It’s Friday, so it’s time for the Book Blogger Hop again, hosted by Billy @ Coffee Addicted Writer. I’ve made my own image from a stock photo (credit: Anna Shvets) to avoid adding images created via generative AI to my blog. Feel free to use it too if you would like!

This week’s prompt is about what you hope for from your blog:

What do you want readers to take away from your blog and your love for books?

If I wanted people to come away with just one impression of me, it’d be “they’re up for reading pretty much anything”, I think! It’s not totally literally true, since I don’t want to waste my time reading fascist screeds or something like that, and I’m not a big fan of self-help and such… but still, something of the spirit of being willing to try anything at least twice is something I’d love to communicate.

Related to that, I wish I could get people to have more of that spirit for themselves, assuming they’ve got time/energy/money/etc — I don’t want to downplay the importance of picking something you’re more likely to enjoy when resources are limited in some way. There have been some genres I’ve turned out to really enjoy which I was very reluctant to dip into, like non-fiction (funny as that sounds if you know me now) and horror (more recently). Exploring with curiosity can lead to some amazing finds!

Other than that, but also related: I’d like people to let go of thinking of books as “trashy” or “guilty pleasures”, too. It’s good to read widely, and reading something that stretches you can be very rewarding, but pure enjoyment is worthy too.

Plus, though I don’t recommend reading for just that reason, exploring genres you wouldn’t normally read just to understand the appeal they hold for others can be really fun. You definitely need to read with an open mind for that, and recognise that where you see something boring/negative, someone else might see something comforting or helpful.

In the end, though, if people leave my blog thinking “damn, I really want to grab a book and read right now“, I’ll be happy. Whatever that book might be!