Bloghopping Challenge

I’m trying to catch up on posts I’ve been meaning to put up for a while...

I first saw this challenge mentioned on Lenore’s blog, Presenting Lenore over a month ago, but the idea originated at Alpha Heroes. The rules are:

1. Starting at Alpha Heroes, find a linked blog that you’ve never been to before. It does not have to be book-related. If none of the links in my sidebar are new to you, hit the BBAW list and start there.


2. Go to the blog you’ve chosen and browse through the posts until you find something interesting. Leave a comment. Mention where you found the link. Mention of this challenge is optional.


3. Using the links in THAT blog, repeat. If you find yourself somewhere that does not have any new-to-you links, go back to the BBAW list. Be sure to leave a comment in each location, mentioning where you found their site linked.


4. Repeat until you have visited 10 new blogs.


5. Write a post on your blog showing your bloghopping trail. Content is up to you; you can highlight your favorites, critique the sites or just post the list of 10. I recommend you open up a Word document (or whatever you use) and list out the URLs as you go. It’s really REALLY easy to get distracted doing this and lose track of where you were.


6. I’d love it if you link back to this post.


7. Optional: add your favourites to your own sidebar or temporarily put up a blogroll widget with the 10 sites you visited.


8. Optional: Come back here and leave a link to your post in the comments.

I started with a blog I found at random in the BBAW list and went from there. Here’s my trail:

1. At Mary’s Library, the first stop on my tour, I came across a review of The House at Riverton by Kate Morton, which just confirmed to me that I must read this book. (Gosford Park is one of my all-time favourite movies!) From there, I clicked on...


2. A Fondness for Reading, where I commented on Robin’s review of My Invented Country by Isabel Allende, which has been sitting in my bookcase waiting to be read for quite a while now. From there, I visited...


3. My Reading Diary, which is one of the most beautiful blogs I’ve ever seen. Janice illustrates nearly every review with her own amazing artwork. I had to leave comments in several places (here, here and here). This is a site I’m definitely adding to my blogroll! From there, I hopped over to...


4. Letters from a Hill Farm, which is a mix of recipes, personal posts and book-related posts. I commented on Nan’s review of Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad about My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman (which sounds like a fun read). I found my next blog in one of Nan’s posts (in which she tags folks for a “Nice Matters Award”) and visited...
   


5. My Random Acts of Reading, where I commented on Kay’s review of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, which she says “may well get the #1 spot on [her] list of reads for this year.” Since this blog has no blogroll, I doubled back to Letters from a Hill Farm and from a comment there headed over to...


6. A Garden Carried in the Pocket, which features lots of reviews of mysteries (a genre I love). I commented on Jenclair’s review of Wild Life by Molly Gloss, an author I’ve heard about but never read. From there I popped over to...


7. A Reader’s Journal, which I love the look of! I commented on Booklogged’s review of Cassandra and Jane: A Jane Austen Novel by Jill Pitkeathley. (What is it about Jane Austen that has spawned such a plethora of novels either about her or about her characters?) From there, I headed over to...
   


8. A Work in Progress, where I commented on Danielle’s post about The Perfect Summer: England 1911, Just Before the Storm by Juliet Nicolson. From there, I found...
   


9. the madwoman in the attic, which has a great tagline: “People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.” I commented on her review of The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman. From there, I ended my tour at...


10. Of Books and Bicycles, where I commented on Dorothy’s review of Virginia Woolf’s Nose by Hermione Lee. For some reason, I didn’t clue in immediately to the fact that the title refers to the movie The Hours (in which Nicole Kidman wears a prosthetic nose to play Woolf)!
    

What a great idea this was! It was fun to discover 10 new blogs. One quick recommendation to all bloggers: Please have a blog archive, preferably one with a drop-down list for each month! It makes it so much easier for a new reader to browse through your old posts.

Michele at A Reader’s Respite posted about this challenge. Has anyone else completed this challenge?