Liebster Award!!!

I got a Liebster Award!

 

 

This post is dedicated to the wonderful
Becky @ A Fool's Ingenuity 
as she was the person who nominated me for this award.

 

 

Liebster in German has several meanings including dearest, sweetest, kindest, nicest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing, welcome, and sweetheart.

 

So this post has been a week in the making. I was super excited (and slightly confused) last week when I was nominated. My initial thought: "A what-now award?" Even though I've technically been blogging since the January, I've only really been active in the blogosphere for a couple of months or so. Therefore, it was a shock to me to be awarded anything but that's the great part about the Liebster.  It's there to give new or lesser known bloggers the recognition they deserve for the hard work they've put into their blog and for the dedication it takes to run a blog to begin with. There's no official panel for this award just bloggers nominating other bloggers for their all-around awesomeness. =)

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The Rules

List 11 facts about yourself. 

Answer the 11 questions asked by whoever nominated you. 

Nominate 9 bloggers with less than 300 followers and leave them a comment saying they've been nominated.

Ask 11 new questions for your chosen nominees.

You cannot re-nominate the blog that nominated you.

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11 Facts About Me

1. Although I go by the name Jazzie on this blog, Goodreads, Twitter, etc., my real name is Jasmin. No one really calls me that though except for at work.
2. I majored in English with a Creative Writing Concentration and graduated Magna Cum Laude. I thoroughly enjoyed taking all the various literature and writing classes that I did but I don't exactly know what to do with any of it now.
3. I really like polar bears. I've donated to World Wildlife Foundation to save the polar bears and got a cute little plush polar bear in return. Every year I tell my mom I want a polar bear for my birthday though I've decided recently I'll settle for one of these:
   

   
4. I work in the children/teen department of my local BN. It's awesome. Except when it's sticky. In which case, it's sticky - literally.
5. I have and have always had a strange obsession with faeries (yes, I spell "fairy" with an 'ae' because I think it's prettier) and dragons. If you could see my room, it's decorated with faery and dragon figurines and I even have a castle with a working drawbridge hung up on my wall with mini-knights guarding the upper walkway and battle faeries at the gate.
6. I am a girl of many fandoms including (in no particular order): Once Upon a Time, Supernatural, Sherlock, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Percy Jackson, The Hunger Games and Marvel/Avengers (movies only though - I never read the comics). I'm sure I've forgotten something but I'll edit when I remember.
7. My mom and I have a tendency to name our pets after book or movie characters. My dog's name is Padfoot (and he solemnly swears he's up to no good). I have a lot of cats: Gizmo after Gremlins though we call her Momo, Tylette after the old Shirley Temple movie called The Bluebird, and another cat named PK which stands for Psycho/Princess Kitty depending on her mood. We named her this because my mom had read some book where the character lived in Washington DC and had a cat named DC but "DC" stood for "Dumb Cat." Kind of mean, but it amused us enough to choose a similar name. My cousin also named one of our cats Moxy after Mad Moxy from the game Borderlands. There are more cats than just that: eight in total. It's madness. 
8. My slogan is "Coffee is my Windex." If you've ever seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding, you'll get the reference. If you've ever seen me before my morning coffee, you'll know it's true. (For those who haven't seen the movie, no, I don't clean my windows with coffee. Don't worry, I'm not that crazy.)
9. I'm running out of facts now... I'm teaching myself to play guitar but YouTube can only get you so far. I don't understand music theory at all and I can't play bar (barre?) chords but I can play the intro and first verse of "Safe and Sound" from The Hunger Games movie.
10. When I was 7, I started taking ballet classes which evolved over the years to include tap, jazz, modern/contemporary, ballroom, Latin, belly dance, and hip hop. I was teaching various dance classes for children by the time I was 18. In a perfect world where money wasn't an option, I would have pursued dance as a professional career. Unfortunately, being a professional dancer doesn't exactly pay well.
11. Ummm last fact... I had braces for 12 (yes, twelve) years. That's literally half my lifetime. Imagine being seven and having braces put on as well as a jaw expander (twice). It was traumatic. I hated going to the orthodontist though I liked my regular dentist. My teeth were pretty bad but my orthodontist was also a moron. I didn't get a proper retainer afterwards either so my teeth shifted again. I'm saving for Invisaline.

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My 11 Questions from Becky

 

1. What is your preferred reading format? E-book, paperback, hardback? I prefer hardcovers for books I know I'll add to my favorites (i.e. Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, etc.) or paperbacks for books I just want to read but might have mixed feelings about. I'll read e-books sometimes but I don't generally like them because I can't feel where I am in the book.
2. If you could only recommend one book for another to read what would it be and why? Ugh, hard question. I'm going to cheat a bit and change "book" to "series" because you can't just read one book of a series. I'd go for the His Dark Materials trilogy because it's the perfect blend of fantasy and adventure and an all-around good read but it also makes you think and there's a lot of real quantum theory behind a lot of it. I actually read The Science of Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials by Mary and John Gribbin. Really interesting stuff there.
3. One of the recent themes of Top 10 Tuesday was if you like this TV show or film you should read this, provide a book recommendation based on your favourite film or TV show. That was my first TTT topic! I chose Once Upon a Time. (CaptainSwan forever!!) You can read my post here. 
4. Where is your favourite place to read? In bed wrapped in blankets with a cup of tea (or iced tea if it's warm. I use blankets all year round.) I'd love to say I have a reading tree in a nice park but, alas, I live in a city where nice trees are hard to come by and when you do find one, check for doggie poop before settling in. Even if all is clear, settle in with caution. Cath from Fangirl would understand the concept of squirrel bullies. 
5. What is your opinion on commenting on blog posts?  I LOVE comments! I love getting comments and responding to them all but I definitely need to comment more myself. I'm working on that.
6. What is your most anticipated read of 2014? The Blood of Olympus by Rick Riordan. I need this book, like, yesterday.  
7. We all know about blogger hype, which book have you read which did not live up to the hype? The Fault in Our Stars by John Green *ducks flying tomatoes* I didn't not like TFIOS. I just thought it was a bit pretentious for no reason. I wrote a review of it where I go into depth more about my mixed feelings.
8. Name one author whose books you will always read. Tamora Pierce. I have read almost all of her books and if I haven't read them yet, I own them and they're on my TBR. Speaking of Tammy, I can't wait for her books on Numair to come out. Daine and Numair were my original OTP growing up.
9. There are certain bloggers whose opinions I value of others, when they give a good review I will go out of my way to read that book. Name a blogger whose opinions you value of others and explain why? I'm going to say Cait and Mime @ The Notebook Sisters. I don't exactly have a favorite favorite blogger at this point but I've been stalking Cait and Mime's blog for the past few days and they're the closest I've come so far in my time as a blogger to having a favorite. They're great girls and their reviews are insightful and hilarious. If you don't know them, you need to check them out. Plus, their layout looks like a Tim Burton movie.
10. What is your favourite part of blogging? The book tours, the reviews, the memes, the community…? I haven't done anything major like book tours yet but my favorite part about blogging so far is just having an outlet to talk about books. No one I know reads as much or with as much excitement as I do so I don't really have anyone to discuss my reads with. I'm glad I found that with the blogging community.
11. Where did your blog name come from? It comes from my love of books and my time spent as a dancer. Therefore: The Book Dancer.

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My 11 Questions for My Nominees

1. What would your daemon be and why? (If you haven't read His Dark Materials, a daemon is like the physical manifestation of your soul/conscience. It's eternally linked to you emotionally and is always with you.)
2. What would your boggart be? (If you haven't read Harry Potter or watched the movies at least, you need to get on that bandwagon - Siriusly! *cough* Sorry, bad joke.) Or if you prefer to be Divergent, what would your fear landscape include? 
3. What's your earliest memory of reading?
4. What is your most anticipated book of 2014? (Sorry, Becky, I stole your question)
5. Who is your favorite secondary character and why?
6. What about your favorite villain?
7. What is something you enjoy besides reading?
8. What is your favorite place (other than your hometown, if you like your hometown) that you've been to?
9. What book do you feel guilty about not having read yet?
10.  If you were stuck on a deserted island, what book would you want with you? The answer can't be "How to Build Boat/Raft out of Coconuts" though that would probably be the smartest choice.
11. Last question just because I need some suggestions: Do you read graphic novels? If you do, what are some good ones? If you don't, why not?

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And the Nominees are...
[This was the hardest part about this post and the reason why I'm posting this more than a week after being nominated myself. It's actually kind of difficult to find really good blogs that don't already have 300+ followers but these bloggers are most definitely deserving.]

1. Michelle @ Fictionista
2. Nhi Le @ The Literary Bystander
3. Ella @ Reading Review Girl 
4. Jillian @ Jillian's Books
5. Alex @ The Book's Buzz
6. Amanda @ The Last Isle
7. Ross @ Head in a Book
8. Emily @ Scattered Emily
9. Summer @ Summer Reads YA

 

 

Thanks again to Becky for nominating me! If I nominated you, please leave links to your Liebster post below so I can read all your lovely answers. If I didn't nominate you and you just so happen to be dropping by, feel free to answer some questions anyway in the comments below!

 

-- Jazzie