Kicking Off Armchair BEA 2014!

In celebration of the first day of this year's Armchair BEA, participants are asked to answer five questions (from a provided list of ten.) Here are mine:

Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? How long have you been blogging? Why did you get into blogging? Where in the world are you blogging from?

I'm Carrie. I live in Des Moines, Iowa, where I work as an academic librarian. As the name of my blog indicates, I'm a nomad and a reader. By my count, I've moved twenty-times in my thirty-three years, but Mr. Nomadreader and I bought a house last spring, and we both hope we're living in it until it's time to move to the retirement home. I started blogging in March 2007, and I've moved many times in those seven years. I started blogging when I started working temping as a receptionist when I was applying to graduate schools. I had a lot of time to browse the Internet, and I initially started the blog as a place to write about everything I read: online, in print, and what I watched on tv. Once I discovered the vibrant book blogging community, I started reading more and talking mostly about books. There have been so many changes in my life since I started this blog, and one of the biggest, the nomadbaby, is set to arrive August 9th. I'm sure this blog will continue to morph, and after more than seven years, I can't wait to see what it continues to become.

What was your favorite book read last year? What’s your favorite book so far this year?

My favorite read of 2013 was one of the last titles I read (and one I'd been meaning to read for the second half of the year): Tampa by Alissa Nutting. As I said in my review: "Tampa is a novel that reminds me why I will always love fiction best. Alissa Nutting masterfully gets inside the mind and body of Celeste. The result is a modern masterpiece whose story can only be told this deeply in a fictional way, and its haunting final pages will stick with me for a very long time." It's all still true, and I'm already getting the urge to re-read it again, which is very rare for me to do.

Somehow I've already read 56 books this year. I've rated eight of them five stars, which is pretty high for me, but six of those are Michael Connelly mysteries, which I've been racing through. It's hard for me to think about them individually to pick just one, but so far my favorite book of the year is one I haven't even reviewed yet: The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud. I listened to it on audio, and when I finished, I couldn't shake that feeling of wanting to accost everyone I know and ask, "have you read Claire Messud? She's so good! Why are we not all talking about her all the time? Why are people not screaming about the brilliance of this novel?" I'll be reviewing it soon, but as is so often the case with novels I love this much, I take my time trying to articulate words worthy of books so good. 

What is your favorite blogging resource?
If I had to pick one, I'd choose Edelweiss. A majority of the books I read come from Edelweiss in the form of digital galleys, but I also use it organize reviews, easily submit reviews to publishers (of the books they provide and the ones they don't), and find out about upcoming titles.

Share your favorite book or reading related quote.

My favorite book is American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld, and my favorite reading related quote also comes from it:

"It provided him with a way to structure his behavior, and a way to explain that behavior, both past and present, to himself. Perhaps fiction has, for me, served a similar purpose--what is a narrative arc if not the imposition of order on disparate events?--and perhaps it is my avid reading that has been my faith along." (Alice, about her husband's fundamentalist Christianity)

What book would you love to see as a movie?
So many! The one that first comes to mine is Audrey Magee's forthcoming debut novel, The Undertaking, because it's so dialogue heavy I think it would adapt so well. As I read it, I found it incredibly visual, and at times it felt almost like I was reading a script.

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