Feature and Follow Friday #204

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 ayou 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.

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How To Become a Featured Blog?

We pick our featured blogs randomly each week from the blogs who participated the week before.

Please be sure to feature your e-mail address clearly on your blog. Either on the main blog, on a Contact page, or on an About Me page. If I can't find your email easily, I will choose a different blog to feature.

Our Feature - The Pegster - Reads

1. When did you start blogging?

I have posted my first blog post on January 1st 2014. I have had a general blog for a few years, talking about my family, needlework and books. Over the Christmas Holidays 2013 I decided to log books I read in a separate blog and chat about it a bit so I came up with the idea of a book blog. Did some online research - wow, and the whole big world of book blogging opened up to me. I loved it straight away and thought: "yes, that's what I want to do!"

2. What is your favorite part of book blogging?

Being in contact with like-minded people and authors. I would love to be able to write books, so I still feel honored when I receive a book and asked to review it. I would not have picked up many of the new authors otherwise and I'm truly amazed at the quality of their work (most of them anyway!). Also, no-one in my family is an avid / crazy reader like me, so it's only my fellow bloggers who can understand the excitement of a new book and a book shop.

3. What type of books do you mainly blog about?

I run a weekly feature on my favourite author Stephen King. My favourite genres are dystopian, crime, thriller and horror but I try to keep my reading very much open to almost anything. I also review quite a few non-fiction books, mainly on language learning, writing manuals, craft related, dieting.

4. What are your favorite books?

It would have to be Stephen King's The Stand and 22.11.63.
Donna Tartt The Secret History
Kazuo Ishiguro Never Let me Go

5. What has been the best thing that has happened to you because of book blogging?

It feels good to receive emails from publisher, asking me if they can send me books to read. It seems pretty obvious- but for me, it is still amazing that people want to hear my opinion. The Internet and my blog give me the chance to chat books to just about anyone, in any place around the world, which is just great.

Question of the Week: What are your non-book guilty pleasures? Like TV shows, food, websites, hobbies, etc.

*First thing:  A reminder that if you want to be chosen as the Feature for #FF, please have your email address somewhere on your blog. I know there are other ways to contact people including Twitter and contact forms, but I've set up my #FF system in such a way that I need an email address. So for better or worse, that's the requirement for now.

With books, I'm usually quick to argue that there is no such thing as guilty pleasures...But with non-book things, some of the things really are pretty trashy.

Let's start off with celebrity gossip. I love celebrity gossip. I spend far too much time each day reading my favorite blogs: Gossip Cop, Lainey Gossip, and Celebitchy. I also read People and US magazines every week.

Websites: I love reading nail polish blogs and polishing my nails. This is a pretty new habit, so I feel like I have a lot to learn.

As for TV, I don't watch a lot of it and most of what I watch would be considered "quality," but I am fascinated by 19 Kids and Counting. I've never watched the Kardashians but I still keep up with them on the celebrity gossip sites.

Food: I came up with the idea of this question during Easter time. I had an unhealthy Cabury Mini Egg habit. One of my work friends turned me onto these a few years ago and I quickly became addicted. Each year they've become easier to find, which is both wonderful and terrible. This year, Target had them out by Valentine's Day. I can't count how many bags of that stuff (the Dark Chocolate kind) I went through between Valentine's Day and Easter.

Hobbies: This isn't really a hobby - more like an App. I downloaded the Tetris Blitz app about six months ago. I'm obsessed. I could spend hours playing this game. Luckily, I can listen to podcasts or audiobooks while I'm doing it so I can consider it somewhat productive time.

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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.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

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

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!

Next Week's Question:

Armchair Travel! Tell us about your favorite book in a setting you’d like to visit (a real place for this question).

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