My Cheap Addiction

I have something to confess....I'm addicted to reading. :) I started very young, often getting in trouble for reading late at night. I almost always had a book in hand and waited anxiously for Scholastic book orders to arrive (wonderful for me, my grandmother worked for Scholastic). I managed to kick the habit for a few years during college, early marriage/motherhood, but it is now back with a vengeance. Maybe I'm making up for lost time. :) My library card was well used as a child - I remember leaving the library with large stacks of books and people asking if I was actually going to read all those. I LOVED the summer reading program and tracking my reading progress. Now I'm checking out stacks of books again (for me & for the children) but I have a website feeding my addiction and allowing me to track my progress. www.goodreads.com I LOVE it! I currently have a weakness for Young Adult literature, but try to mix in a smattering of other age groups and a variety of genres.

I have recently discovered the existence of the ARC, or Advance Reader Copy. An ARC is an early version of a book, coming out prior to a book's official publishing/release date to help generate buzz and provide endorsements - I think this is often how the praise on the back covers is obtained prior to release. I won one ARC from the goodread's "firstreads" giveaway program, and ooooh now I'm hooked! So exciting reading something before the general public. :) I also have a weird OCD about recording all errors I find as I read and trying to send them to the publisher or author so they can be corrected before new printings. With the ARC, it's more likely that I can actually be helpful! I've begun corresponding with authors and have started requesting some ARCs of their books that will be coming out this year. It turns out that though authors will occasionally run contests/giveaways, the publishers generally run the ARC show and usually want the recipients to be librarians/bookstore owners/BLOG WRITERS, so though I have a huge audience in posting reviews to goodreads.com, I am at a disadvantage in not having a book review blog.

So obviously, the logical thing for me to do is begin a book reviews blog, right? Here's the blog address for my new book review site, begun last night: Super Reader Girl's Book Reviews I thought the name should be catchy - especially if it contains a lot of YA books, and this name sprung from a name I used at one of the book review sites I joined. :)

Yes, it is an addiction, but I feel reading stretches and enriches my mind. And it is cheap - what better price is there than free books from the library or free ARCs arriving in the mail? And who knows, maybe I'll be a writer someday or at least a copy editor. This is just research and prep....Am I just rationalizing? Maybe. Recognition is the first step towards recovery...but I'm thinking I don't want to recover from this one. :)