Authors - To Stalk or not to Stalk?

I had the opportunity to talk to a fellow blogger recently about blogging in general, and one of the topics we chatted about was whether or not to contact authors when we post reviews of their books. My friend e-mails the author and says "hey, just wanted to let you know I liked your book and here's my review", or just "I like your work".

I have to be honest with you - I didn't think we could do that. I mean, yes, of course I know you can do it, but I always saw it as "bothering" the authors; I didn't think they wanted to be disturbed by fans. I guess my thought is that they're in the public eye and therefore are bombarded with ridiculous requests and communication, and get so much mail that they don't have time to write, which is what they'd really like to be doing. I recently saw a note from an author that said "Readers, please keep the e-mails coming, I appreciate each one" and that really surprised me (in a good way).

So now I'm conflicted. Currently, if I write a review, I post it here and Goodreads and that's it. I don't @ the author on twitter and I don't e-mail them my review. I've seen so many say "I don't read reviews of my work" so I suppose I figured it was pointless. If I'm being perfectly honest (and totally nerdy), I get very nervous when I do contact an author for whatever reason. I recently sent a favorite author a request to sign my copy of her book. It took me months to psych myself into doing it, and I started the e-mail with "Please feel free to say no without feeling guilty, I'll totally understand if you can't..." <---I've done this about 3 times and I'm still freaking nervous every time :)

I started this blog because I love to read romance and I wanted to communicate with other like-minded readers - I never in a million years thought I'd have the opportunity to interact with authors as well; it just blows my mind.

Am I wrong about all of this? Should I be sending authors my favorable reviews of their work? Do they want e-mails from fans or is it a distraction? What are your experiences?