Happy February, Bookwyrms!  

Whether you celebrate Valentine’s Day, Galentine’s Day, Palentine’s Day, Singles Awareness Day, or even Discount Chocolate Day (Feb 15th), this is a season to share the love.  Accordingly, I’d like to take this opportunity to send a virtual hug to some of my favorite book/writer blogs (and one music blog).  I’ve made it a New Decade’s Resolution to get more active in the book blogosphere, and the following are the ones with which I’ve been interacting most often in the past year.  I’ve also narrowed my list to single-writer blogs, rather than group/organization blogs (with one exception).

Quick bias warning:  two of these are written by offline friends.

• Froodian Slip — She had me at the Hitchhiker’s Guide wordplay.  I know Heather from my days at the Insatiable Booksluts blog, and I’ve kept up with her on Facebook since then, so when I saw that she started a new blog, I grabbed my towel and stuck out my thumb.  Heather writes about fantasy, sci-fi, zombies, Stephen King, and traditional literary fiction.  She does blog events, challenges, and themed months — most recently Vintage Sci-Fi Month and Zombruary.  Not all of her recommendations make it onto my TBR list (I prefer my zombies in unicorn form), but I don’t mind.  I just love reading her bookish thoughts.
  .
• Off Your Radar — I will pretty much follow sj wherever she goes.  That honestly sounded less creepy in my head, but she introduced me to one of my favorite fictional universes, and so I will gladly read anything she has to say about art of any form.  Off Your Radar is a music blog that reflects on a single album each week.  One person chooses and introduces the album, and the rest of the OYR crew shares their experiences/analyses of it.  So far, sj has contributed Wilt All Rosy, by Sayde Price; This City Isn’t Big Enough, by Apes of the State; a “Mixtape” of her own creation for OYR’s 2018 holiday special (i.e. a Spotify playlist of her favorite under-appreciated cover songs); and more!
  .
• Necromancy Never Pays — Jeanne named her blog after one of the most important lessons she’s learned from classic literature.  She has a whole list of books that illustrate this truth, from The Odyssey to contemporary fantasy/sci-fi.  Her blog covers mostly SFF, poetry, and contemporary fiction.  She likes books that not only reflect contemporary issues, but offer a call to action — and she’s willing to answer that call herself, as she illustrates in her recent post on human decency and social activism.
  .
• Sappho’s Torque — Author Angélique Jamail writes a very eclectic blog that covers music, poetry, fashion, Forbidden recipes, and — yes — books.  Her reviews are, as she describes them, more like memoirs or essays than typical recaps/analyses (see her recent reflection on modern Grendels).  She does many series, including Witchy Weekends, Monday Earworms, Christmas Earworms (one of my favorite segments, since I’m always looking for new songs to add to my iTunes Christmas playlist), and Women Writers Wednesdays (for which I got to write a guest post back in 2015!).
  .
• Words for Worms — Katie loves reading so much that she ended up with Women’s Studies and History minors just because she kept taking electives that required lots of novel reading.  She’s been known to read through numerous social events, including wedding receptions and trade shows.  She listens to lots of romance audiobooks, but also covers the occasional penguin picture book (they’re great for every occasion and teachable moment!) and nightmarish mermaid novella (I’m feeling a slight hipster-ish pang as I see more people talking about Seanan McGuire.  I LOVE that she’s getting all the love, but it was fun feeling like I had her fantasy worlds to myself for a while).
  .
• Library Larkynn — Larkynn de la Fuerza is one of my closest offline friends, and a fellow writer of YA fantasy.  She blogs about her life as a children’s librarian and all the awesome kids’ books she gets to read as part of her job and her Masters classes.  For example, Larkynn participates in the Mock Newberry Awards each year.  She also spotlights children’s authors like Lauren Child (fun fact: did you know the BBC wanted to censor the TV version of Child’s Charlie and Lola stories just because they showed the protagonists eating not-so-healthy snacks?  I mean, really? ).
  .
• Caffeine Is My Muse — Sarah Maree is also one of my best offline friends, as well as a YA fantasy writer and book crafter (she creates amazing handcrafted notebooks out of paper, fabric, leather, and even barnwood).  On her blog, she shares snippets of her writing, including the hilariously disturbing novella, Positivity Camp (think Addams Family Values), as well as random Dungeons and Dragons adventures and — most recently — tales of her days as a ferret owner.

What are some of your favorite bookish (or even not-so-bookish) blogs?  Any fun plans for February 14th?  I, for one, will be hitting up my local Girl Scout cookie table at Kroger.  Thin Mints For The Win!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thin Mint clipart from clipart.email.