Presenting Lenore

It’s the second day of the Book Blogger Appreciation Week and today is interview day. Through the BBAW, I met Lenore from Presenting Lenore and today I get to introduce her to you as well. Lenore is introducing me to her readers today, so make sure you go over and check out Presenting Lenore.

Tell us a little about yourself. How did you get involved writing book reviews?

I’m a freelance advertising copywriter living most of the year in Germany since that is where most of my business is and where my husband is from. We’ve been married 2 years and have a gorgeous Birman cat Emmy who frequently makes appearances on my blog.

I love to travel and have been an exchange student 4 times so far: year programs to Quito, Ecuador and Fukuoka, Japan and summer programs to Jena, Germany and Valencia, Spain. I’ve been lucky enough to have experienced many exotic foreign locales – some of my favorites are Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Iceland, Victoria Falls, Galapagos Islands and Tikal in Guatemala.

I have been writing mini book reviews for myself for years (you can read many of these on my library thing account: lenoreva). My mother was a big reader and kept a notebook with her thoughts on books, which was my original inspiration. I started blogging book reviews because I saw it as a chance to organize my thoughts on books I read and share my recommendations with a larger audience.

Who are your favorite authors? What are your favorite novels?

I’ve read and enjoyed multiple works from the following: Margaret Atwood, Douglas Coupland, David Mitchell, Jasper Fforde, and Sebastien Japrisot.

Favorite novels is a tough one because there are so many. So a few off the top of my head: The Awakening by Kate Chopin. Holes by Louis Sachar. Uglies by Scott Westerfeld. Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. The Myth of You and Me by Leah Stewart. Books I’ve lent out the most: Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, Under the Skin by Michal Faber, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, Trap for Cinderella by Sebastien Japrisot and The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

What genre do you prefer to read and why?

I like high concept literary fiction best, whether it’s adult or YA. And I love dystopian fiction as a sub-genre. I guess I like the exercise of sliding down slippery slopes to see where humanity could end up – they are all cautionary tales in a way.

If you had to run and seek cover, and you could only take three novels will you, what would they be?

I would take my signed hardcover of Marcus Zusak’s The Book Thief, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky so I would finally get around to reading it and Tana French’s The Likeness because I am reading it right now and I need to know what happens.

If you were only allowed to recommend one novel, what would it be and why?

Well, it’s not a novel, and it’s not done yet, but I would recommend my husband Daniel’s first published children’s picture book as an illustrator which is coming out in summer 2010 from Harper Collins. It is tentatively titled Is your Buffalo Ready for Kindergarten? and it’s a fun, silly story with awesome (of course) illustrations. The second book, Teach your Buffalo to Play to Drums, will come out summer 2011.

What is a book reading experience that really stands out in your mind?

When Daniel and I were traveling in Burma, we booked tickets on a bus that would take us from a beach “resort” back to the capital Yangon. I picked up a copy of Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin from the book trading shelf before we set off. Reading it helped me through the most torturous journey of my life. I sat in the back seat of an old Japanese bus from the 1950’s whose floorboards were rotting so that dust from the road covered me within minutes (imagine what I looked like at the end of the 16 hour trip). Spiders, roaches and other assorted insects crawled on me. The stench of live, dried and marinated fish filled the air. The radio blared cheesy oldies hits redone entirely in Burmese language versions. Various Burmese thought our backpacks filled with breakables looked like comfortable cots to sleep on in the aisles. But somehow, the beauty of the story transported me away from all that. And for that I’m eternally grateful.

What are 5 books that are on your wish list right now?

Let me see – how about a few I found out about on blogs? The Other Side of the Island by Allegra Goodman (dystopia!), Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks (plague!), Comic Book Tattoo (Tori Amos!), Vunce Upon a Time by J.otto Seibold and illustrated by Siobhan Vivian (love the illustrations), and The Explosionist by Jenny Davidson (alternate history!). I’ll probably order these next time I’m allowed to buy books.

Name a couple of book blogs that you like to visit. What makes them so special?

For YA recommendations I always check Reviewer X and Jen Robinson’s Book Page first. Reviewer X because she tells it straight and Jen because we often have the same reactions to books so I can really get a feel for whether I’d like something or not (and she loves dystopia too). Everyday I Write the Book Blog is one of my favorite places to read literary fiction reviews and she has a fun book club element going for her too. Plus every one of the book blogs on my blog roll is worth checking out and I have to give a shout out to my fellow LibraryThing book bloggers. Thanks to you all I am more of an ARC Junkie than ever!