They like me...

...they really like me. Or at least one person does.

Susan, from Bloggin' 'bout Books, awarded me with the Brilliante Weblog Award. It's my first award, and I am pretty excited about it. Especially since Susan's blog is one of my favorite book blogs.

Here are the rules for the award (as copied and pasted from Susan's site):

Recipients are supposed to give the award to 5 of their favorite blogs - as far as I can tell, they can be any kind of blogs. Leave a comment on the blog letting the author know they have received the award and encourage* them to pass it on.

Here are five of my favorite blogs, though not in any order:

Maw Books - Natasha reviews a pretty wide range of books, and I've found that I agree with her most of the time. She also has a gigantic contest happening right now in an attempt to help raise money and awareness for the people of Darfur; you can read more about it here.

ChainReader - Chain Reader also reads a pretty wide range of books. She tends to read a lot more classics that I do (she's so brave), and I love reading her reviews; she's particularly good at 4 word reviews. Oh, and she thinks Cornelia Funke might be becoming one of her favorite authors, which shows her good taste in books :)

Good Clean Reads - Kim not only reviews books, but she rates their content for sex, violence and profanity. Even though I don't necessarily agree with all of her ratings, it's nice going in to a book with an idea of how much sex and profanity to expect (for some reason violence doesn't turn me off to the same extent as the other two - possibly because I really don't read many books with real violence).

And, to add a little variety to my book blogging life:

A Year of Crockpotting - This is one of my favorite cooking blogs. Stephanie's goal for the year is to use her crockpot for one meal/treat/something everyday. We've tried several of the recipes to varying degrees of success (I loved the baked potatoes). Today's recipe for a Brownie in Mug sounds fabulous.

Everyday Food Storage - I found this one after my kind-hearted father gave me six #10 cans of wheat for my birthday. We don't own a wheat grinder, so I was searching for recipes that would help make the wheat more useful than a space occupier. There are lots of great tips for various food storage stuffs, including two for wheat that don't use a grinder.

*I don't really like forwards, and I feel like the rule requiring the award to be passed on makes it kind of like a forward, so if any of the winners don't want to pass it on, it won't hurt my feelings.