Utah Book Month 2015: Bloggers!

The theme this week for Utah Book Month is "Utah Bloggers." I just don't even know how to approach this post! The whole finding and connecting with Utah bloggers over the past few years has been a life changer.

Once upon a time (and you've all heard this story but here I go again) I decided to hide my love for books. It was too weird a hobby. People thought I was crazy. Yes, I was a little fanatic and that freaked people out. So I decided I wouldn't talk about it much and tame the reading down a bit and rein myself in.

Then the internet happened. I found online book clubs. I chatted with other readers. It was so awesome. Those readers started blogging. I'd heard about blogging but was scared to try. Then, one day, I jumped in.

But at first, it wasn't a book blog. It was a "whatever" blog. I blogged now and then about books there, but no one responded. It bugged me. The, I thought about the online book club people who were blogging about books. And finally, I changed my approach and decided to do just book blogging. Well, mostly book blogging. A blog with a very strong book emphasis.

And then... I discovered other people in close geographic vicinity were doing the same thing! We ended up at the same book events together. (Going to book events... something that only happened after I started blogging. What did I do before this???) We were like, wait, WHAT? You blog? You read? You come to book things? WE SHOULD TOTALLY BE FRIENDS! :) (Natasha I'm looking at you!)

And then, we found more and more people who blogged, read and lived near by. Somewhere about that time I realized I didn't have to hide my love/fanaticism/craziness about books any more. We were all crazy and we all got it and life has been SO MUCH FUN ever since!

I think this calls for a collage.

Yeah, actually, making a collage is scary because I'm sure I've left off someone that I really shouldn't have. Do know that I tried to include a few more, but couldn't find an image for you! I included some currently blogging bloggers, some formerly blogging bloggers, some bloggers that blog about lots of stuff other than books, some bloggers that only do books. Some of these bloggers I know really really well, some just a little! All are wonderful and lovely and amazing!

Here are their links from top to bottom, left to right:

Jenny from Alternate Readality
Cindi from A Utah Mom's Life
Jenni from Jenni Elyse
Emily from Emily's Reading Room
Angie from Angieville
Penelope from The Reading Fever
Heather from Fire and Ice
Britt from Confessions of a Book Habitue
Becky from One Literature Nut
Melissa from Bookmark Dragon
Jessica from The Bluestocking Society
Jessica from Books: A True Story
Marissa from Raegun Ramblings
Kathy from Read This Instead
Kami from Kami's Library Thoughts
Kim from Good Clean Reads

A couple others I wanted to shout out:
Alison from So Many Books So Little Time
Kelley from The Road Ever Goes On

Thanks to you all for letting me find a place to be the book crazy person that I am! I hope you all keep blogging or start blogging again...and if you happen to be reading this and are pondering a blog and thinking about maybe joining the crazy book people here in Utah... just do it! It's the best thing ever.