Armchair BEA Wrap Up and World Fiction Recommendations

Genres: Fiction, World or cultural
Format: select

Armchair BEA wraps up today and what a fantastic event it has been!

Blogger Shout-Outs. My favorite part of events like these is meeting new-to-me bloggers. Here are some of my favorites that I met or got to know better this week:

1. Lexxie at Unconventional Book Reviews for great discussion, her recommendation and support for using the Ultimate Book Blogger Plugin and I enjoy reading her reviews on books outside my usual genres. I won her giveaway of 3 Paulo Coehlo books and I can’t wait to read them! Thanks Lexxie!

2. Michael at Literary Exploration for bringing up a good point about writing negative reviews. He enjoys classics, cultural books and has a great list for the 1001 books to read before you die on one of his pages. He mentions in his wrapup he was looking to connect with other male book bloggers, not sure how many he found but Adam at Roof Beam Reader is great too.

3. Julie and Rose at Chapter Breakfor their unique blog design and I like their tag team approach. They have lots of giveaways and have introduced me to some new-to-me books.

4. Lisa at Lit and Life since she blogs about both books and family life and is a member of the Classics Club. I like that she takes part in a Pin It and Do It Challenge. As much as I stalk Pinterest for recipes and have tried out a number of them, I totally want to do that. Can I? It’d be my first non-reading challenge!

5. Kim at Bookmark to Blog. She hosts the Monthly Keyword Challenge that I have been doing but I enjoyed conversing more with her this week. She wrote a great post about being true to yourself which was spot on and a great reminder for new and veteran bloggers alike. I won her giveaway for a Women’s Prize for Fiction book and chose Where’d You Go, Bernadette? I can’t wait to read it, thanks Kim!

Cheerleading! Yay!
I was a cheerleader and visited over 100 blogs and commented on at least 45 a day (which is why I haven’t had a chance yet to respond to those of you that stopped by but…I will!) It was great filling up my Bloglovin and email with all these blog subscriptions of new-to-me bloggers. I look forward to discussing great books with many of you.

Post Recap
I posted more this week and actually kept up with the agenda. I was so excited to write about the various topics that I could not pass up the opportunity to share my thoughts.

Day 1 – Introduction – Get to Know Me! and Classic Literature Recommendations.
Day 2 – Blog Development and Best Books Read in 2013 by Genre. This was one of my favorite days getting ideas from other bloggers on ways to improve our blogs.
Day 3 – Giveaway Day and Books that won my Thanks for Changing My Life Awards. Each phenomenal in their own ways, changing my perceptions and making me appreciate the life and blessings I have.
Day 4 – Ethics and Non-Fiction Books. Ethics was another great discussion topic.
Day 5 – Keeping motivated, keeping it “real” and my kids’ book recommendations
And finally today’s wrap up and World Fiction Recommendations

I will definitely be participating in this event again. It was more than I usually post in a week but I felt like they were great discussion topics. The one suggestion I would have for next time is to post the full set of discussion prompts on the agenda so we can better prepare our posts. On the day where I posted the books that changed my life, the agenda said to talk about books that changed our lives and then on the link-up there were other questions I would have liked to weigh in on. It would help people like me schedule our posts better. But that’s a minor thing and overall I thought it was well organized and a lot of fun. I really liked the Behind the Scenes posts inside the BEA and pictures from the actual event. I so would’ve loved to be there for the Capstone Young Readers display, it was covered in our favorite Justice League superheroes encouraging kids to read, we love the Justice League AND reading in this house!

Thanks to all the organizers for a fantastic and phenomenal event, you’ve got a fan in me! See ya next time and till then around the blogosphere.

*****World Fiction Recommendations*****

I saw Becca at Lost in Books wrote her recommendations in world fiction, a genre that was not specifically addressed during the Armchair BEA. I love reading about other cultures and journeying around the world through a book and decided to give you my recommendations as well.  For more books I read as part of my Around the World in 80 Books Challenge and a map of the places I’ve traveled to through books, click here.

Picture links to my reviews:

China

France

Germany

India

Not Yet Reviewed but Coming Soon…(links to Goodreads)

Covers Netherlands, Switzerland, Qatar, Iceland, England, and interesting research on the happiest and saddest places in the world

Netherlands

Well that wraps up Armchair BEA for me, what was your favorite part of the event? What other bloggers did you enjoy meeting (besides yours truly)?  Which discussion was your favorite?  Thanks for joining me this week and hope to keep the conversations going.  As always, happy reading!