Saturday Spotlight - E-volving Books

Today I have a great blogger with me who is all about e-books and how they are changing our reading style! Check her out below.

Name: Deepali (Dee)
Nickname and/or blog name: E-volving Books
Blog URL: http://www.readseverything.blogspot.com/


Tell me a bit about yourself.
I am a 20-something blogger from Bangalore, India, addicted to books. I started reading when I was about 5, and since then, have remained addicted throughout my work, my MBA from Purdue, and my married life. It is hard! I tend to substitute reading for sleep, and I still wish my job entailed books in some way.

When and why did you start your blog?
I started blogging in May as a way to share my reading habits and recommendations, after seeing some awesome blogs. Currently, I do adult fantasy, YA, paranormal reading and reviews. Representing Indian authors in fantasy is something I would love to do, once more books in this genre get published.

What is your blog all about? Any cool features you want to share?
My blog is all about fantasy - authors, books, new releases, upcoming releases and hopefully, someday sometime, author interviews. I seem to be tilting more towards the market of e-book readers, and every week I have a post about the Kindle/ebooks/research into eBooks.
I have this divine Wibiya bar at the bottom of my page, which lets you chat with me live! You can also use the bar to follow the blog.

What are some of your favorite genres and/or books currently?
I love fantasy, in most forms - YA, steampunk, graphic novels, historical. Authors I really enjoy are Neil Gaiman for Sandman and his short stories, Patrick Rothfuss' Name of the Wind, and also his Mistborn series, Jim Butcher for the Codex Alera series and anything by Patricia Briggs. Some YA authors I read recently are Sharon Shinn (usually angels), Embers (elementals) by Laura Bickle, Melissa Marr (Ink and Faeries) and Chloe Neill (boarding school and the 'differentially powered' :) ).


How do you find out about the books you read?
Mostly I browse through the books in my library - it is one of the oldest libraries around here, and they do have a fairly diverse collection. The bookstores have never been much help, the chainstore ones have clubbed it with scifi, and allocate an Entire ONE bookshelf to it. The no-brand bookstores with floor to ceiling books have the best collections of both fantasy and graphic novels around here (mail me for recommendations if you happen to be in my city!)

Any tips or advice for those starting or thinking about starting a blog?
Make sure you post often, and join a couple of highly-participated memes. I've also found it helps to comment well on other blogs. The most fun things have been weekend-long events like the Bloggiesta or Read-a-Thon. Those use twitter to make the event very inclusive, and you get to meet folks who are nuts about books from everywhere!!

Thank you Dee for stopping by my blog this weekend!