Tuesday, September 15, 2009

BBAW: Interviewing myself

Today is the day for the Book Blogger Appreciation Week's Interview Another Blogger. I somehow forgot to put in my name for an interview with any other book blogger. And it was too late by the time I realised it. So here I am taking it in another way. I thought why not interview myself and see what I come up with?

Can you please do tell us something about yourself.

I think of myself as a poet, who loves to read. Almost anything. I teach mathematics at secondary school level. I hold two PG (Masters) degrees, one in Chemistry, another in English literature. I live in New Delhi, India. On the personal front, I am 41 years, single and live with my mom. I got 3 nieces and 2 nephews and adore them to bits.


When, how and why did you start your blog?

I started my poetry blog, rooted in June 2005 on the behest of a friend. I started the review blog in August 2006 but only started regular posting after June 2007. I lost my Reading Room blog in April 2009 and started this on May 1, 2009. A massive task retrieving my posts from there. I lost almost everything.


How do you describe your blog/s for us?

My poetry blog, rooted contains poetry and reviews of poetry books. Review blog has book related stuff, interviews, guest posts and memes with book reviews.

Can you share one of your poems with us?

Why not? I write poetry almost daily. The following I wrote on August 23, 2009.

you passed your aburdity to me

you have passed your absurdity to me
I look out for you in front of me
inside the books
in my poetry
in any song
also within the nothing
even on my plate while I eat
my tired mind can't grasp your absence
it knows you are there
in that space
which I created for both of us
although you never endorsed

no line can define what is more than love
if there is one, I would like to know

Do you take part in any of the weekly memes? Name those.

I do participate in many memes. Few of those are Sunday Salon, Musing/Mailbox Mondays, Teaser Tuesdays, Wondrous Words Wednesday, Booking through Thursday, Friday Finds and Weekly Geeks.


Do you take part in reading challenges? Can you name those?

At any given point of time I do only three challenges. Right now I am doing

The Canadian Challenge 3,
RIP IV,
and the Japanese Challenge.

I am doing ok in all those.


What do you look forward to during BBAW?

New bloggers, what else? Maybe giveaways too..:D

What ought to interest other book bloggers in your blog?

Book reviews. What else?

What else do you blog about?

The occasional social issues I take up here.

What part of a book interests you the most?

Well drawn out characters along with a strong story line. Poetic prose too interests me to no end.

Can you list top five reads of 2009 till date?

The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
My Father's Paradise by Ariel Sabar
The Crying Tree by Naseem Rakha
Random Acts of Heroic Love by David Schienmann
Wait Until Twilight by Sang Pak

Do you have anyfavourite childhood author? Why?

The Enid Blyton books. All of those. The author truly involves the reader in her books. And I go gaga over the Tintin Graphic novels! Anytime.

Can you describe your dream library.

Books. Books. Books. Nothing else.


50 comments:

Tea said...

How creative to interview yourself. It's like painting a portrait of yourself. Thank you. I love poetry.

Bibliolatrist said...

I'm with Tea - very creative idea! Glad to see you participated despite not having a partner.

Here's a question for you: if you could recommend one book for your readers to read, what would it be and why?

Meghan said...

I'm so glad you participated even though you didn't have a partner! This was a great idea and I loved learning more about you. Your poetry is beautiful. I'm going to have to start visiting your poetry blog, I've just added it to my reader now.

Chrisbookarama said...

lol! That was a great idea.

Marie Cloutier said...

cute interview :-)

Anna said...

I'm glad that you decided to interview yourself. I really enjoyed learning more about you. And your poetry is lovely.

--Anna
Diary of an Eccentric

Marjorie said...

What a great idea - and I've really enjoyed discovering your blog, as well as about you!

I'm just about to read The Cellist of Sarajevo too...

Ceri said...

That was cool. A good way to get involved even without someone else. :) I'm observing from the sidelines this year because I've never really experienced BBAW before.

Sassy Brit @ Alternative-Read.com said...

I think this is a very clever idea! I've never even heard of BBAW until this year, and I didn't even realise I was supposed to go round asking for votes! LOL

This is very creative.

I have a question for you:

If you could get everyone in the world to visit your blog on one day in particular -- what would you write about?

Oh, and another: Why are manhole covers round? *grins*

Sassy
:)

bermudaonion said...

Very creative! I chuckled when I saw your title, but really enjoyed reading about you!

Serena said...

I think this is a great interview with yourself! Wonderful!

I really love the poetry and I am glad you recovered your lost blog.

Heather J. @ TLC Book Tours said...

too bad you missed the deadline, but I'm glad you came up with a way to still be included!

Book Dragon said...

That was great! I love that you went ahead and did the interview, it was very nice to meet you. ;-)

Book Dragon said...

um, forgot something...

India would certainly explain why you're first each day :)

Lynn said...

Good job! We should hunt down some Enid Blyton books. My husband grew up with them (in New Zealand), as did my mother (in the U.S. but with a mother from England).

Pixie said...

Good Idea. My interview crashed and burned, never heard back from the other blog. I should have done something like this :D

Suey said...

Ah perfect! I love it! Very fun... maybe we should all do this one year for BBAW. :)

Jenny Girl said...

Very cool and interesting! I was never able to write poetry myself, but I do enjoy reading it. Thanks!

Alyce said...

I enjoyed Random Acts of Heroic Love too. I haven't seen a lot of reviews for it, or other bloggers that have read it.

I like that you interviewed yourself.

Anonymous said...

Very clever to interview yourself. You did a nice job. and nice poetry too. :)

Beth F said...

What an awesome idea! I loved your interview and I'm so glad you joined in. I loved that you shared a poem with us and I'm definitely going to start visiting your other blog.

Suko said...

Very creative, a self-portrait of words!

I enjoyed learning more about you.

Have a great BBAW!

Florinda said...

I love your creative solution to not having an interview partner, and the interview itself, too! It was nice to get to know a little more about you.

Happy BBAW!

Kristen M. said...

Great idea. :) It was fun to learn more about your life and your reading and poetry.

BurtonReview said...

loved, Loved it!! Good job!

ds said...

Really enjoyed getting to know more about you Gautami, and the poem is wonderful. Thanks for sharing. (I loved the Cellist of Sarajevo, too.)

Carrie K. said...

Great interview, Gautami! I loved reading your answers.

The Cellist of Sarajevo is one of my favorites of the year so far, too - and I have Wait Until Twilight coming up very soon.

Kim (Sophisticated Dorkiness) said...

Cool idea! I loved the poem as well. I've never been able to write poetry so I admire anyone who can :)

Robin M said...

cool and creative idea. So happy to learn more about you.

Creative Chronicler said...

Great interview. Very inventive to interview yourself, I like it!!

drey said...

Awesome idea, gautami! Love the interview. And I really liked The Cellist of Sarajevo too. I'll have to check into the other books on your list. =)

Anonymous said...

heheh that's cool you interviewed yourself! Great answers (and questions) though.

Anonymous said...

Wow! Excellent interviewer and subject :) I loved getting to know you better, Gautami!

Lahni said...

I'm so glad I'm not the only one that didn't sign up in time and had to interview myself!!

Anonymous said...

I was so crestfallen when I didn't get to interview anyone for BBAW today, but then I saw your post. What a wonderful idea! I hope you don't mind that I interviewed myself on my own blog.

Booklogged said...

Wonderful idea! So much fun reading your interview and learning more about you. I joined BBAW but didn't get assigned someone to interview and I was feeling sad about that. Maybe I'll interview myself.

Your poetry is beautiful and insightful.

Cara Powers said...

OMG. I forgot you were interviewing yourself halfway through and kept thinking, "Man, I need a link to this person's blog." Very nice.

http://oohbooks.blogspot.com

Carrie said...

Well it was very fun learning a little more about you, being that I've seen you here and there and have gotten to know you a bit through Semicolon's Saturday Reviews.

Thanks for linking yourself up though! Very fun.

Brittanie said...

I love the interview of yourself. :)
Is PG the same as a Ph.d? Very impressive no matter what.

Sheila (bookjourney) said...

That is awesome and your top 5 books look great too... may need to look those up!

Melody said...

Great idea to interview yourself! :) I enjoy reading your answers and getting to know you better.

(Diane) Bibliophile By the Sea said...

I LOVED the fact you interviewed yourself. See, now we learned so much more about our favorite poet blogger :) Great job.

M. said...

Hi,
my first time here, arrived via Today's Adventure in Reading.

Great idea, to interview yourself! I was intrigued by your list of top reads so far as I don't think I've heard of any of them, embarrassing as it is to say that.

I also am in my early forties (though I honestly can't fathom how that happened so fast) and my father was from Bangalore. One of my bucket list things to do is take my children to their grandfather's homeland on a big tour.

Elizabeth said...

What a good idea! Loved learning more about you. =)

Literary Feline said...

This is a great idea, Gautami. :-) I really enjoyed getting to know you better.

My Father's Paradise and The Crying Tree are both books I've really been wanting to read. I am glad to see they are high on your list of favorites. :-)

Veens said...

Jeez! I should have asked you for an interview for my blog ;)
If only I had known ;)

That was a great interview... i totally forgot Enid Blyton... :D

Nice use of words in the poem you have penned...!

Good to know more about you :)

ibeeeg said...

I have had Wait Until Twilight on my radar. It is moving up on the list seeing how you have listed as a favorite for the year.

I am glad that you posted a "self interview". Very cool.

Bookfool said...

That was loads of fun to read! I didn't realize you have a poetry blog. You recovered very, very well from that disaster in April.

Memory said...

What a great idea! I enjoyed reading your answers, and I really liked the sample of your poetry.

tanabata said...

Great idea to take part! I enjoyed reading your answers, and I love Tintin too!