Dicussion Post: Dancing With Myself or How Many Bookish Friends Do You Have In Real Life or Outside of the Book Blogging World?

Posted November 18, 2023 by Lisa Mandina in discussion post / 8 Comments

This discussion kind of ties into my last one about book conventions, because I got to thinking about how many book bloggers or fellow book lovers I might know because of those conventions, or wondering if I’d met any of my fellow bloggers in person there.

You see, I don’t really have anyone in my day to day life that either loves the same books I do, or loves to read as much as I do. My library clerk doesn’t read. Yeah, I know, that’s crazy. At my last job, my co-librarian did read a lot, and he wrote poetry, so occasionally we could talk books, at least a lot more than I get to do now. But he didn’t really read YA, other than reading the Harry Potter series with his daughters. There are a few other teachers that I found out read Colleen Hoover, so occasionally I can talk to them about books.

I have friends and family who are big readers. For instance my stepmom is a big romance reader. But since I was a pre-teen borrowing her Amanda Quick books to read, we haven’t really read any of the same authors/books since then. And she’s pretty stubborn about even trying any new suggestions. My mom and one of her sisters and I all used to read Stephen King all the time. I don’t really read that anymore, so don’t have a lot to talk to them about with that. My middle sister and I used to both read what I called “chick lit” and I also got her in love with Twilight so much that when she moved to NYC I visited her so we could continue our tradition of seeing the last two movies at the midnight premiere together. She never got into the romance genre as it is now like I did though. Although she does love Outlander like me.

When I worked at Barnes & Noble occasionally there were other employees who read some of the same books as I did. But we all kind of had our own tastes. I did find one fellow romance reader there the last few years I was there, and she and I have been to the Flirty in KC convention together, but we don’t see each other that much. And she is much younger than me. I have another friend from there who is also a former teacher and now is writing her own self published book, so we do talk books a lot.

Of course on my Outlander tour this summer I met fellow lovers of that book and tv series. But they didn’t really read my favorite romance now either.

Really one of my favorite things about book conventions is being with fellow lovers of the same authors or types of books. Even at the last library convention I went to there was a session on romance and before the session we got to talking about Ice Planet Barbarians, etc, so that was fun.

So I’m curious, how many of you have friends/family that you are able to talk to about all your favorite books like we do in the blogosphere? And do you have people who find out you read and then decide to share all their favorite books with you, but their suggestions are so not your type of books so you have to say something like, “I’ll check it out” or “I’ll add that one to my TBR”?

And the title song video!

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8 responses to “Dicussion Post: Dancing With Myself or How Many Bookish Friends Do You Have In Real Life or Outside of the Book Blogging World?

  1. I’ve had luck with turning my online friends into real life friends to some degree. I mean we don’t live in the same city usually so I don’t see them often but they are friends. KC who is on the blog with me lives locally but I met her at NOLAStorycon. We did more together in person before COVID. There’s others. You were at NOLAStorycon and Book Bonanza but I didn’t know you then

    Anne - Books of My Heart recently posted: Cold Curses by Chloe Neill @chloeneill @BerkleyPub @AceRocBooks
    • Lisa Mandina

      I guess I feel like most of my bookish friends are online too though. But yeah, I’ve had a few I’ve turned into friends outside of the book blog world I think!

  2. I love that song!

    I don’t have any friends/family IRL that read the same books I do. I have several friends who read a lot but it’s “book club” books and not romance or SFF. When I first started blogging and getting into the online book groups, I read a lot of UF and PNR. My mom just called it weird and basically compartmentalized my reading as “weird.” Oh well. I have lots of online book buddies and we get together at cons, as well.

    • Lisa Mandina

      Yeah, my mom never really liked romance, but she read the 50 Shades books because everyone was. And I did not like those because the writing just was not good and I only made it through the first one because I forced myself to finish. I just can’t believe she read that but won’t try any others!

    • Lisa Mandina

      I used to talk about books with my mom and aunt when I read more like they did. But since my foray into the romance world, I don’t have people to talk to about that as much.

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