Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, featuring a different top 10 theme each week.
This week’s theme is Top Ten Things That Make Your Life as a Reader/Book Blogger Easier. This is a toughie. Can I get to ten?
1) Goodreads: What is there to say? I love being able to keep track of my reading, love seeing what my friends are reading, love the great resources. One nifty aspect (yes, I used the word “nifty”) is being able to access so many cool stats about my reading. Author I’ve read the most? Check. All books I’ve rated 5-stars in 2013? Check. No end to the awesomeness of Goodreads.
2) The public library. I love my neighborhood branch. It’s clean, it’s bright, it has views of the ocean, and it has everything I could possibly want! I especially love being able to put in requests and have books transferred to my branch.

My library. I love it so.
3) Good book sections in the newspaper: My local newspaper has an excellent Sunday book section. In addition, a couple of years ago I treated myself to a mail subscription to the Book Review section of the Sunday New York Times. Both are wonderful resources for me to use to stay current on new releases, see what’s being promoted and what’s coming up, and keep up with all the various bestseller charts. Maybe (okay, more than likely) I’m a dinosaur for continuing to rely on paper resources, but I do find these invaluable.
4) NetGalley: A huge and heart-felt THANK YOU to NetGalley for providing access to all those wonderful pre-release review copies. Even though I don’t always get approved for the books I want, I get approved for a lot — and have read and reviewed some wonderful books thanks to this terrific resource. Plus, their Wellness Challenge earlier this year was so helpful!
5) Other bloggers: Oh, you guys! You rock! It’s such a thrill to interact on a regular basis with so many smart, funny, insightful people. I’ve found the book blogging community to be so warm and supportive in the 1+ year I’ve been blogging. Couldn’t do it without y’all!
6) Free tools: How I love the free stuff! My superstar go-to resources right now are Pixabay for free public domain images and Picmonkey for awesome photo editing tools. Of course, every once in a while, I’ve wanted a special something that I couldn’t find via a public domain image library — and I’ve found some great items via IStockPhoto. The prices are reasonable, and the selection is terrific!
7) Social media: For keeping up to date, as well as heaping doses of pop culture wackiness and nerdgirl fun, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest are endlessly helpful — and totally diverting, especially when a little procrastination is called for.
8) Post-It flags: Silly, right? But since I prefer to do my reading with physical books, and since I refuse to highlight or underline, these little flags are my go-to item for marking pages or passages that I want to find again. Especially for books I know I’ll be reviewing, they’re essential. (You should see my current book — it’s like a little rainbow flag all along the edge!)
9) Kindle/E-reader: I really do prefer physical books, but most of my review copies are e-books. On the down side, the review copy formatting is often problematic. On the plus side, I do love Kindle’s highlighting feature, which makes it so easy to mark and return to passages of interest.
10) My family: Much as they may mock me at times (“Reading? Again???”), my loved ones are pretty good about giving me quiet time when I need it to read, to write, to edit… so long as I come back and play board games or otherwise make myself useful when I’m done.
Oh, and I guess I’ll add in a #11! This one occurred to me on the late side, and I don’t want to delete any of my first ten…
11) Authors who rock! I really, really appreciate the authors who take the time to answer questions, interact with readers on a regular basis, and respond with warmth and friendliness when contacted. And the authors who’ve appeared in my local bookstores, signing books, and even taking pictures with fan after fan? Priceless!
I guess getting to ten wasn’t that hard after all! What’s on your list this week?
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