Armchair BEA: Introductions

Design credit: Sarah of Puss Reboots

Welcome to my intro post for Armchair BEA! I participated last year and had a lot of fun and since, once again, I wasn't able to make it to NYC for BEA (*sobs*) I'm taking part in this great event again. There will be many posts throughout the week (you can see the whole agenda here if you want to know what's coming up or if you want to take part in the event). For now, I hope you enjoy getting to know me!

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

This is my bunny Tonks!

First things first, my name's Kaley. As of today, I'm 26 (happy birthday to meeeee!). Technically, I started blogging over four years ago but the first two blogs I made were for my university seminar course. Books Etc. has been around for two and a half years. I started it because I was already familiar with how blogs worked and wanted a way to talk about books all the time. 

Where in the world are you blogging from? 

I'm blogging from St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. For those of you who have no idea where that is, I'm about 20 minutes away from this:

And in case you can't tell what "this" is, that's Niagara Falls. I've only been down to the Falls a handful of times. It's always magnificent and I'd love to go a bit more but trying to find parking and then having to pay a ridiculous amount for it is a bit of a negative. 

What are you currently reading, or what is your favourite book you have read so far in 2013? 

As I write this (the weekend before the post goes up), I'm reading The Queen of Unforgetting, a novel that takes place in my small hometown. Very cool.
I've also decided to cheat a bit and list some favourites in different genres (hey, we all love book recommendations, right?). Literary Fiction: The Bone Cage. Fantasy: The Night Circus. YA (contemporary): Anna and the French Kiss. Chick Lit: Finding Lucas. 

If you could eat dinner with any author or character, who would it be and why? 

I would love to hang out with Sarah Dessen. She's my favourite author and when I saw her speak about a year and a half ago when she came to Toronto and between that and her excellent tweets, I think we could be good friends. 

What literary location would you most like to visit? Why? 

I really want to visit Great Britain and would love to see Jane Austen's England, particularly Bath.