The Book Blog Newbie Tag

Hello fellow bibliophiles 
As you may be able to tell, I'm very, very new to the world of book blogging, and thought the best way of going about this might be to try this tag. I found the blog version of the booktube newbie tag on Love and Other Bookish Things, and thought it would be perfect to introduce myself a bit. 
via GIPHY



 I have been following the online book community, especially booktube, for quite a few years now. Seeing all these very different people come together over something that I have loved since I can remember has had a very big impact on my reading. I feel that watching and reading about books online helps seeing many different perspectives on something you might only have had one opinion on, and I think that influences how I read a lot. So becoming part of a book community should help making me a more active reader. And I just love talking about books of course.  


Like most people here and on Youtube, I am reaaaally enthusiastic about books. I also study literature, so I am a fairly conscious and observant reader already; I quite like to analyse and read up on my books as well. Besides that I am a bit of a book horder and collector, which isn't terribly unique on here but oh well.  


Of course I'm really excited for getting into touch with other people who love books and reading. I'm looking forward to putting my own thoughts into more or less coherent words and get other opinions and views on what I read. There are so many more opinions out there than my own, and I find that talking about books makes for a much deeper reading experience. It's so fascinating how no two people really ever read the same book, isn't it?


I don't think I can really explain that. Reading is just what I do. You get access to so many different worlds through books, you learn a lot about yourself and humans in general. Books are a chance of understanding our surroundings, even if they take place in a completely alien world. Then again, you can learn about history and philosophy from books, which again helps understand our current world. This maybe sounds terribly dry, that I love reading because you learn so much, but I just love how any book can leave you changed somehow, with new truths learned.


Even if this means giving another very popular and definitely not unique answer: Harry Potter.
I did read quite a lot before that already, like the Eragon books and waay too many stories about horses, but I honestly can't remember anything from before those books that stands out to me or that has had any impact on me. Harry Potter made me who I am, as cheesy as it sounds, even though I watched the movie first and it left me scared to sleep in the dark for longer than I care to admit - Voldemort could have come out of my closet at any time, after all. Before reading Harry Potter, I never met a character I could identify with as much as with Hermione and thanks to her I developed a fierce passion for books.

First things first: can you sign all my Harry Potter books? It might take her a while, but J.K. Rowling signing my books, or at least one of them, would mean so much to me. The next thing would not be a question, but I would simply want to thank her for creating this incredibly beautiful world. Then I would ask her if there was a chance that we ever get Hogwarts: A History, because if I really need a book, it is that one.

A rather new favourite of mine, Henry James, would have to answer me, were he still alive, whether it was really necessary to give us no ending at all for The Portrait of a Lady. I know and understand why he did it, I love that book the way it is, but Merlin's beard, a bit more closure would not have hurt my curiosity.


Remembering that I am not writing a term paper, because that's the writing style I am most used to right now. It will also be a challenging to overcome my self-consciousness about who might be reading this, and who on the big Internet cares about what I read anyway?


I really don't know precisely, but I do remember having loved fairytales as a kid and being read to quite often. I also must have owned books since I was very young, because I remember pulling my shelf down on top of me by accident when I was very small, but we will never know whether that was true or not.


When it's nice out, I read outside in the shade. Otherwise in bed or on my couch, the train and generally wherever I can.

My two most read genres are fantasy and classics from the Middle Ages to the 19th century. From the former I prefer character driven, political stories, with cool magic, dragons, an epic plot and not too many battle scenes. Some examples of my favourite writers are Robin Hobb, Terry Pratchett, Brandon Sanderson and, of course, Tolkien. Regarding the latter genre I love love loove Jane Austen's books above all, Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, The Inferno, Sherlock Holmes and what I have read by the Brontës so far.

These days, I'm also really into history and texts from antiquity; I was really impressed by Mary Beard's SPQR, Ovid's Metamorphoses and Hesiod's Theogony recently, and want to get more into plays from ancient Greece soon. 


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