Bloggy Buddy: Meet Chuckles!

Introducing Bloggy Buddy where we feature the bloggy friends we love so much!

For this Bloggy Buddy we will be featuring one of my new favorite blogs I discovered. I was blog hopping one day and came across Chuckle's blog. Chuckles reads a lot of the same things I do and I absolutely love her blog. 

I even added her as a friend on Goodreads, so I can steal her reads.

So here we go with getting to know Chuckles, I hope you'll love her as much as I do!

How long have you been blogging?

I did a general blog prior to 2013 for a year or so but it wasn't very exciting as I have a pretty dull and uneventful life. I switched to doing this book blog in July 2013.

What inspired you to start blogging? 

I came across indie book groups on Goodreads and got chatting to indie and self published authors who were looking for bloggers to read and review their books. After reading a few really good books from the authors, I decided to start my book blog and make a point of promoting their work on it and reading more Indie books. About 90% of the books I talk about are Indie or self published and I enjoy sharing that with my blog followers. I like showing that there are great books out there that aren't mainstream publishers and show that it isn't true that self published means rubbish. It's also fun to showcase books and authors that other bloggers may not have heard of, and hopefully persuade others to try these books.

What was your first blog post? 

I did one of those 'welcome to my blog' posts. It is not a work of literary art, that's for sure! My early posts were rubbish!

What are some unique features you do on your blog? 

I do a Game of Thrones post every week, discussing plot and characters-I'm on season three recaps at the moment. I've also started doing Prepper posts about how to be more self sufficient and ready for short or longer term natural or man made disasters. It is going to cover things like emergency plans, food storage, home remedy medicine, home defence, DIY and books for further reading on these topics. I do Around The Blogs, which showcases my favourite posts on other blogs though that isn't really unique, and a post featuring the free book samples I get from Amazon.

What was your inspiration for your blog design and name? 

My nickname is Chuckles as I am generally pretty grumpy and lose my temper a lot (especially with electronic devices, noisy children and cats invading my garden to use as their personal toilet!). It seemed like an ironic name for me as Chuckles sounds like a happy person! The Book Cave comes from the fact that I have walls full of bookcases and piles of books everywhere, and the curtains are generally shut so I can feel safe, snug and hidden among my beloved books! I'm happiest at home where I can just relax and ignore the outside world. My blog design is basic and simple, featuring a few things related to favourite things like Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Buffy, Count Von Count etc. 

What genres do you like to read and feature? 

My favourite genres to read are zombies, horror, prepper and apocalypse fiction, creature features, urban fantasy without all the sex, tudor fiction, non fiction mountain expeditions and disasters, political memoirs. I do also sometimes feature SF, fantasy, mystery, crime, some YA/NA. I don't feature ever feature erotic, monster porn, manga, poetry or romance and very little contemporary.

What were some of your favorite reads from last year? 

I finally started reading the A Song of Ice & Fire novels and love them despite not being a huge fantasy fan. I also very much liked reading Allison Weir-Anne Boleyn, Michael Stephen Fuchs Arisen series, anything by Hunter Shea and Sonya Bateman, Rachel Caine's Morganville Vampires, Nicholas Sansbury Smith's Extinction series.

Three blogs you really love?

Oh dear, only three? I love so many! I follow so many!
Barb at Booker T's Farm is wonderful and led me to so many other bloggers that I love to connect with and I like her horror and dog related features

Carole is lovely and runs a great feature called Books From The Backlog.

Bark is very funny and I've known her online for many years now through bookcrossing. Love her humour and horror features.

And lastly, tell us a bit about yourself and your blog. 

I once did an Open University certificate in contemporary science with astronomy, geology, archaeology and other cool sounding stuff that made me sound smarter than I am! I love castles, cheese, relaxing by a lake or the sea, chocolate and Coronation Street. I have an entire family of Build-a-Bear monkeys that go on trips with me and I am a slightly agoraphobic, totally arachnophobic, technophobe couch potato. My blog is about things I enjoy and connecting with like minded people.