challenge and see if I can manage that again before stretching myself!

10. What book do you wish more people would read?
I swear i'm not saying this just because I recently met her - but Poison Study! It's been one of my favourite books for years and years and have already pushed it on at least 5 people that come to mind instantly. It should be way more recognised than it is. Yelena is one of my favourite female protags of all time.

11. Which author, alive or deceased, would you like to have dinner with?
He's not an author as such, but i'd have to say William Shakespeare. I've been a huge Will fan my entire life and he has inspired so much of the literature that we've been graced with since. Plus I think he'd be really down to earth and a big charmer!

Bit of  a cop out but i'd like the following bloggers to answer the SAME questions that Maddie and Bee asked me. They're great choices and i'd love to see your answers.

Misty @ The Book Rat
Michelle @ Fluttering Butterflies
Kelly @ The Book Faeries Nook
Anya @ An Awful Lot of Reading