Hello, my name is Ana and I'm a twenty-something bookworm. I also work in public libraries. It always feels a bit awkward to just talk about myself, so here's a self-interview to make things easier:

Why do you blog?
I started this blog without quite knowing what I was doing: I stumbled upon the first Once Upon a Time Challenge and needed a place to post my thoughts on the books I was going to read for it. So I blew the dust off my old blogger account, which I only used to comment on a few friend's blogs, and in March 2007 things mean a lot was born.

I was fortunate enough to be immediately welcomed by a community of enthusiastic book lovers who made me feel right at home. I had been looking for a bookish online community for a long while, but for some reason I had never thought to look for book blogs before. Suddenly they were everywhere, and I couldn't be happier. So yes, clichéd though this might sound, the reason why I hooked so quickly was the community. I don't have many bookish friends offline, so I was thrilled to discover people who were as enthusiastic about books as I am. Not only that, but they were also friendly, open-minded, respectful of different opinions, unpretentious and passionate. How could I not stick around?

These days I blog because I like sharing my thoughts on what I read; because I really like the fact that writing here encourages me to read more thoughtfully; because it's a great way to meet fellow readers and make new friends; because it makes me happy to introduce people to books they might love; and because thanks to blogging I can easily stay on top of book-related news and constantly discover wonderful books I probably would never hear of otherwise. My wishlist has more than tripled ever since I started blogging, and I bought more books in the past four years than in any other period of my life. Possibly this last bit isn't entirely a good thing, but the bottom line is: blogging has enriched my life.

Why do you read?
The simplest answer would be something along the lines of, "because it's one of my favourite things to do". But of course, there's a bit more to it than that. I read because I like stories; because I believe they're important. I read because I like language. I read because I'm interested in people, even though I'm a shy person. Reading gives me access to other experiences, other ways of living and thinking and feeling, other realities, other selves. I like to think that it helps me understand other people and the world in general a little better. John Connoly, author of The Book of Lost Things, put it better than I possibly could:

I think the act of reading imbues the reader with a sensitivity towards the outside world that people who don’t read can sometimes lack. I know it seems like a contradiction in terms; after all, reading is such a solitary act that it appears to represent a disengagement from day-to-day life. But reading, and in particular the reading of fiction, encourages us to view the world in new and challenging ways (…) It allows us to inhabit the consciousness of another, which is a precursor of empathy, and empathy is, for me, one of the marks of a decent human being.

As did John Green:

I would argue that books, more than other media, allow us to live inside the lives of others because we have to translate scratches on a page into ideas and make the story ours. We become co-creators of the story, and they allow us to inhabit someone else's body for a while. Books give us the faith that others are real, that their joy and pain should matter to us, and that ours can matter to them. In some ways, this confirms our own existence, because most of our mattering is in the context of one another.

What do you read?
I'm a fan of speculative fiction, fairy tales and mythology, historical fiction, Victorian and neo-Victorian novels, feminist fiction and non-fiction, literature from the early 20th century (particularly the 1930's), Gothic novels, historical mysteries, YA, children's books, almost anything involving metafiction, and comics aka graphic novels. But I'll read pretty much anything as long as it captures my interest. The things I'm the least likely to read are probably romances, thrillers and self-help or inspirational books, but I don't really like the idea of casting a whole genre aside.

I'll read anything that I find enjoyable - and I'm defining "enjoyable" very broadly here. A deeply distressing book can make for a very rewarding reading experience, even if one wouldn't call it enjoyable in the traditional sense of the word. The one thing I don't believe in is forcing myself through a book when every minute of it is agony just so I can say that I've read it, or just because I hope that reading it will turn me into a Better, More Cultured Person. Which is not to say that I don't read difficult or demanding books, or that I don't find these rewarding. I absolutely do, but I completely reject the idea that if a book doesn't take a lot of effort to read, then it must be rubbish. Some books demand a lot out of us,