The “science” behind picking your favorite authors:

Earlier today I posted on my review blog a list of my top ahem ~~ten~~ favorite authors.

Yes, these are only two of our bookcases… We have bookcases in EVERY room of our apartment – well except the bathroom… (really – I promise)

It was NOT easy – let me tell you.

Mum started it – and now she’s having WAY TOO MUCH fun with her own – putting each list in a separate post, coming up with lists of her top ten books in the Quilts of Love series, Love Inspired, etc…

But I thought I’d go a different way with my second post on this subject…

So, how does one pick their favorite authors?

Well, if you’re anything like me, you go through your bookshelves, your TBR pile, your review history and then your categories section on your blog writer page.

Then you grab some chocolate because you know you’re going to need it to console yourself when someone whose books you’ve read and loved and hoarded – does not, in fact, make the list.

Finally you start listing… and listing… and listing… until you get to a number so insane, you can’t even bear to say it out loud. You just sit there, staring at your computer screen with your mouth open in a little “O” of surprise and try to figure out when you’ve ever had time to read THAT MANY BOOKS.

And if you have no idea what I’m talking about – feel free to click off the page right now because… you’re not really a READER.

OK… for those of you still with us, once you get over the shock of that crazy number, you realize, no matter how much you’d love to leave every… single… name… on it, you simply can’t post a list that long – or it might defeat the purpose (just a little).

So you get down to the hard part. You pull out the names of authors whose books you haven’t read in the last year – and then you put back the authors who introduced you to the genre because they HAVE TO BE THERE.

Then you pull out the names of the authors who you’ve only read one book by – and then you put back the NEW authors who only have one book out so far…

Then you pull out the names of authors who you’ve read, and you love but you wouldn’t pack them for a trip, you don’t have any of their books on kindle and you don’t choose their books when you grab one to take with you when you leave the house.

And then you cry when you realize you’ve only removed ten names.

Next come the five stages of choosing your favorite authors:

DENIAL – this is where you tell yourself you CAN have 100 different favorite authors
BARGAINING – this is where you argue with yourself every time you remove a name
BEGGING – this is where you cry and plead with yourself to leave those ten more names you finally managed to remove
ANGER – this is where you walk away from the computer, deciding you don’t really want to do this anyway because it’s stupid.
ACCEPTANCE – this is when you really get serious and figure – if every other reader out there can do it – you can too!

Now comes the hard part.

You have to actually pare down the list.

And then you have to pare down that list…

And, if you’re me – you then have to separate that list into genres… and then convince yourself that you can get away with having twelve favorite authors instead of ten in each genre.

And then you write your post, moving authors up and down each list until your mom finally gets fed up with you changing your mind and tells you to get over it already and publish the silly thing.

So you do… hoping your favorite authors who are also friends don’t hire out someone to come steal all their books from your bookcases – so you can’t read them anymore.

And then you defend your list.

And then you write a post about how agonizing the entire experience was for you and how you will just be scarred for life.

…

And then you realize nobody but you… really cares anyway.

And then you console yourself by looking at the lists of what is coming soon – so you can add new authors to your list… next year!

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