Aaaaand we’re back! We didn’t necessarily intend to take such a long break, but with stressful life events happening for all of us (including the welcoming of the newest little Readventurer), it’s been quite a while since we did an Odds & Ends post.
Conveniently, it looks like we’ve returned just in time to wrap up a ton of major awards! The Newbery, Caldecott, and Printz awards were all announced last week, going to The One And Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate, This is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen, and In Darkness by Nick Lake, respectively. Numerous other awards and honors were awarded as well. Publisher’s Weekly has a great review of the major awards given to children’s and young adult literature here. (I was personally very excited to see one of my favorites, Aristotle And Dante Discover The Secrets of The Universe, win a few awards.) Another of our favorites from 2012, Seraphina by Rachel Hartman, was given the William C. Morris Award last week! Congratulations, Rachel!
YALSA’s 2013 Best Fiction For Young Adults and The Rainbow Book List were also published. And remember when Flannery spent months tirelessly reading young adult sci-fi and fantasy for the Cybils awards? No? Well, she does. The Cybils shortlists were announced earlier this month and the awards will be presented in February.
There was also a lot of talk last week in the book blogger world about plagiarism, with several bloggers reporting personal incidents of being plagiarized and how they dealt with it. We really appreciated Sarah’s very professional and informed advice over at Clear Eyes, Full Shelves.
In book-related movie news, the film version of The Spectacular Now premiered last week at Sundance. (Ha! I almost wrote “debuted.” I fail as a movie blogger.) It also looks like the film version of The Fault in Our Stars may be coming to the big screen sooner than expected. Yesterday, the casting was announced for Rose, Lissa, and Dimitri in Blood Sisters, the movie based on the Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead. Mark Waters (of Mean Girls fame) is on board to direct.
We were very excited to read that Amy Poehler will be publishing an “unconventional memoir” next year, which apparently will be “an illustrated, non-linear diary full of humor and honesty and brimming with true stories, fictional anecdotes and life lessons,” according to publisher It Books. I’m intrigued at the possibility of illustrations but I personally am really hoping she’ll narrate an audiobook for it.
Speaking of illustrations, Jezebel did a piece this week on the hideous "makeover" of several covers to classic books. One thing's certain: We won't be buying any of these versions.
Here are some wonderful interviews with some of our favorite authors from last week:
And, (saving the best for last) Flannery had the wonderful opportunity to attend ALA Midwinter over last weekend, where she met a few great people and picked up a few great books. She's here to tell you all a bit about it. Take it away, Flannery!
Conveniently, it looks like we’ve returned just in time to wrap up a ton of major awards! The Newbery, Caldecott, and Printz awards were all announced last week, going to The One And Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate, This is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen, and In Darkness by Nick Lake, respectively. Numerous other awards and honors were awarded as well. Publisher’s Weekly has a great review of the major awards given to children’s and young adult literature here. (I was personally very excited to see one of my favorites, Aristotle And Dante Discover The Secrets of The Universe, win a few awards.) Another of our favorites from 2012, Seraphina by Rachel Hartman, was given the William C. Morris Award last week! Congratulations, Rachel!
YALSA’s 2013 Best Fiction For Young Adults and The Rainbow Book List were also published. And remember when Flannery spent months tirelessly reading young adult sci-fi and fantasy for the Cybils awards? No? Well, she does. The Cybils shortlists were announced earlier this month and the awards will be presented in February.
There was also a lot of talk last week in the book blogger world about plagiarism, with several bloggers reporting personal incidents of being plagiarized and how they dealt with it. We really appreciated Sarah’s very professional and informed advice over at Clear Eyes, Full Shelves.
In book-related movie news, the film version of The Spectacular Now premiered last week at Sundance. (Ha! I almost wrote “debuted.” I fail as a movie blogger.) It also looks like the film version of The Fault in Our Stars may be coming to the big screen sooner than expected. Yesterday, the casting was announced for Rose, Lissa, and Dimitri in Blood Sisters, the movie based on the Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead. Mark Waters (of Mean Girls fame) is on board to direct.
We were very excited to read that Amy Poehler will be publishing an “unconventional memoir” next year, which apparently will be “an illustrated, non-linear diary full of humor and honesty and brimming with true stories, fictional anecdotes and life lessons,” according to publisher It Books. I’m intrigued at the possibility of illustrations but I personally am really hoping she’ll narrate an audiobook for it.
Speaking of illustrations, Jezebel did a piece this week on the hideous "makeover" of several covers to classic books. One thing's certain: We won't be buying any of these versions.
Here are some wonderful interviews with some of our favorite authors from last week:
- Margo Lanagan talks with Radio National (a podcast).
- A fantastic interview with Ursula K. Le Guin over at The Millions.
- A Q&A with Rainbow Rowell over at Publisher’s Weekly.
- Melina Marchetta gives us a tidbit from the Jellicoe Road script (eeeeeh!) and posts a Q&A she did for Quintana of Charyn.
And, (saving the best for last) Flannery had the wonderful opportunity to attend ALA Midwinter over last weekend, where she met a few great people and picked up a few great books. She's here to tell you all a bit about it. Take it away, Flannery!
So, for several reasons I am not going to do a recap of going to ALA midwinter, but I did go to the exhibits portion of it as I live in Seattle and I wanted to see what it was like. I was ecstatic to spend a lot of time with Rachel from The Reader's Den (who I'd met before) and Arlene from WinterHaven Books (who I've known online for years but had never met in real life). I had a blast chatting, going out to meals, and walking the aisles with them, even though they are so much better at networking than I am. While they were chatting amiably with reps about upcoming books they were excited about, I told a HarperCollins rep all about how I loved Stuart MacBride and how in one of his books the serial killer grinds people up in an animal slaughterhouse. Because that's the kind of thing I do. I picked up a few ARCs that I knew Tatiana, Catie, and/or I would be interested in reading/reviewing and had (I think) three books signed by authors that I will read/review as well. I know I am always curious, as a reader and as a blogger, what ARCs are out in the wild and I actually sit and watch book haul videos on Youtube with a pen and paper to write down titles that sound or look interesting. I hope someone does do a book haul video of the books they picked up, but here at The Readventurer, I'm just going to tell you about the ones I have ants in my pants about:
The Lucy Variations by Sara Zarr (May, Little Brown) | 
Game by Barry Lyga (April, Little Brown) | 
A Corner of White by Jaclyn Moriarty (Aussie version already released, US version is April, AAL) | 
Vortex (Insignia, #2) by S.J. Kincaid (July, Katherine Tegan) | 
Yellowcake by Margo Lanagan (Aussie version already released, US version is May, Knopf) |
All three of us are total Sara Zarr fangirls so I was ecstatic to find an ARC of The Lucy Variations, as I know Catie, Tatiana, and I all want to read it. (I wonder if Sara is doing the audiobook?) I am also very excited about that book because it features a piano player--not that I am any good on piano but I like reading about musicians. One of my favorite reading experiences last year was I Hunt Killers, for which I made a 4-quadrant graph in my review. I was chatting with a rep at Little Brown about an upcoming blog tour we are participating in for one of their titles and she asked me what I am most excited to read of theirs and I think we're all friends here and you know how excited I get about serial killer books. Blahblahblah, she put an ARC of Game in my hands and I almost french kissed it. Graph, part deux, here I come! I still have yet to read any Margo Lanagan books but I did attend an event of hers and she is absolutely lovely and so is her writing style. I'm certain I'll enjoy Yellowcake, which is a selection of short stories. It was released in Australia in 2011 (I think) but it won't be released in the US until this spring. A Corner of White is a similar tale--published in Australia already but coming to our market in a few months. I am a bit nervous about this one, as I find Jaclyn Moriarty to be one of the funniest writers in YA. Will I like her more serious stuff? Time will tell. (but my kindred spirit Nomes loved it, so I bet I will) Last but not least is the sequel to Insignia, Vortex, which won't be released until July. I bet you didn't even know I'd read Insignia! Well I did, when I was part of the Cybils panel on YA sci fi/fantasy. I had so much fun reading that book and it will kill me softly that I have to hold off on reading/reviewing it for a few months. Weeeelll, I guess I could just read it and then review it later.
It's hard to judge books on their jacket copy, covers, author recognition, etc. I'm equally sure that I should've done a lot more research on publisher Spring/Summer catalogs. Here are just a few books I hadn't heard anything about but that piqued my interest because of publisher pitches (I don't have all of these):
It's hard to judge books on their jacket copy, covers, author recognition, etc. I'm equally sure that I should've done a lot more research on publisher Spring/Summer catalogs. Here are just a few books I hadn't heard anything about but that piqued my interest because of publisher pitches (I don't have all of these):
The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey (May, Putnam) | 
Orleans by Sherri L. Smith (March, Putnam) | 
The Wall by William Sutcliffe (June, Walker) | 
Wild Awake by Hilary T. Smith (May, Katherine Tegan) | 
The Rules for Disappearing by Ashley Elston (May, Disney-Hyperion) |
I would also be over the moon to read the new (and last) Maeve Binchy book but I was too intimidated to pick it up. All the publishers I spoke with were seriously lovely and knowledgeable about their books and I kept thinking that it must be hard to try to pitch your books to people. Buzz words for one person are sometimes turn-offs for another reader. (e.g. some of my buzz phrases are things like "serial killer," "rehab," "depressing," "makeover," "heavy," "witty," and "epistolary") Nevertheless, I have tons of new books on my radar and absolute intent to review everything I now have in my possession. A sincere thank you to all the librarians present for allowing me to be an enthusiastic interloper at their conference (or ignoring my presence altogether) and to the publishers for being amazing (or letting me creep around their book piles like Gollum).
Other fun highlights include meeting and chatting with Kelly from Stacked, Kirsten Hubbard, Sarah Enni, Lenore Appelhans, and Kristen Kittscher, having someone read my name on my badge and realize that we shared a mutual best friend (mine from college, hers from graduate school), and getting blisters on the pads of my feet from walking so much.
Other fun highlights include meeting and chatting with Kelly from Stacked, Kirsten Hubbard, Sarah Enni, Lenore Appelhans, and Kristen Kittscher, having someone read my name on my badge and realize that we shared a mutual best friend (mine from college, hers from graduate school), and getting blisters on the pads of my feet from walking so much.
