Book Blogger Appreciation Week 2010: First Treasure

Let’s celebrate, for Book Blogger Appreciation Week 2010 officially starts today! Yay! This year’s theme is “A Treasure Chest of Infinite Books and Infinite Blogs.” We are going to take part in the festivities as much as I can, starting today. As part of the celebration there are suggested blogging topics for each day of the week and today’s is:

First Treasure
We invite you to share with us about a great new book blog you’ve discovered since BBAW last year! If you are new to BBAW or book blogging, share with us the very first book blog you discovered. Tell us why this blog rocks your socks off and why you keep going back for more.

Ana’s pick:

There are many, many new blogs I found since last year’s BBAW. This is a very hard post to write because I would love to mention all of them because all of them rock my world. But there is one blog that holds a special place in my heart and that would be Aja Romano’s Bookshop.

I think I have grown as a reader this past year with a lot more awareness about racism, bigotry, sexism and rape culture and how they appear in fiction. Her posts on the Magic Under Glass‘s whitewashed cover, her post on Bad Romance were huge eye openers and I can only thank Aja for initiating a process that is an ongoing, learning curve. Since then, I have found other blogs that are equally engaged in discussing all aspects of life and fiction but Aja’s was my definitely my First Treasure.

Thea’s pick:

I’m pretty finicky in my book blog selection. It takes a long time before I add a new blog to my feed reader (just because that thing has a tendency to grow thousands of posts long overnight!) – but, once I’ve added a blog, I’m fiercely loyal. It stays there. For-ev-er. As such, I don’t add new blogs very often – but over the past year I have found quite a few new gems. At the forefront has to be the wonderful SFF blog, Jawas Read, Too!

Erika’s blog focuses on the latest and greatest in science fiction, fantasy and YA, and her reviews are well-written, detailed (I love those detailed reviews!), and entertaining. And, in addition to reviewing the big new release titles (The Black Prism by Brent Weeks), she also mixes in a lot of older titles (Inda by Sherwood Smith), as well as a number of great articles and discussions (check out her very true “You Know You’re Reading Epic Fantasy When…” post, or her series on dragons).

Plus, her blog just has an awesome name and a solid, defining concept. Who knew that Jawas read, too? Those cute little tech scavengers deserve love, just like everyone else!

How about you? Any new blogs you have discovered since last year’s BBAW that you would like to share with us?