Guess who's back? Back again? (It's us doing Odds & Ends, not Eminem, I'm sorry to say.) It would be ridiculously pointless for us to try to share fun news and links from the entire time we've been on O & E hiatus so everything that follows will be from the past week.

The biggest news of the past week is that Barnes & Noble CEO, William Lynch, resigned. Commentators seem to feel that this is a result of the failure of the Nook Media strategy, which Lynch headed up. I love the prices over at Amazon as much as the next reader but we need competition and I truly hope that however Barnes & Noble restructures their company or strategies in the coming months is effective. I am still mourning the loss of Borders. Speaking of the rise of digital media, Apple was found guilty of ebook price fixing this week in that case that has been going on for months and months. All the publishers involved in the case settled earlier and the damages Apple will be assessed have not yet been determined, but all parties will be forbidden from using any agency pricing agreements for two years. An Apple spokesperson said they will be appealing the decision.

Lots of film news this week. That virginal hunk  in Outlander by Diana Gabaldon has been cast for the television series, which is set to air 16 episodes on Starz in 2014. Sam Heughan will be playing Jamie Fraser and Gabaldon seems to be happy with that casting. The role of Claire is still up in the air but we'll keep you updated when that news is finalized. What do you think of the Jamie casting choice? We're happy he's at least Scottish. Also exciting is the news that Pan's Labyrinth and The Devil's Backbone director Guillermo del Toro has commissioned Charlie Kaufman to write a screenplay to adapt the Kurt Vonnegut classic, Slaughterhouse-Five. By the way, if you haven't seen The Devil's Backbone and you like you be creeped out, go ahead and watch that movie alone in the dark and then come back and tell me if you kept your eyes open the whole time.  The Weinstein Company is making a film version of Lois Lowry's The Giver, with Jeff Bridges as the outgoing Receiver and the main character will be played by Aussie actor Brenton Thwaites. In other YA movie news, were you aware that they already made a movie of The Book Thief by Markus Zusak? I wasn't! It's coming out in November. Arguably this summer's biggest literary hit, Gone Girl, will be directed by David Fincher (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Se7en) and star Ben Affleck as Nick. Fun fact: We get several hits daily from people Googling "Did Nick kill Amy in Gone Girl?" And in lighter movie news, the first trailer for the rom-com Austenland, based on the novel of the same name by Shannon Hale, was released this week. Here it is:

It's this girl's opinion that it looks pretty cheesy but also fun and I really have no shame in admitting that I'll probably go see it. Will you? I think a lot of the demographic planning to see this movie will non-ironically enjoy this creepy Mr. Darcy statue that was erected in London's Hyde Park. Don't worry, it's glorious 12-feet of awkwardness will find a permanent home in Cheshire, where the movie was filmed. Let's all take a moment to realize that out there, somewhere in the world, someone got paid to go to work to make a huge molded Colin Firth. I wonder if he/she/they had brainstorming discussions about such heated topics as the length of his sideburns and just how low his v-neck peasant top should go. Speaking of hilarious jobs, Google has done all the muggles of the world a favor by adding Diagon Alley to its Street View. This next bit is absolutely unrelated to books, but did you know that if you zoom enough on Google Maps, you can see exactly which aisles are which at Home Depot?

All three of us Readventurers are newly fanatical about graphic novels so it makes us happy to report that comic and graphic novel sales are up 15% in the past year and remaining steady. This is so exciting because it will hopefully translate to more being published and a wider variety of stories. Amazon, of course, has jumped on the bandwagon by opening Jet City Comics, their own comics/graphic novel imprint, which will release comics from Neal Stephenson, George R.R. Martin, and Hugh Howey, among others. New to graphic novels but grew up in the 80s or 90s? Well, NBC Universal and Lion Forge Comics have teamed up to release graphic novel versions of several shows from that era--namely Saved by the Bell, Knight Rider, Punky Brewster, Miami Vice, and Airwolf--so that might be a good place to start. But seriously, if you need a recommendation for a graphic novel, just ask!  We've also read a huge number of short stories lately so we're excited to mention that the 2013 PEN Literary Awards shortlists were announced this week. I hope to get my hands on each of the nominated shorts:

A group called Geeks OUT is calling for people to boycott Ender's Game, which comes out on November 1st. The reasoning, it will come as no surprise to find out, is author Orson Scott Card's notorious and public anti-gay stance. Card issued a public statement on the matter, saying,

LOL, my sides. First, potential boycotters don't care whether the political issues are in the book or in the movie, they care whether millions of people will go consume a product whose profits will go into the pockets of a person who actively advocates against their civil rights. Secondly, very few issues are ever "moot," and I love the idea that OSC claims that all is said and done on the matter. Remember when every single Supreme Court decision was still 100% valid and never reinterpreted? Yeah, neither do I. But very well then, I guess we can take that to mean that spending even one dollar of his future earnings on any campaign, lobby, etc. that would try to overturn the ruling won't be happening since the issue is moot and doing so would be pointless. By the by, here is Lionsgate's public statement on the matter.

Here's a few extra notable links from the week:

• A New York school district sent home an error-riddled summer reading list.
• An Indian author was given a 1.7 million dollar advance in 1993. He’s being asked to give it back after not producing the book.
• A new Humble Bundle of ebooks was released! You can buy it here, and it includes works from authors including Lois McMaster Bujold, Cory Doctorow, and Peter S. Beagle, who did an AMA on Reddit to promote it. 
•  A rare collection of over 10,000 African American historical books, films, etc. was thrown out in Highland Park, Michigan.  The books were found and people are now protesting the school board.

Happy Spring (except for all of you in the Midwest, where apparently it’s still winter…guess that groundhog wasn’t kidding around)!  Here are the updates for last week, plus a few from the week before that we simply couldn’t leave behind!

A bunch of awards and best-of lists were announced, including:

• The Hugo Award nominees (winners to be announced this fall).

• The Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year nominees.

• The YALSA 2013 Teens Top Ten nominees.

• Oh, and hey – there’s actually a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction this year!
  

The ALA also released its 2013 State of America’s Libraries report, which has both hopeful and disheartening news and also includes a list of the most challenged books in 2012.  As the tough economic times encourage more and more people to turn to libraries, they also "encourage" more and more budget cuts for those much-needed libraries, which is unfortunate.  Check out this excellent infographic from CityTownInfo about American’s libraries, which illustrates the problem very well.  It always shocks me how many dedicated readers don’t take advantage of their libraries for print and digital books (as the infographic shows, only 31% of Americans are aware that they can get ebooks from libraries at all).  

There was some good news for New York Public Libraries this week – Simon & Schuster announced that for the first time they will allow digital copies of their books to be checked out and purchased from the NYPL system, on a one-year trial basis.  It remains to be seen whether S&S will expand its partnership to other libraries, or whether the idea of selling ebooks through libraries will be a successful one.  

In other very exciting library news, the Digital Public Library of America launched last week.

Many of you are already aware of this, but every year Sync offers free young adult audiobooks, paired thematically with classic audiobooks – two each week throughout the summer months.  This year’s selections were announced last week and there are a TON of great books coming up.  Check it out and sign up for your free audios!

There were a few interesting bits of news to come out of the London Book Fair last week, including this great keynote speech given by Neil Gaiman (summarized by Publisher’s Weekly).  I love it when smart people in the industry realize that we should embrace change instead of just running around shrieking about it in panic.  I also saw this little story (from The Guardian) about a very futuristic ebook which was debuted at the fair.  In a re-release of the classic mystery The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan, publisher Faber & Faber has reportedly created a “fully-immersive product” which includes:

In fun news:

• I know all of you were probably huddled around your smartphones as soon as the Catching Fire trailer was released last week, but here it is so you can watch it again (for the 9th time).

Happy Easter!

OR IS IT ACTUALLY THE END OF THE WORLD?!!!  That’s what some reading folk seemed to think this week after Amazon (aka, that megalomaniacal company that’s destroying everything we hold dear, except for our preeecccious Kindles) announced that it will purchase Goodreads.  After the initial announcement on Thursday, the internet was rife with opinion, mostly of the negative variety.  Shelf Awareness had a nice round up of some of the initial reactions.  Authors Guild President Scott Turow chimed in, calling the acquisition (paraphrased) yet another step in Amazon’s journey toward becoming an “internet monopoly.”  Library Thing founder Tim Spalding felt very optimistic about the new partnership…although not for either Goodreads or Amazon:

I tend to agree with Tim Spalding on this one.  Will publishers and booksellers really want to partner with Goodreads and pay for advertising on the site only to increase the revenue of their major online competitor?  It seems doubtful.  Indeed, I think Goodreads stands to lose any indie cachet it once had as a result of this partnership.

But can any other site match Goodreads for ease of use and that elusive social component (which I really haven’t seen done well anywhere else)?  Mediabistro lists 5 Alternatives To Goodreads, which may be possible contenders for the throne.  (And here’s a sixth one that I don’t know much about but have seen people mention…on Goodreads, haha.)  LibraryThing is offering a free one-year subscription to people thinking of defecting through the end of today. 

I think that this article, published last week at Forbes magazine hits the nail on the head: the current challenge for readers isn’t book discoverability; it’s the sheer, crazy number of books we all have access to at any given moment.  We are all able to easily discover thousands of books, but how do we decide what to read?  The one disagreement I have with the article relates to this passage:

That, I think, is where Goodreads excels.  Goodreads provides an environment in which you essentially can find reviewers who have the same taste as you.  It remains to be seen whether any other sites can capture that same success.

There was one small positive step for libraries last week, as Penguin announced that it will now allow libraries access to all Penguin ebook titles as they are released.  Previously, libraries were forced to wait six months following the print release to have access to Penguin ebooks.  The article linked above (from American Libraries Magazine) also predicts more changes in the future as the Penguin/Random House merger goes through.

The California Department of Education drew criticism this week when it published a revised edition of its recommended reading list for grades K-12, including several books that feature LGBTQ themes and issues.  It is worth noting that the California Dept. of Ed has included at least some books with similar themes FOR THE PAST TEN YEARS and also that none of these books are required reading for any child – they are simply recommended.  And yet, we still get comments like this one (from radio personality Sandy Rios):

Ugh.

In brief:

• Marjane Satrapi responds to the recent hubbub surrounding The Chicago School Board's removal of her book Persepolis from the seventh grade curriculum in this recorded interview.
• Apparently Jane Goodall's new book has even more error and plagiarism than originally thought.  Publication has been indefinitely postponed.
• Fifteen year old human rights activist Malala Yousafzai will publish a memoir, after being shot in the face last year and going through a long recovery in England.
• Flavorwire has a great photo gallery of famous authors as teenagers (helloooo Hemingway).
• And finally, a funny point/counterpoint: first check out this list of authors who actually liked the film adaptations of their books, from The Atlantic and then watch the HILARIOUS video below from Axis of Awesome.  (They capture the rage I feel for film adaptations so well....)

Last week we reported on the Chicago school system’s attempt to ban Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis from the middle school curriculum.  This week there were a few updates to the ongoing scandal.  Publisher’s Weekly has a nice round-up of some of the protests that occurred after the attempted ban (including one library sit-in which had to be relocated outside because the doors were locked).  It’s awesome to see the pictures of passionate young people gathering to read the book or protest the ban.  The round-up also includes reports of a nice spike in sales for the book.  

The Chicago Board of Education responded to protestors in writing, defending its right to limit access to Persepolis for students.  However, no matter what ultimately happens in the Chicago school system, it seems like this attempted banning has backfired quite nicely.  

We’ve also reported a few times on the growing possibility that ebooks, mp3s, and other digital files may have a second life in “used” sales, with digital file retail giants Apple and Amazon both looking to get in on the game.  A Supreme Court decision published last week may provide future support for this idea.  The Supreme Court case centered around a Thai student who came to the U.S. to attend college.  When he noticed that many U.S. textbooks were available in Thai book shops for much less, he asked his family and friends in Thailand to buy them and ship them overseas, where he then sold them for a very nice profit.  The publisher (John Wiley & Sons) sued for copyright infringement and initially won.  However, the Supreme Court ultimately decided in favor of the student, citing (in part) the doctrine of “first sale” in its decision.  NPR has a great article about first sale and how the decision could impact the legality of digital file resale.  They write, in part:

Publisher’s Weekly also chimed in to discuss some of the implications of this decision in the publishing world.

Jane Goodall faced some intense scrutiny and censure this week when it was revealed that her latest book borrowed heavily from a whole slew of internet sources, without citing any of them.  Apparently the bulk of the plagiarism occurred in the more instructive passages about plants/plant biology, in which Jane Goodall admits she’s not an expert.  Read more (and see some of the borrowed sections) over at The Washington Post.   

I really enjoyed this article about the evolution of the bodice ripper over at The Atlantic.  The article examines many of the more positive trends explored in the modern day romance novel but also acknowledges that many modern day romances still contain what I would consider troubling, antiquated themes.  Still, I agree with author Jessica Luther when she writes:

I may personally be troubled by the fact that so many women seem to be drawn to abusive, controlling men but as the article points out, the domineering man archetype is just a fantasy.  I think any medium which isn’t trying to convince women that their fantasies are shameful is probably a good thing.  So live on, romance novel!

And now for the fun news!

• Publisher’s Weekly’s Rights Report had some interesting news last week: a new middle grade fantasy trilogy for Anne Ursu (author of Breadcrumbs) and Trish Doller fans will be excited to learn that she will have a third book published in the fall of 2014.  Where The Stars Still Shine will reportedly be about “…a small-town Florida girl who impulsively agrees to join a pair of boys on a road trip that goes tragically wrong.”  

• Some casting decisions were revealed last week for the upcoming film adaptations of Divergent and The Fault In Our Stars – and apparently these films will both feature the same young woman in their starring roles!  Shailene Woodley had already been cast in the lead for Divergent, but it was announced last week that she will play John Green’s Hazel Grace as well. (She also appeared in the film version of The Spectacular Now, which I still really want to see.)

• The Atlantic Wire has an interview with Gayle Forman about her character development techniques.

• Flannery’s BFF Maureen led us to this tumblr which features film posters and other imagery inspired by Infinite Jest (yes, we’re still reading it!).

• Jimmy Fallon rounds up some books that you should probably avoid, unless you’re into creepy dolls or masturbation as a professional tool.

• And finally, does anyone else find this nerdily interesting?  A group of researchers performed a statistical analysis of the frequencies in the usage of “mood words” in both American and British English over the past century.  Apparently, American usage of “mood words” has increased while British usage has decreased – but what does this mean?  Are we Americans more emotional as a society?  Or are we actually less so?  There are no definitive answers of course, but the authors’ theories are interesting nonetheless.  Check out the paper!

Happy St. Patricks Day! 

There was some scary book news this week, or at least very disappointing news. A memo was dispersed to Chicago Public Schools asking teachers to remove all copies of Marjane Satrapi's award-winning graphic novel about the Iranian revolution, Persepolis, from classrooms and libraries. At first, CPS administrators had no comment, but after the memo went viral and groups like the ACLU got involved, they issued a letter backpedaling to say that it was misinterpreted and "all schools" was meant as only seventh grade classrooms. This article does a great roundup of the timeline. My favorite bit is when the teachers union responded with a statement about hoping the school system isn't going back in time to the 1950s. Right on. Equally scary yet absurdly hilarious is the fact that voucher schools in Louisiana are using textbooks that say, and I am not kidding, that hippies did not bathe and worshiped satan, that the KKK did great community service, and that dragons are real. Voucher schools were declared unconstitutional in December 2012 but are still functioning because the issue is up on appeal. 

Google announced this week that several of its features would be shutting down in the next few months, including Google Reader. If, like me, you have been reading some or all your blogs in Reader, there have been many posts all over the web, from tech blogs to reddit on how to find the best replacement, however, I tend to think that we should wait until July gets closer because there might be an even better alternative by then. At the very least, we can get opinions from people who have been using alternatives for months. In any case, everyone should take the time to back up their Google data. You can use their Takeout service to backup everything from your contacts to your drive files and it saves as a .zip file. After doing it for your Reader files, you'll be able to import all your subscriptions to another service. 

Some of our favorite Aussie book bloggers (Reynje from Wordchasing, Trinity from Trin in the Wind, and Mandee from Vegan YA Nerds) have joined forces to create a podcasting superteam called The Ladies of YA. They recorded and published Episode One this week and you can listen to it here or visit/follow their blog or Twitter for regular updates on forthcoming episodes. Podcasting seems to be de rigueur these days  but you'll hear no complaints from us as two more of our favorite blogs have started podcasting as well. You can listen to the first podcast from Sarah & Laura at Clear Eyes, Full Shelves here. They covered all sorts of issues but primarily talked about diversity in YA and particularly the portrayal of Asian characters. Maggie and Noelle over at YA Anonymous are old hat at podcasting (read: they've made a whopping TWO instead of one so far) but we look forward to more from them as well. Go forth and listen!

A few of our favorite authors spoke on various subjects this week: Sara Zarr talked about her upcoming book, The Lucy Variations, including the challenge of moving to a third-person narrative. (which, spoiler alert, was actually one of the reasons all three of us did not love it as much as Zarr's other work) Stacia Kane, author of the Downside Ghosts series, reposted a story from years ago about embarrassing herself when she was first starting out and met an "author" and reminded readers why writers love to hear from them. And Katherine Paterson, author of Bridge to Terabithia and Jacob Have I Loved sounded off on NPR after being awarded the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for her contribution to children's literature. 

Entertainment Weekly posted the cover for David Levithan's August release, Two Boys Kissing. Certainly this is groundbreaking in traditionally published YA and we're excited to see it, despite David Levithan's work not being our favorite. There is an accompanying interview at EW where Levithan discusses the cover process, the wo-year anniversary of his earlier Boy Meets Boy, and how his upcoming book is for a new generation. Speaking of upcoming books, Mindy Kaling announced this week that along with her show being renewed for another season, she will be writing a foll0w-up to her Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (Catie's review) 

We missed a cover reveal of interest (to us:)) last week -- that of Leila Sales' September release, This Song Will Save Your Life. All three of us read and enjoyed her 2011 release, Past Perfect and I was excited to hear that we have more to read from her in the near future. MTV did the cover reveal and there is a soundtrack to accompany the book included in the news piece. The aforementioned Aussie bloggers read and LOVED Simmone Howell's third book, Girl Defective recently so we were ecstatic to see that US publisher Atheneum picked the book up for release in the States. Jill Grinberg of the Jill Grinberg Agency sold the rights and the book is described as, "A teen noir High Fidelity, and features 15-year-old Sky Martin, her older, wilder best friend Nancy, and Sky's kid brother "Super Agent" Gully, who go to the dark heart of their Coney Island-esque suburb via teenage raves, violent fangirls, and strange, true love." Sadly, it is likely to be a 2014 release in the US so a lot of us will likely be purchasing this book from international booksellers or swapping with Aussie buds of ours. I, for one, can't wait a whole year. 

In movie news, a Kickstarter was started to fund a potential Veronica Mars movie and the goal of 2 million dollars was reached (and exceeded!) in about twelve hours. (As of early Sunday morning, the total was over $3.5 million) We're excited to see where the project goes from here, as clearly there is more interest than they anticipated. The success of the fundraising spurned a discussion about the interconnectedness of content creators, artists, actors, etc. and the consumers of their work. GalleyCat had a great piece on what's currently going on, innovation-wise and what we might see in the future. And in a very timely move, Simon & Schuster will be rereleasing Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas' YA book Rats Saw God. Another movie we're glad to see moving forward is an adaptation of Laini Taylor's amazing Daughter of Smoke & Bone, slated to be written by Stuart Beattie, who, among other projects, wrote and directed the adaptation of John Marsden's YA hit Tomorrow, When the War Began. 

More Bookish News: 

• The Random House Hydra imprint vs. SFWA feud over contract terms, which we covered in last week's O & E, is still ongoing. Publisher's Weekly reported on further developments and then on Random House changing its contract terms. 
• Fan of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries? Well perhaps you'll like this YouTube adaptation of Game of Thrones, reimagined as taking place in a  high school. Spoiler: You might recognize a familiar face or two from LBD in the cast. 
• Literary nonprofit First Book will be awarding $500,000 to Lee & Low and HarperCollins to print more multicultural books for children. 

There is quite a bit of bookish news this week so let's get going. John Scalzi reported on the "appallingly bad contract terms" of Random House's SFF imprint Hydra. Because the imprint did not allow for advances, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer's of America (SFWA) announced that the imprints "do not meet minimum standards for a qualifying market" for membership. A spokesperson for the imprint issued a response in Publisher's Weekly stating that they had never been contacted to make a statement but that they were willing to discuss the business model.

We've mentioned in a prior Odds & Ends post that DC Comics had hired the vehemently anti-gay author Orson Scott Card to write an issue of Superman and how much backlash the comics giant had received as a result. This week, Chris Sprouse, the artist who was slated to do the illustrations for the installment, dropped out of the project, saying that the negativity surrounding the project has overshadowed it. There is still a lot of speculation about how much visibility Card will have (or not have) when the movie based on his hugely popular YA sci-fi novel, Ender's Game, comes out in a few months. In other bookish movie news, Jezebel published a piece this week about how the new Oz movie is a huge step back for women and a total departure from Baum's work. (the article was originally published by Elisabeth Rappe at Film.com)

Over the weekend, we saw something on Twitter about author Juliet Marillier writing a controversial post for Writer Unboxed but when we went to the site, the post had been taken down and the site had posted a notice of doing so. Our curiosity won out on this one, so we looked around a bit and found a screenshot of the post on Goodreads. Before we tell you what the post was about, a word of warning: DO NOT read it if you don't want your love of Juliet Marillier to be tarnished. Basically, a new fan wrote to the author telling her how much she loved Shadowfell, how it led to her purchasing a ton of Marillier's other work, and how excited she is for the next Shadowfell book and couldn't Marillier just write faster?! From an outsider's standpoint, we would think that an author would be ecstatic: she has a new reader, one who loves her work, one who bought several of her books and loves her work so much that she took the time to write a letter about how she can't wait for more. The ultimate do-not-do-this would be to post the complete email and then rip it apart, telling the reader that she has no manners and that it was rude to tell her to write faster, and then go on to talk about questions you hate to be asked. As an author, your books will find their way to new readers and those people will probably have questions they would love to have answered. Is it sometimes obnoxious that people don't google their way to the answers that may be already on the net? Of course, but that definitely doesn't mean you should publicly chastise your readership. Very disappointing .

The Association of American Publishers filed a complaint with the internet site naming overlords (otherwise known as ICANN) about Amazon potentially having exclusive control over .book domain names. They believe that it goes against the public interest. Either way, it is kind of fun to imagine how those types of domain names could be utilized. In other Amazon-related news, Apple  announced this week that they, too,  are looking into patenting a used digital file marketplace. (Amazon did so in February)

I literally laugh out loud whenever people get into online fights about the use of the word 'literally', and this week was literally one of the best weeks ever for this never-ending discussion, as Slate published a post about the different definitions of 'literally', including one from the Oxford English Dictionary that covers the common usage that people get angry about, and how several famous authors have used the word in ways that might cause purists to cringe.

On a more serious note, VIDA: Women in Literary Arts released a report this week about the disparity between the numbers of men and women reviewing books for major publications. GalleyCat wrote a short news piece on several points but the entire report can be found here, as well as compiled information for three years. I found the graphs in that last link the quickest way to digest the information and see what outlets are the worst offenders.


Other fun newsy bits from the week:

•  The trailer for Joss Whedon's version of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing came out. I watch the Branagh/Thompson 1990s version quite a bit so I'm excited to see Whedon's version.
  
• One of the ghostwriters from the Sweet Valley High series talks about how working on those books affected her life, career, and identity.
• Debut YA author Alaya Dawn Johnson did a podcast with Publisher's Weekly about the influences behind the futuristic Brazil setting for her book, The Summer Prince, which was released on March 1st.
  
• GalleyCat published a post entitled "Blind Date with a Free Ebook," which played off the recent "blind date with a book" trend, but in a way that meant we could get instant gratification and not leave our house. Everyone loves that! 
• The Atlantic posted a gallery of self portraits by famous authors. Some of them remind me of elementary school art projects and others remind me that some people are amazingly multi-talented.
  
• The cover was revealed for A.S. King's upcoming book, Reality Boy.
  

I am just making it in the 11th hour this weekend – sorry for the delay! 

I’ll jump right in with the latest in sweeping generalizations about young adult literature, this time in the shape of an outcry about anti-feminism.  In an article for the New Statesman, writer T.I. Burton calls upon her “insider’s perspective” of ghostwriting YA romances to label the entire YA genre (and more specifically, the entire YA romance genre) anti-feminist, saying in part that YA romances encourage girls to see the entirety of their self-worth as something earned by “romantic desirability.” 

It’s not like I don’t agree with her, in part, about some YA romances.  The key word there being: SOME.  Just as in every single other genre, young adult has its examples of books featuring unhealthy relationships.  However, I think it is incredibly short-sighted to condemn an entire genre based on some of the books within that genre.  And I think it’s also incredibly far-reaching to assume that these fictional relationships will encourage any behavior in young girls.  As a scientist, I say: where’s the data?  I read a lot of crap as a teenager.  I’ve read a lot of crap as an adult.  And yet, I’ve somehow avoided letting these books inform my entire personality.  How did I do that?! 

My guess is that this author has not spent a lot of time exploring the young adult genre, and so is not aware of the huge number of great books that are out there – a guess which is supported by her labeling of New Adult as “YA’s more explicit cousin” at the end of the article.  Sigh.

John Green responds to this kind of article much better than I ever could this week in an interview with The Guardian.  In response to yet another article that made sweeping generalizations about YA and its possible negative effects on teenagers, he said:

“The thing that bothered me about it… was that it was a bit condescending to teenagers. I'm tired of adults telling teenagers that they aren't smart, that they can't read critically, that they aren't thoughtful, and I feel like that article made those arguments."

Indeed, John Green.  Indeed.

Salon had a very interesting article last week about DRM and the potential changes that could result from the suit brought against Amazon and the big six publishers last week.  However, author Cory Doctorow pointed out that the indie publishers who brought the suit actually confused the terms “open source” and “DRM-free,” saying in part, “Grossly misusing technical terms (and demanding a remedy that no customer wants -- there's no market for DRM among book-buyers) makes you look like fools and bodes poorly for the suit.”

The Wall Street Journal reported last week on a new book marketing practice: buying a spot on the best-seller lists.  Apparently, some authors are now hiring marketing firms to buy up large numbers of their books during the first week of publication, resulting in a very temporary spot on a best-seller list.  Personally, I think that with the rise in widespread communication between readers, customer reviews, and self-publishing, that the best-seller lists are slated to become more and more irrelevant.  Perhaps this practice will accelerate that eventual decline?

I stumbled across this older article last week, but I wanted to share it because I think it’s great advice: 7 Signs You Are Ready To Self-Publish (A Checklist).  Anyone contemplating self-publishing a novel should read this list.

Our friend Reynje wrote a lovely post about likability, and whether or not it’s important.

In fun news:

• Remember when I posted about Frances Hardinge (again) last week?  Well, you can read the first chapter for free over at The Guardian.

• The cover for Isla And The Happily Ever After was revealed, along with new matching covers for her sister novels.
  

Last week, I briefly referenced this article from ABC news (“Emerging ‘New Adult’ Genre Puts Smut Fiction on Bestseller Lists”), to support the idea that reader demand was already having an impact on publishing.  I expressed some skepticism about whether New Adult could be classified strictly as “smut fiction,” but didn’t delve too far into arguing the point.  Welp, this week the outrage hit the fan in a major way (and understandably so).  Storify has a round-up of some of the responses to this piece.  While I agree that it is troubling that ABC News would lump all New Adult fiction into one “scandalous” (and no doubt, ratings-boosting) category, a huge part of me wants to say, WHAT OF IT, ABC??!  The ominously threatening opening to their video segment, “Racy reads with sexual themes are finding a PASSIONATE fan base with young girls all across the country”, read in a tone that says “WE SHOULD ALL BE FRIGHTENED AND ASHAMED” is what really upsets me about the whole piece.  If we’re going to get angry about this, let’s get angry that the slut-shaming of young adult women still sells.  And then after that’s passed, we can of course sit back and laugh openly at ABC News’ obvious and total ignorance of the New Adult genre.

This week was full of outrage, it seems.  Flavorwire had a fantastic round-up of support for libraries from authors throughout history, in response to British children’s author Terry Deary’s crankypants view on libraries (from The Guardian):

“Because it's been 150 years, we've got this idea that we've got an entitlement to read books for free, at the expense of authors, publishers and council tax payers. This is not the Victorian age, when we wanted to allow the impoverished access to literature. We pay for compulsory schooling to do that.”

Yes, because of course every single person in society has access to a school library.

NPR’s book blog also had a wonderful round-up of LGBT characters in graphic novels, written partly in response to the announcement that DC Comics has hired noted gay rights opponent Orson Scott “I find the comparison between civil rights based on race and supposed new rights being granted for what amounts to deviant behavior to be really kind of ridiculous” Card to write a series of Superman comics.  DC Comics also announced that Batwoman will be getting hitched to her long-time girlfriend Maggie Sawyer soon. 

And in a last bit of outrage (my own, this time), I’d like to invite some public ridicule of this piece over at (where else?) Fox News: Four Things Jane Austen Teaches Us About Love.  The only thing that cools my anger over this piece is imagining Elizabeth Bennet emerging from the pages of P&P to verbally dress down the author.  Because obviously, if there’s one thing we all learned from P&P, it’s that playing hard to get, flattering a man’s ego, and being overly virtuous are all excellent ways to procure a husband.  Bahahaha.

Three independent bookstores have joined to bring a class-action lawsuit against Amazon and the big six publishers, alleging that their use of DRM on ebooks has created a monopoly for Amazon.

The Digital Reader also reported that new book recommendation site Bookish may be more “marketing tool” and less reader community.

And to end with our weekly wrap-up of the more fun news (pretty scant this week!):

• The cover for Just One Year by Gayle Forman was revealed. USA Today also posted a short excerpt. 

• Both the Nebula Awards and Audies nominees were announced.  Galleycat has a great round up of some free samples (and in some cases, free complete versions) of the Nebula nominees.  The Readventurer will once again be participating in the Armchair Audies.  This year we’ll be listening to and evaluating the nominees for best solo narration – female.

• Stacia Kane had some new info and a snippet from her upcoming novella (told from Terrible’s point of view).
• As part of Blackberry's Keep Moving campaign, Neil Gaiman wrote twelve short stories based on Twitter prompts from his friends and followers, one for each month. You can download and read the entire Calendar of Tales (PDF alert) or you can wait to purchase the calendar that will match the stories with original artwork. 
  

• And over at The Onion, they had this heartwarming and realistic tale of publishing success.

That's it for us this week!  Stop by and tell us what we missed!

Last week’s Tools Of Change conference brought a whole heap of news about the future of the publishing industry, with most of it centering around (no surprise) the rise of ebooks and self-publishing.  It’s refreshing to read about the optimistic approach to the future that this conference apparently embraced.  I really liked this article from Publisher’s Weekly, which recapped a key note speech given by Tools Of Change founder Tim O’Reilly, and this article from Huffington Post, which was written by Smashwords founder Mark Coker.  Mr. Coker writes in response to the news that Apple’s ibookstore will now feature a whole section for self-published books and highlights some of the reasons why more and more authors are choosing to self-publish.  Granted, as the founder of one of the major distributors of self-published works, he has a bit of a stake in this whole thing.  I still found his article to be pretty well-reasoned.  In particular, this passage really resonated with some thoughts I’ve had before:

“Readers are the new curators. Readers -- not publishers -- have always been the ultimate arbiters of what's worth reading, and reader word-of-mouth drives book sales. In the old world of publishing, publishers and retailers could only guess what readers wanted to read. Today, each time a reader downloads, purchases or reviews an ebook, this data becomes an expression of reader sentiment that ebook merchandisers can mine to identify books worthy of extra promotion. I predict the long-admired gatekeeping function played by publishers will eventually be viewed as detrimental to the future of the written word.”

I think we’ve already seen this happening.  This week The Telegraph had (yet another) article about the rising popularity of young adult books with more sex.  In the article, they seem to lump all of this in with the growing “new adult” genre, and theorize that much of this trend has to do with adult readers clamoring for young adult reads.  Whether or not this is true, I think this trend can mostly be attributed to reader demand, and the fact that the most popular releases in this genre have mostly (or all) been self-published (at least at first) is very interesting to note.

Certainly the landscape of publishing and book-selling is changing dramatically, and will continue to change.  Last week, we reported on Amazon’s recent acquisition of a patent to resell digital media, like audiobooks and ebooks.  I jokingly wondered if this would be the future of the used book store.  Well, it turns out that this topic is apparently more serious than I thought.  Reporting on a discussion of “First Sale” rights that occurred at the Tools Of Change conference, Publisher’s Weekly summarized presenter Bill Rosenblatt’s opinion on the ramifications of whether digital files will legally resold or not:

“If digital resale becomes a reality, Rosenblatt said, the big winners will likely be consumers, used content retailers and libraries—in fact, he said, unless the law allows digital resale, libraries will be ‘eliminated’”

(So I guess it’s not all optimism then…at least for libraries.)  Barnes and Noble also reported lower than expected revenue from their Nook division this week, sparking more pessimism in the bookseller’s market.  Harper Collins CEO Victoria Barnsley went so far as to say that in the future, charging patrons to browse books at brick and mortar stores wouldn’t be “that insane.”  Um, I’m going to have to go ahead and disagree with you there, Ms. Barnsley.  That, in fact, would be insane.  If booksellers want to still be relevant then they have to embrace the new landscape and adapt.  I don’t think that nickel and diming their customers is a great way to generate more revenue.  On the other hand, I have approximately zero expertise in book-selling so what do I know?

Goodreads made the news again, with The New York Times reporting on the growing popularity of the site.

And now for some fun news: 

Here’s the cover of the first of the brand new editions of the Harry Potter series that will be released this fall (just in case you’ve been living under a rock).

For all the Maggie fans – this week she blogged about the title and the cover (!!) of her upcoming sequel to The Raven Boys.

Melina Marchetta announced that she is writing another Lady Celie mystery and that it will probably be from Banyon’s point of view (eeeeeeeeeeee!).

Little, Brown books for young readers will be bringing Fiona Wood’s Six Impossible Things to the U.S. They’ve also acquired the rights for her book Wildlife (coming in 2014) and another untitled work.

Heidi over at Bunbury in the Stacks has an interview with Marcus Sedgwick and a giveaway for his latest release, Midwinterblood.  I know that Tatiana really enjoyed it and I’ll be reading it soon!

The winners of the 2012 Cybils Awards were announced!  Flannery worked long and hard in the YA sci-fi/fantasy category and we’re very excited that Seraphina took home the top prize.  (As an aside: how awesome is this outfit inspired by Seraphina?  I only wish medieval-looking leather utility vests were appropriate for PTA meetings.)

And finally, I just want to chime in with the rest of the internet right now and say that our president is awesome.  I won’t forget it.

Idaho State Senator John Goedde stirred up some righteous indignation last week, when he sponsored a bill that would make Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged required reading in Idaho’s high schools – going so far as to require that students pass a test on the book as a graduation requirement.  He stirred the pot a little more by saying “That book made my son a Republican” when asked why he chose it.  I personally find this whole scenario (both the bill itself and the righteous indignation) to be pretty silly.  I think high school children should have open, free access to any book they wish to read (including Ayn Rand).  I don’t believe that the required reading of Atlas Shrugged is likely to “turn” anyone Republican (perhaps the fact that the Senator’s son grew up in a predominantly Republican household had some measure in forming his political beliefs…?  Ya think?).  Nor do I think that any required high school reading is likely to brainwash school age children toward one set of beliefs or another.  I really enjoyed this response from The Daily Beast, in which author Michael Moynihan states in part: “If Goedde’s bill was serious and in danger of passing, it would have exactly the opposite of its intended effect. By mandating her books be studied in school, it’s likely that Rand’s influence on the young would be immeasurably lessened forever.”  Haha, indeed.  Maybe this bill is a good idea after all?

Amazon continues its bid to take over the world (although, not China apparently) by announcing the upcoming launch of its own currency last week.  “Amazon Coins” will essentially have the same value as U.S. currency so I’m not exactly sure what the point of it all is.  *Downloads another song with seemingly limitless fake money.*

Amazon also filed a patent at the end of January that will allow the company to “resell” digital files like audiobooks and ebooks.  So for example, a user could potentially transfer the digital rights to a song or a kindle book to another user for a “used” price.  Could this be the future of used book stores?

This week in fabulous soap box blogging, Kelly from Stacked writes in defense of introvert learning styles (see the comments for additional discussion) and Sarah from Clear Eyes, Full Shelves writes about the “right” way to read a book (spoiler: there isn’t a right way).

NPR Books had a series of great articles about the state of the publishing industry right now – and (surprise!!) – not everyone thinks it’s all doom and gloom.  I know that I personally get very tired of the “sky is falling,” “publishing is DEAD!!” posts so I really enjoyed their more well-rounded point of view.  Also, for all the Little House fans, check out this interesting/nerdy NPR article about why Laura’s sister Mary likely did not lose her sight to scarlet fever.

New shelving/book recommendation site Bookish launched last week.  So far, it seems a lot less user-driven than Goodreads, but it could be a potential competitor down the road.

In entertainment news, Emma Roberts will play the lead role in a television adaptation of Lauren Oliver’s Delirium for Fox.  No word yet on whether writer Karyn Usher will be able to translate the premise of the book into something that actually makes sense.  There were also some very exciting casting announcements for the upcoming film version of The Book Thief. 

And of course, the biggest news of the week: Washington D.C. and Seattle once again kick butt and take the top spots for “most literate city.”  Woohoo!  Suck on it, rest of the U.S.!

Stop by and let us know what we missed from your corners of the web!