Feature and Follow Friday #84

Welcome to the Feature & Follow

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Gain new followers and make new friends with the Book Blogger Feature & Follow! If this is your first time here, welcome! You are about to make some new friends and gain new followers -- but you have to know -- the point of this hop is to follow other bloggers also. I follow you, you follow me.

The Feature & Follow is hosted by TWO hosts, Parajunkee of Parajunkee's View and Alison of Alison Can Read. Each host will have their own Feature Blog and this way it'll allow us to show off more new blogs!

How does this work? First you leave your name here on this post, (using the linky tools -- keep scrolling!) then you create a post on your own blog that links back to this post (easiest way is to just grab the code under the #FF picture and put it in your post) and then you visit as many blogs as you can and tell them "hi" in their comments (on the post that has the #FF image). You follow them, they follow you. Win. Win. Just make sure to follow back if someone follows you!

What sets this Hop apart from others, is our Feature. Each week we will showcase a Featured Blogger, from all different genres and areas. Who is our Feature today? Find out below. Just remember it is required, if you participate, to follow our Features and you must follow the hosts (Parajunkee & Alison Can Read) as a courtesy. How do you follow someone? Well, if you have a preference, state it in your #FF post. A lot of blogs are transitioning to Wordpress in which they do not have the luxury of GFC, so an RSS subscription is appreciated or if you choose an email subscription. If you don't have GFC please state in your post how you would like to be followed.

Our Feature -Le Grande Codex

Hello there my name is Aparajita Basu and yes I'm from India. I created Le' Grande Codex in 2011 as an outlet to sight my views regarding the various books I read. I have become so book crazy that I finish one book and then move onto the next one without a stop. I am obsessed with books. I love buying them. I love collecting them. I blame 'Jo Rowling' for my unhealthy book obsession. Before I was introduced to the Harry Potter saga I was an occasional reader and not at all book crazy but not the case now. No worries i'm loving this part of my life really well.But this doesn't mean that I don't have a life.

Besides my book craze I am pursuing a B.A. in media Studies graduation course from Allahabad University, India and hope to make it big in the Animation industry. I also love to watch movies (preferably Hollywood 'cause Bollywood doesn't really appeal to me any more) and listen to music, going places, talking to people and helping round the house. So yes i do have a life besides books. Oh yes i forgot to mention i have an unhealthy but to a lesser degree obsession for Japanese manga as well. Oh and Le' Grande Codex is my second blog after The 'A' - Jurnale.

Q: I like unique names for characters and am looking forward to coming up with some when I start writing. What's the most unique character name you've come across?

This is a hard question to answer. Most of the weirdest literary names show up in fantasy or sci fi. Names like Frodo or Peeta or Karu are certainly strange, but they're derived from foreign worlds. They may be as common as Emily and Jacob in their worlds, so I think it's unfair to list them as odd names.

The only contemporary weird names I can think of both come from Stephanie Perkins: Etienne and Cricket. Etienne isn't all that strange. It's French, but it was a new name for me. I suppose you could include a lot of the Harry Potter names on the weird list too: Hermione, Severus, Remus, Sirius, etc. But like Etienne, they're classical names from another culture - generally Greek and Latin, I believe. Severus was the name of a Roman emperor a few thousand years ago. Sirius is a constellation, of course. And Hermione is a Greek name that once sounded strange to me, but now sounds cool.

Of course there's always Renesmee, but that's so weird that it belongs in its own category.

One of my literary pet peeves is names that sound out of place. For example, I just finished Amy and Roger's Epic Detour. A fabulous book, but the names are all wrong. The book takes place in present time, so I would assume that Amy was born around 1993/1994 and Roger was born around 1991/1992 (I feel old just writing these years). How many people born during the 90s do you know named Amy or Roger? Amy is a classic 1970s/1980s name that has largely, although not totally, gone out of style. Roger hasn't been popular since the 1950s or 1960s. There's nothing wrong with these names, they just sound weird in the context of the book. You could also say that Lola from Lola and the Boy Next Door, whose full name is Delores, was anachronistic. But I give that one a pass since she was named after Mission Delores or Delores Park in San Francisco.

Another irritation came from a book I just finished called The Rivals by Daisy Whitney. One of the side characters was a girl name Anjali. She was French. Anjali is traditionally an Indian name. Obviously, there's no rule that a French girl can't have an Indian name (although I think France may actually have a law against name your child unusual names), but without any sort of explanation, it makes it seem more like the author didn't do her research on name origin.

Now for the Follow Fun!

With GFC going the way of the dodo bird for many bloggers, there is no better time to start following blogs via RSS feed. If you use a reader, it would be great if you followed my RSS directly.

We have a new button, so update your blogs if you are used to doing this meme!

<a href="http://parajunkee.com/category/ff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4019/4710921228_e3140444bf_o.png" /></a>

RULES

To join the fun and make new book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:

1. (Required) Follow the Follow My Book Blog Friday Hosts {Parajunkee & Alison Can Read}
2. (Required) Follow our Featured Bloggers
3. Put your Blog name & URL in the Linky thing. You can also grab the code if you would like to insert it into your posts.
4. Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say "hi" in your comments and that they are now following you.
5. If you are using WordPress or another CMS that doesn't have GFC (Google Friends Connect) state in your posts how you would like to be followed
6. Follow Follow Follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don't just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don't say "HI"
7. If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the Love...and the followers
8. If you're new to the follow friday hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!

Happy Follow Friday! Come back at midnight CST for the Facebook & Twitter hop!!