Book Blogger Appreciation Week: My Guys

I read dozens of book bloggers and love them to bits.  You know who you are.  If I talk to you, I love you.   I celebrate you all, but for Book Blogger Appreciation Week, I'd like to focus in particular on some male bloggers that always make my bookish day.

1. Sam from Book Chase.  I've been following Sam's blog for a few years now.  He reads like a house afire and loves to talk about country music history.  I always tune in when he reports library and bookstore news.  Sometimes I have trouble keeping up with him because I'm not very political, but I always learn something.  One of these days I'm going to make Houston my connection between Seoul and Kansas City just so I can shake his hand and maybe exchange a book or CD or two.

2. Peter from Collecting Children's Books.  After finding Peter's blog about a year and a half ago, I spent an entire weekend in my pajamas and in front of the computer and ignoring my phone calls so I could go back and read every single one of  his postings about Children's Literature.  And boy howdy, does he post!  This guy just knows and knows AND knows about that field and can make the most dazzling connections to other genres.  He's the trapeze artist of  bloggers.  I'm going be one of the first in line to buy his book when it's published.

3. James from Ready When You Are, C.B.  James never fails to entertain me.  I love his regular features "Dakota's Favorites", in which he discusses books that his dog has eaten, "Friday Picture Reading" which spotlights a painting or a photo of someone reading and his latest, "Tuesdays with Dorothy", when he posts a picture of Dorothy Parker and an accompanying witticism.  I enjoy his occasional take on movies.  I also admire him for taking on a book I've always been too intimidated to try:  Tristram Shandy. We're both educators, but I wish I could time-travel and become one of his students.

4. Chris from Vitamin Brock.  Chris was my co-worker and neighbor in Korea.  He tried to make me love Faulker, but I don't think I'll ever really be ol' Bill's sweet-ass gal.   Chris did get through to me with his credo that medieval literature very rarely ever disappoints.  I won't go so far to say that it's the pause that refreshes, but it's definitely worth more time than I've put into it.  Although Chris had the temerity to quit Korea (not to mention my book group Cracked Spinz!) and head for Yellowstone, we've been keeping up our connection through a friendly race to 100 books this year.

5. John from The Book Mine Set.  John got me into reading Canadian Literature with all those wonderful challenges he's hosted, and I'll always be grateful.  I was a big fan of the literary smackdowns he used to host every week as well as his Saturday puzzles.  I admire both how breathtakingly well-read he is and how he's always improving on himself and above all, I'm humbled by his dedication.

6. Ron from Buddies in the Saddle.  As an expat living really far east from where I was born, I'm prone to bouts of homesickness.  Ron helps to make it all better with his blog which covers all things Western -- novels, movies, memoirs, folklore and best of all, regular installments of his Old West Glossary which usually have me laughing and shaking my head and trying commit these colorful words and phrases to heart so I can (sometimes successfully) work them into conversation.  A little time at Ron's blog and I'm cheered up again and glowing like an Oklahoma sunset.

Thanks for serving up so much bloggy goodness, guys.  I guess it would be awkward to extract a promise from each of you to keep on blogging forever and ever, but as long as you do, you'll have a home on my sidebar.